Google has quietly opened up access to the latest artificial intelligence image generator Imagen 3 on the ImageFX platform to all US users. The company has also published a research paper detailing the technology.
Image source: deepmind.google
The Imagen 3 model was announced in May at the Google I/O conference and released to limited access for users of the Vertex AI platform. “Introducing Imagen 3, a latent diffusion model that generates high-quality images from text queries. At the time of evaluation, Imagen 3 is preferred over other current models,” the scientific paper says.
Google’s release of a new image generator to the general public in the United States is an important strategic step for the company as it enters the AI technology race. On the one hand, the developer managed to improve the quality of its work, on the other, the model has been criticized for overly strict content filters. Reddit users, in particular, report that the image generator rejects up to half of the requests, even if it does not ask him to “draw” something dubious – it even went so far as to refuse to create an image of a cyborg.
This is in stark contrast to the approach of Elon Musk’s startup xAI, which released its Grok-2 model this week. It generates images with virtually no restrictions, allowing the creation of images of public figures and details that are considered inappropriate on other platforms. This also caused public confusion and led to speculation that xAI would be under pressure. The AI industry faces questions about the balance between creativity and responsibility, and the potential impact of image generators on public discourse and the credibility of information.