Midjourney, a popular ai-powered image generator, is creating images of Donald Trump and Joe Biden ai-image-generator-midjourney-blocks-images-of-biden-and-trump-as-election-looms” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:despite saying;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>despite saying which would block users from doing so earlier this year, ahead of the upcoming US presidential election.
When Engadget asked the service to create an image of the “President of the United States,” Midjourney generated four images in various styles of former President Donald Trump.
When asked to create an image of the “next president of the United States,” the tool also generated four images of Trump.
When Engadget asked Midjourney to create an image of the “current US president,” the service generated three images of Trump and one image of former President Barack Obama.
The only time Midjourney declined to create an image of Trump or Biden was when it was explicitly asked to do so. “The Midjourney community voted to avoid the use of 'Donald Trump' and 'Joe Biden' during the election season,” the service said at the time. Other users on x x.com/ScottNover/status/1807823040744497368″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:were able;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>They were able to get Midjourney to generate the Trump images as well.
Tests show that Midjourney’s guardrails to prevent users from generating images of Trump and Biden ahead of the upcoming US presidential election are not sufficient; in fact, it is very easy for people to bypass them. Other chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and Meta ai did not create images of Trump or Biden despite multiple prompts.
Midjourney did not respond to a request for comment from Engadget.
Midjourney was one of the first ai-powered image generators to explicitly ban users from generating images of Trump and Biden. “I know it’s fun to make Trump pictures, I make Trump pictures,” the company’s CEO, David Holz, told users in a Discord chat session earlier this year. “It’s probably best not to do that though, it’s best to pull back a little bit during this election. We’ll see.” A month later, Holz ai-imagegenerator-biden-trump-deepfakes-bc6c254ddb20e36c5e750b4570889ce1″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:reportedly told;elm:context_link;elmt:doNotAffiliate;cpos:4;pos:1;itc:0;sec:content-canvas”>He was reportedly told Users said it was time to “get a little more down to earth when it comes to elections” and admitted that “this moderation thing is pretty hard.” The company’s existing content rules prohibit the creation of “misleading public figures” and “depictions of events” with the “potential to mislead.”
Last year, Midjourney was used to create a fake image of Pope Benedict XVI in a white quilted jacket from Balenciaga that went viral. It was also used to create fake images of ai-generated-donald-trump-fakes-today” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Trump being arrested;cpos:6;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>Trump being arrested Last year, before he was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court for his role in a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, the company suspended free trials of the service and instead required users to pay at least $10 a month to use it.
Last month, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that aims to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech online, ai-produces-misleading-images-of-biden-and-trump-in-50-of-test-cases-despite-promising-to-ban-fake-photos-of-presidential-candidates/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:found;cpos:8;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>found that Midjourney’s safeguards against generating misleading images of popular politicians, including Trump and Biden, failed in 40% of its tests. CCDH was able to use Midjourney to create an image of President Biden being arrested and Trump appearing alongside a lookalike. CCDH was also able to bypass Midjourney’s safeguards by using descriptions of each candidate’s physical appearance instead of their names to generate misleading images.
“In practice, it is all too easy to manipulate Midjourney; in some cases, it is avoided entirely by simply adding punctuation to go unnoticed.” ai-produces-misleading-images-of-biden-and-trump-in-50-of-test-cases-despite-promising-to-ban-fake-photos-of-presidential-candidates/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:wrote;cpos:9;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>wrote CCDH Executive Director Imran Ahmed said at the time: “Bad actors who want to subvert elections and sow division, confusion and chaos will have a field day, to the detriment of all who rely on healthy and functioning democracies.
Earlier this year, a coalition of 20 tech companies, including OpenAI, Google, Meta, amazon, Adobe and x, signed an agreement to help prevent deepfakes in elections around the world in 2024 by preventing their services from generating images and other media that could influence voters. Midjourney was not on that list.
