AI images of Trump, Biden banned on Midjourney ahead of 2024 US election

Midjourney CEO says he does not really care about political speech and mostly is trying to police political speech
A representational image of MidJourney AI. — Unsplash
A representational image of MidJourney AI. — Unsplash

The popular generative artificial intelligence program Midjourney has started blocking users' prompts asking the bot to generate images of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election.

A "Banned Prompt Detected" message will be displayed when Midjourney users will seek images of the aforementioned candidates of the US elections 2024. Despite, having issued warning, if users won't refrain from attempting, the AI tool will warn users that they have "triggered an abuse alert."

The goal is to reduce the spread of misinformation, which already caused trouble on social media when users created photorealistic, fake images of Trump getting arrested last year.

Read more: Apple acquires Canadian AI startup DarwinAI

"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." said Midjourney CEO David Holz last week when the decision on the ban was impending.

Holz claims that he does not "really care about political speech," and mostly is "trying to police political speech."

He expresses concern about the potential for more advanced AI tools to create convincing deepfakes by the 2028 election. OpenAI says it already prohibited requests for images of political figures on its image generator, Dall-E, and is taking steps to prevent misuse of AI-generated content in elections.

Google has also restricted its AI chatbot Gemini from addressing election-related queries. With over 50 countries holding significant elections this year, AI-generated content is expected to have an impact on the political landscape in countries such as India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and South Africa.