The company has ended the Midjourney free trial blaming an unexpected surge of new users. David Holz, the CEO, and founder of Midjourney made the announcement on Tuesday, initially citing “extraordinary demand and trial abuse” in a Discord post. Holz explained the reason for the suspension in an email, saying that the pause is “because of massive amounts of people making throwaway accounts to get free images.”
“We think the culprit was probably a viral how-to video in china,” said Holz in the email. “This happened at the same time as a temporary GPU shortage. The two things came together and it was bringing down the service for paid users.”
Why was the Midjourney free trial suspended?
Holz’s mention of “abuse” led some to believe that the pause was related to a recent flurry of Midjourney-produced viral images, including fake pictures of Donald Trump being detained and the pope sporting a fashionable jacket that some people mistakenly believed to be actual shots. Holz, on the other hand, referred to earlier claims as “misunderstandings” and points out that the Midjourney free trial never included access to version 5, the most recent version of the software, which produces the most realistic photos and is assumed to have been utilized for these viral images.
The clarity of the photographs showing people has substantially improved in Midjourney version 5. For instance, AI-generated photos that once tended to have oddly shaped hands are now easier to detect. The lighting and fabric are also more realistic, and the machine can produce photographs of a huge number of famous people.
These enhancements appear to be the reason why some Midjourney photos have gone popular recently. They also feature Elon Musk holding hands with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and phony images of Trump being arrested as well as the pope looking stylish while passing through the ongoing riots in Paris.
The politically sensitive threat posed by fraudulent photographs has received piecemeal attention from Midjourney so far, with no meaningful changes to its moderation procedures. The content limitations of Midjourney are more lenient than those of certain rival services but more stringent than those of others.
“Moderation is hard and we’ll be shipping improved systems soon. We’re taking lots of feedback and ideas from experts and the community and are trying to be really thoughtful,” Holz told.
According to a message from Holz dated last October, Midjourney has a list of words that are forbidden that are “related to topics in different countries based on complaints from users in those countries.” Yet in order to reduce “drama,” it doesn’t share the entire list. Holz stated last year that “Almost no one ever notices [the ban list] unless they’re specially trying to create drama which is against our rules in TOS [terms of service] ‘don’t use our tools to create drama.”
However, the business has broadened this list as its forgeries have gained popularity, lately outlawing the word “arrested,” for instance. This seems to be in response to a well-liked Twitter thread of photographs from Midjourney, made by investigative journalist Eliot Higgins, showing Trump being detained. Higgins claims that as a result, he was forbidden from using Midjourney.
However, these limitations are simple to get around. In certain tests, users, for instance, were unable to produce photographs when given the instruction “Donald Trump is being arrested,” but they were able to do so when given the suggestion “Donald Trump is in handcuffs and is surrounded by police.”
Although this may change in the future, Midjourney free trial does not now permit free users to make photos. “We’re still trying to figure out how to bring Midjourney free trials back, we tried to require an active email but that wasn’t enough so we’re back to the drawing board,” said Holz.
Currently, Midjourney free trial is inaccessible and there are three subscription plans which start with the Basic Plan that costs $10 monthly. However, if you’d like to use AI-supported digital art services, we explained the Best free Midjourney alternatives (2023).
