Midjourney Accuses Stable Diffusion Creator Of, Erm, Copying Its Art - DesignTAXI.com
AI art heist? Midjourney and Stability AI face off over alleged data theft.
Midjourney Accuses Stable Diffusion Creator Of, Erm, Copying Its Art
By Mikelle Leow, 08 Mar 2024
Artificial intelligence art models like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are often on the receiving end of allegations of copyright infringement, but rarely do they point the finger at one another like that Spider-Man meme. Tensions are now high between the industry’s greatest players, with Midjourney purportedly suspecting Stability AI of pilfering valuable data.
As cited by AI enthusiast Nick St Pierre, Stability AI employees supposedly infiltrated Midjourney’s database and stole pairings of image and text prompts—crucial training data for AI image generators—last Saturday. Stability AI has been blamed for causing a 24-hour outage for Midjourney as a result of this action.
Midjourney responded swiftly by banning all Stability AI accounts from its service, according to internal reports.
The situation is dripping in irony, considering both companies train their AI on vast image datasets, which already raises questions about copyright and data ownership in the realm of AI art. It’s an accusation of digital piracy within the very industry that utilizes borrowed imagery.
David Holz, Midjourney’s CEO, doubled down on the suspicions and indicated an ongoing investigation. Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, on the other hand, denied any wrongdoing and offered to help investigate. Interestingly, Mostaque claims to be a Midjourney supporter and even invested in the project previously.
Further details remain unclear. Holz reportedly offered to share information with Mostaque to assist with his investigation. Whether this signifies a potential truce is yet to be determined.
Nevertheless, the conflict within the AI art world shows no signs of immediate resolution.
[via 80 Level and Nick St Pierre, cover image generated on AI]
ridiculous
