To the untrained eye, the image shared widely on social media late last week showed a fashion-conscious Pope Francis strutting his stuff in an all-white puffer jacket from luxury brand Balenciaga.
In reality, it was yet another deepfake generated by artificial intelligence—one so convincing that more than a few people fell for its veracity.
The image was created with the help of A.I. startup Midjourney, a San Francisco Bay Area–based competitor to A.I. companies like DALL-E maker OpenAI and Stability AI, a developer of Stable Diffusion.
On March 15, the research lab founded by David Holz in August 2021, operating with a full-time staff of 11 employees, released its newest and most advanced software version dubbed V5.
The boys in Brooklyn could only hope for this level of drip pic.twitter.com/MiqkcLQ8Bd
— Nikita S (@singareddynm) March 25, 2023
I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didnt give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 26, 2023
Thanks to V5’s photorealistic look—which helped create the well-heeled Pope Francis seen by millions—disruptive tech fund manager ARK Invest argued employees in creative industries now have the opportunity to design images previously unimaginable or prohibitively expensive to make.
“Advances in artificial intelligence are accelerating much faster than even we anticipated,” wrote Frank Downing, a director of research at Cathie Wood’s firm, in a note last week.
New A.I. tools like Midjourney V5 and OpenAI’s GPT-4 could help “increase knowledge worker productivity in profound ways during the next five to 10 years,” he added.
Yet the potential for abuse is enormous.
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins claims he was slapped with a ban after he cooked up a series of images showing a swarm of police officers carting away a handcuffed Donald Trump.
Making pictures of Trump getting arrested while waiting for Trump’s arrest. pic.twitter.com/4D2QQfUpLZ
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 20, 2023
The investigative website founder took the apparent ban sportingly in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “I suspect it was pushing my luck when I did the thread,” he was quoted, “let alone when it went viral.”
Both examples of Pope Francis and Trump demonstrate just how effective A.I. can be in sowing misinformation and manipulating public opinion.
Tech executives like Elon Musk, who cofounded OpenAI in December 2015, have spoken out in favor of a new regulatory agency that can place boundaries on the acceptable use of A.I.
In a nod to the risks posed by its technology, Midjourney stipulates it does not wish users to generate “images that could inflame, upset, or cause drama.” This includes, for example, gore and adult content.
Founder Holz told Fortune in January he wanted Midjourney to be a safe space for all users regardless of age or gender: “We are definitely more the Disney of the space,” he said in an interview.
How to get started using Midjourney
The technology only needs to be prompted through natural language commands.
Users can also toggle between various versions: While the latest V5 version is the default, its predecessor for example is considered better at generating pictures using image prompts uploaded to its Discord server.
Using the command /imagine with a description like “vibrant California poppies” will generate a grid of four unique images.
If one suits a user’s needs, it can then be upscaled to add more details and enlarged in size.
Weights can be added to the prompt so Midjourney understands whether a user wants images of a tasty hot dog or an overheated pooch. They also serve to calibrate the image, in order to remove specific colors, for example.
Other parameters like an aspect ratio can be added to the end of a prompt to tailor the image more closely to one’s needs.
Generating your first image activates a free trial. Typically trial users can run 25 jobs before they are required to pay a fee for the service.
“Staging the Moon Landing”, brought to you by Midjourney
— Pete (@nonmayorpete) March 28, 2023
Facebook is going to be riddled with these in 6 months. pic.twitter.com/g186RMrVdd
What does it cost to use?
There are three different subscription models that offer differing monthly quotas of fast GPU usage: A basic plan for $10 a month gets 3.3 hours; a standard package for $30 gives you 15; while a pro subscription for $60 comes with 30 hours of time.
Any allotment that has not been consumed by the end of the month is forfeited. Users cannot roll time over into the next one.
Subscribers to the pro plan are also offered the ability to elect whether they want their images visible to others on the Midjourney website. The default is that they are open for anyone to peruse.
