AI image-generation pioneer Midjourney is contemplating a complete ban on AI-generated images of Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 US elections.
This aims to protect the platform from becoming a vessel for misinformation ahead of elections this year.
Midjourney’s CEO, David Holz, candidly expressed his stance on political content on their platform, stating, “I don’t know how much I care about political speech for the next year for our platform.”
Holz also humorously shared his mixed feelings about producing images of Donald Trump: “I know it’s fun to make Trump pictures – I make Trump pictures. Trump is aesthetically really interesting. However, probably better to just not, better to pull out a little bit during this election. We’ll see.”
The conversation around AI-generated images, especially in political contexts, has intensified, particularly due to a recent controversy surrounding explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift was targeted with a series of fake images that circulated across social media, racking up millions of impressions.
AI continues to influence political discourse, and concerns grow about its potential to tangibly disrupt democratic processes.
We’ve seen numerous examples of politically-themed deep fakes, often deployed to ignite controversy or spread misinformation. A recent incident saw an AI avatar of the ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan declare an election victory before the final count.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, discussed his company’s stance on deep fakes earlier this year, stating, “The thing that I’m most concerned about is that with new capabilities with AI … there will be better deepfakes than in 2020.”
OpenAI has started adding special metadata to images created with DALL-E 3 to help platforms and users identify AI content.
Meta also upped their game in identifying AI-generated content across their platforms.
As of now, no one single method is foolproof.
