An interview with David Holz, the founder of Midjourney. Josh is clearly impressed by the tech, but also pushes in somewhat on the risks and dangers. David seems like a nice enough guy, but clearly still has a lot of thinking to do about the potential unintended impacts of his work.
I am of several minds about this. customized and robust AI image and asset generation opens up the ability of a lot more people without art skills to create works using the skills they do have (writing, game design, whatever) combined with the AI stuff. At the same time I value humans that can create art (both Art and art) and want them to continue to have opportunities too (I almost said I want them to thrive too, but I know too many working artists). Then there are the huge dangers posed by this technology as it improves. David talks about the restrictions they put on Midjourney to prevent its use in deepfakes and porn, but once the Djinn is out of the bottle…)
(Content warning - some discussion of porn, Bill Cosby, Hitler, and the intersection thereof)
