Science & Tech

Journalist who made AI images of 'Trump arrest' banned from service

Journalist who made AI images of 'Trump arrest' banned from service
Chilling deepfakes claiming to show Trump being arrested flood Twitter
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A journalist has claimed they were banned from the AI image-generating service Midjourney after they made images depicting Donald Trump being arrested.

It comes after the former president claimed that he had been leaked information that suggested he was going to get arrested on Tuesday 21 March.

Reports suggest prosecutors in New York are on the verge of filing an indictment against Trump over alleged hush money paid to the former adult star Stormy Daniels over an alleged affair between the two of them.

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The suggestion that, for the first time in history, a former or sitting president may face criminal charges against them sparked glee from some, particularly given Trump’s controversial tenure.

Based on the news, Eliot Higgins, the creator of the open-source investigative journalism website Bellingcat, used the AI image generator Midjourney to make images that show what Trump’s dramatic arrest might look like.

He shared multiple images in a Twitter thread, some of which depicted a mass struggle with police officers on the street, Trump running from officers and his son Donald Jr. and Melania shouting at the officials.

The pictures quickly went viral, but Higgins later alleged he had been banned from using Midjourney.

In a tweet, he wrote: “Apparently doing a viral thread about Donald Trump using Midjourney images is enough to get you banned from Midjourney, oops.”

He added: “I suspect you're not meant to make pictures of famous people, but then why train their datasets on them, eh?”

Many people replied to Higgins’ saying it was entirely worth it.

One person commented: “Noooooooooo! I haven’t laughed this much in days! This was a public service [you] are doing!!”

Another joked: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

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