[Issue Video] "Artificial Intelligence Also Paints"... AI Painter Gains Popularity

AI Image Generator 'Midjourney'
Creates Images in Seconds with Just Commands
SNS 'Proof Shot' Relay Also Trending

[Asia Economy PD Yoon Jin-geun] ‘A deep-sea fish swimming among the traces of an ancient civilization submerged under the sea,’ ‘A chicken flying in the sky,’ ‘A boy riding a bicycle in an ice cream city,’ ‘The beginning of the universe’... Artificial intelligence (AI) that draws pictures just by inputting text is gaining popularity. This service, known as the so-called 'AI painter,' is emerging as a kind of entertainment among netizens.

Midjourney Lab released the beta version of the AI image generator Midjourney on the 20th. Midjourney generates images based on requests from users. Midjourney is a type of AI imaging tool.

To use Midjourney, an invitation is required. After receiving an invitation to the relevant channel on the social networking service (SNS) ‘Discord,’ users can enter the desired or requested image as text. The AI outputs four different images within just a few tens of seconds.

Entered a command into 'Midjourney' and based on it, 'Midjourney' generated an image. The phrase "A cat watching alien forces invading Earth" was entered. Photo by Discord Midjourney channel capture.

Users can use all four images created by the AI, as well as increase the resolution or select a specific image to generate a new one.

As of 1:45 PM on the 22nd, the third day since the service started, about 968,000 people have joined the Midjourney Discord channel, and about 118,000 netizens are using the service in real time.

Netizens are actively ‘certifying’ the AI-generated images. Twitter users post the text they input and the results together with the hashtag ‘#midjourney.’ On Midjourney’s website under the ‘Community Showcase’ section, you can also see images created together by netizens and AI.

The Midjourney Lab released the beta version of the AI image generator Midjourney on the 20th. The photo shows users creating images using artificial intelligence on the Midjourney channel of Discord. Photo by Discord Midjourney channel capture

Meanwhile, text-based image generation programs attracted public attention even before the emergence of Midjourney. Representative examples include DALL·E 2 provided by OpenAI and Imagen, an image generation AI model developed by Google. However, DALL·E 2 is limited to users whose registration applications have been approved. Google’s Imagen has not yet been released to the public due to ethical concerns and other reasons.