The Photographer Who "Deceived" Thousands On Instagram With AI Images

The photographer started an Instagram account to house his Midjourney output, without being entirely upfront about the origins of the images.

Jos Avery was given a camera almost four decades ago, sparking a lifelong fascination with photography.

But last September he found a new creative outlet, one that led him to deceive thousands of people: the artificial intelligence program Midjourney, which generates wild and wonderful images from brief text instructions.

"Soon after starting with Midjourney, I became obsessed with the creative possibilities," Avery told AFP.

Midjourney and rivals like DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion generate unique pictures by mashing up a vast back catalogue of images they have been "trained" on.