In a move that has sent ripples across the generative AI industry, Midjourney has officially bans all Stability AI employees from using its services. This drastic action comes in the wake of a significant service outage that Midjourney attributes to “botnet-like activity” from accounts linked to Stability AI, the creator of Stable Diffusion.
The outage, which lasted nearly 24 hours, was initially reported on Midjourney’s Discord server on March 2nd. Users found themselves unable to access generated images in their galleries, a core feature of the service. Following an internal investigation, Midjourney pointed fingers at Stability AI, claiming that the disruption was due to an attempt to scrape data from their servers.
Nick St. Pierre, a Midjourney user, revealed insights from a business update call held on March 6th. According to St. Pierre, Midjourney accused someone from Stability AI’s data team of trying to download all prompt and image pairs during the late hours of a Saturday night. This accusation led to the banning of all Stability AI employees from Midjourney’s service indefinitely.
Stability AI’s CEO, Emad Mostaque, has expressed confusion over the allegations, stating that his team has not engaged in scraping activities, especially since their Stable Diffusion 3 AI model outperforms other models without such data. Mostaque suggested that if any Stability AI employee was involved, it was without malicious intent and certainly not a DDoS attack.
David Holz, the founder of Midjourney, has reportedly shared information with Mostaque to aid in his internal investigation. However, as of now, the situation remains unresolved, with no further updates since the March 6th conversation.
This incident has not only highlighted the competitive tensions within the generative AI space but also underscored the ethical concerns surrounding data scraping practices. Both Midjourney and Stability AI have faced criticism and legal challenges for allegedly training their AI models on copyrighted content without permission.
The Midjourney bans Stability AI employees over remains in effect, with no resolution in sight. This incident has not only intensified the competitive dynamics within the generative AI space but also brought to the forefront the ethical considerations of data scraping practices.
Leave your Reply