The tool is currently in
open beta, which it entered on July 12, 2022.[3] The Midjourney team is led by David Holz, who co-founded
Leap Motion.[4] Holz told The Register in August 2022 that the company was already profitable.[5] Users create artwork with Midjourney using
Discord bot commands.[6]
History
Midjourney, Inc. was founded in
San Francisco, California, by David Holz,[7] previously a co-founder of
Leap Motion.[8] The Midjourney image generation platform entered open beta on July 12, 2022.[3] On March 14, 2022, the Midjourney Discord server launched with a request to post high-quality photographs to
Twitter and
Reddit for systems training.[citation needed]
Model versions
The company has been working on improving its algorithms, releasing new model versions every few months. Version 2 of their algorithm was launched in April 2022,[9] and version 3 on July 25.[10] On November 5, 2022, the alpha iteration of version 4 was released to users.[11][12] On March 15, 2023, the alpha iteration of version 5 was released.[13] The 5.1 model is more opinionated than version 5, applying more of its own stylization to images, while the 5.1 RAW model adds improvements while working better with more literal prompts. After version 5.2 is released with increasingly better image quality,.[citation needed] On December 21, 2023, the alpha iteration of version 6 was released. The model was trained from scratch over a nine month period. Support was added for better text rendition and a more literal interpretation of prompts.
Collaboration between Midjourney and Spellbrush tuned to produce
anime and illustrative styles. Niji is also available on iOS and Android under the name niji journey. This is the first official app published in collaboration with Midjourney.
Midjourney is accessible through a
Discord bot, either through their official Discord server, by directly messaging the bot, or by inviting the bot to a third-party server. To generate images, users use the /imagine command and type in a prompt;[19] the bot then returns a set of four images, which users are given the option to
upscale.
Uses
Midjourney's founder, David Holz, told The Register that artists use Midjourney for
rapid prototyping of artistic concepts to show to clients before starting work themselves.[5]
The advertising industry has been quick to embrace AI tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion, among others. The tools that enable advertisers to create original content and brainstorm ideas quickly are providing new opportunities, such as "custom ads created for individuals, a new way to create special effects, or even making e-commerce advertising more efficient", according to Ad Age.[20][promotion?]
Architects have described using the software to generate
mood boards for the early stages of projects, as an alternative to searching
Google Images.[21]
Notable usage and controversy
The program was used by the British magazine The Economist to create the front cover for an issue in June 2022.[23][24] In Italy, the leading newspaper Corriere della Sera published a comic created with Midjourney by writer Vanni Santoni in August 2022.[25] Charlie Warzel used Midjourney to generate two images of
Alex Jones for Warzel's newsletter in The Atlantic. The use of an AI-generated cover was criticised by people who felt it was taking jobs from artists. Warzel called his action a mistake in an article about his decision to use generated images.[26]Last Week Tonight with John Oliver included a 10-minute segment on Midjourney in an episode broadcast in August 2022.[27][28]
A Midjourney image called Théâtre D'opéra Spatial won first place in the digital art competition at the 2022
Colorado State Fair. Jason Allen, who wrote the
prompt that led Midjourney to generate the image, printed the image onto a canvas and entered it into the competition using the name Jason M. Allen via Midjourney. Other digital artists were upset by the news.[29] Allen was unapologetic, insisting that he followed the competition's rules. The two category judges were unaware that Midjourney used AI to generate images, although they later said that had they known this, they would have awarded Allen the top prize anyway.[30]
In December 2022, Midjourney was used to generate the images for an AI-generated
children's book that was created over a weekend. Titled Alice and Sparkle, the book features a young girl who builds a robot that becomes self-aware. The creator, Ammaar Reeshi, used Midjourney to generate a large number of images, from which he chose 13 for the book.[31] Both the product and process drew criticism. One artist wrote that "the main problem... is that it was trained off of artists' work. It's our creations, our distinct styles that we created, that we did not consent to being used."[32]
In 2023, the realism of AI-based
text-to-image generators, such as Midjourney,
DALL-E, or
Stable Diffusion,[33][34] reached such a high level that it led to a significant wave of
viral AI-generated photos. Widespread attention was gained by a Midjourney-generated photo of
Pope Francis wearing a white puffer coat,[35][36] the fictional arrest of
Donald Trump,[37] and a hoax of an attack on the
Pentagon,[38] as well as the usage in professional creative arts.[39][40]
Research has suggested that the images Midjourney generates can be biased. For example, even neutral prompts in one study returned unequal results on the aspects of gender, skin color, and location.[41] A study by researchers at the nonprofit group
Center for Countering Digital Hate found the tool to be easy to generate racist and conspiratorial images.[42]
In 2024, a
Frontiers journal published a paper[44] which contained gibberish figures generated with Midjourney, one of which was a diagram of a rat with large testicles and a large penis towering over himself. The paper was retracted a day after the images went viral on Twitter.[43]
Content moderation and censorship in Midjourney
Prior to May 2023, Midjourney implemented a moderation mechanism predicated on a banned word system. This method prohibited the use of language associated with explicit content, such as sexual or pornographic themes, as well as extreme violence. Moreover, the system also banned certain individual words, including those of religious and political figures, such as
Allah or
Xi Jinping. This practice occasionally stirred controversy due to perceived instances of censorship within the Midjourney platform.[45][46]
Commencing in May 2023, with subsequent updates post version 5, Midjourney transitioned to an AI-powered content moderation system. This advanced mechanism allowed for a more nuanced interpretation of user prompts by analyzing them in their entirety. It consequently facilitated the context-dependent use of words that had previously been prohibited. For instance, users can now prompt the AI to generate a portrait of Xi Jinping. At the same time, the system will prevent the generation of contentious images, such as depictions of global leaders, including Xi Jinping, in situations of arrest.[47]
Litigation
On January 13, 2023, three artists –
Sarah Andersen,
Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz – filed a
copyright infringement lawsuit against
Stability AI, Midjourney, and
DeviantArt, claiming that these companies have infringed on the rights of millions of artists by training AI tools on five billion images scraped from the web, without the consent of the original artists.[48]
The legal action was initiated in San Francisco by attorney
Matthew Butterick in partnership with the Joseph Saveri Law Firm, the same team challenging
Microsoft,
GitHub, and
OpenAI (developers of
ChatGPT and
DALL-E) in court. In July 2023, U.S. District Judge
William Orrick inclined to dismiss most of the lawsuit filed by Andersen, McKernan, and Ortiz but allowed them to file a new complaint.[49] Another lawsuit was filed in November 2023 against Midjourney, Stability AI, DeviantArt and Runway AI for using the copyrighted work of over 4,700 artists.[50]