Midjourney Faces Backlash on Social Media over Alleged Copyright Infringement

Midjourney, an A.I.-powered image generator, is facing backlash on social media over alleged copyright infringement. Users have reported that the latest version of the generator, Midjourney V6, can recreate potentially infringing AI images even with simple prompts. One user, a professional concept artist named Reid Southen, had his account banned and all previous images generated using the service deleted after pointing out how Midjourney V6 generated images identical to scenes from films. Southen shared his experience on social media, and many other users expressed similar concerns about the potentially infringing images. Midjourney’s reaction of banning Southen without full disclosure was criticized as counterproductive. Additionally, Southen highlighted how Midjourney changed its terms of service within 48 hours of his reporting the issue. The use of unregulated artificial intelligence has been a concern in 2023, with the White House and the EU taking initial steps to address the issue. There is also increasing public awareness of how A.I.-powered companies exploit proprietary and private data without consent or compensation. Concerns have been raised regarding the use of A.I. to exploit children, and recent reports have revealed instances of child sexual abuse material and child pornography in large datasets used to train A.I. models. Midjourney’s response to the copyright infringement concerns has raised doubts about the ethics and morality of using the image generator. There are questions about whether it is justified to ban users for reporting potential copyright and trademark infringements and if paying subscribers should be afraid to speak out about legitimate concerns. Transparency regarding the datasets used to train A.I. models is also being questioned.