The Narcissus mirror of creating with Midjourney
When I think about Midjourney I think of Narcissus. The beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a lake. He could not stop watching it. He felt it was alive. He was drawn to it. In the end he drowned in the water that reflected him.
I have worked my entire life with my creativity as a tool. The years have taught me to listen closely to what my instinct tells me when I first encounter a new technology, design or concept. Does it spark inspiration? To what degree?
The feelings I had when I first tried Midjourney were profound. Here was something that affected me deeply, but to some degree scared me as well. Because I was hooked. And hooked hard. If you’re unfamiliar with what Midjourney is, it is an AI-driven art generator, that lives on a Discord channel. It is extremely easy to use — you simply write /imagine and then what you would like the AI to create. You can specify all sorts of things to influence the image, such as what artist painted it, what is the mood, what camera lens was it photographed with, in what era and what medium was it made. And a few seconds later, the AI has created an image for you.
The first feeling you have is awe and wonder. Because the images are just so good, so beautiful. It’s like a fairy godmother, who for some reason knows you better than you know yourself, waves her magic wand in the air and gives you exactly what you wanted.
The second feeling you have is just one more. It takes 60 seconds to create more images, or variations of images, or more detailed images. Just click that button. Write that prompt. Press enter. So easy.
The third feeling, that gets stronger and stronger, is satisfaction, and more than a little pride. You entered the prompts. You pressed those buttons. These beautiful images are the result of what YOU did. You really are talented, aren’t you? Oh yes you are. Think of what your friends and peers will say when they see what you’ve created.
Looking at this from a psychological standpoint, you now have the building blocks of addiction. A first jolt of dopamine. A low threshold for a repeat behavior. And a growing feeling of satisfaction, the more you repeat.
When you have a product like this, you are set to start making money. Midjourney gives you about 25 images for free. $10 a month gives you 200 images. $30 a month gives you unlimited images.
When you are talking about share of mind, or share of wallet, it most likely that if you want a piece of that pie, you need to make your customer forsake something else to make space for your product. Only very rarely something comes along that just demands a place in your wallet. I burned through my first 25 images in about 20 minutes, and by that time I knew I needed more. The $10 option lasted me about a day more. Midjourney, just like Adobe CC or Envato Elements, is simply a tool I need to have now.
Which leads me to the fourth feeling. When I tell people about Midjourney, I tell them I feel about 80% pure joy. And about 20% dread.
Something that has this capacity for addiction, not even counting the use it will have as an actual tool for anyone. It’s hard for me to accurately describe just how addictive this is. Your brain squirms in pleasure when you are served wonder after wonder in a never ending stream.
The onslaught of users and capital has led to an accelerated development. In the 7 weeks I’ve been on the Midjourney train, the graphics engine has been totally updated 4 times. New capabilities are added every week. Around the corner, weeks or months away, will be a merge with the equally awe inspiring advances in virtual world creation.
The uneasy feeling I have is that in a very near future, using this technology, worlds will be created that are so enticing, so addictive, that you will have a hard time leaving them. I am working with finding out the future of immersive media, how Virtual Reality can be used to create experiences that bring us closer together and change how we work, interact and play. The worlds that exist today are constrained by the boundaries of technology. You can build a world you can exist in, but the question will always be wether you would want to. Some examples exist of worlds that show the potential, but they are few and far between, and most importantly, they invariably reflect the vision of the person who created them. With Midjourney-type technology, you could create an immersive world that is built on what you want to see and that changes in real time. Are you sad? Things that make you happy suddenly appear around you. Do you miss your mother? The office you are in suddenly starts looking like your childhood kitchen.
My fear is that there is a possibility this kind of experience is simply too powerful for the human brain to defend against. Regrettably, the world is now becoming a darker place day by day. Midjourney may be a mirror we will not want to take our eyes off. Let’s hope we don’t drown.
