July

2 events

Editors' summary

Image generation leaves the waitlist and starts charging

On 20 July, DALL·E 2 entered beta. OpenAI widened invitations sharply and introduced paid credits, with a monthly free allowance and top-ups beyond it.

Midjourney had opened its beta on the 12th. Running inside Discord, where you generate alongside everyone else's output, it spread fast.

Image generation was turning from something to be shown into something to be paid for.

This block is written by the editors. It is kept separate from the sourced record below.

Record2 events

12
ProductMidjourney / David Holz
Midjourney opens its beta, generating images inside Discord
Midjourney opened its beta to everyone. Rather than a standalone app or website, it ran as a Discord bot: you typed a prompt into a channel and images came back. Because everyone worked in the same public channels, the craft of what to write to get what you wanted spread between users as they watched each other. It was led by David Holz, a co-founder of Leap Motion. 2022 also brought DALL·E 2 in April, on invitation, and Stable Diffusion in August, with weights published. Places where anyone could simply try image generation were still few at the time.
20
ProductOpenAI
DALL·E 2 enters beta with paid credits
OpenAI moved DALL·E 2 into beta, announcing it would invite 1 million people from the waitlist over the coming weeks. It introduced a credit system granting 50 free credits in the first month and 15 each month thereafter, with additional credits available at $15 per 115 credits. Starting the same day, users received full usage rights to commercialize the images they create, including reprinting, selling, and merchandising. It marked the first step in commercializing what had been a research preview.

↑ 2022

Midjourney opens its beta, generating images inside Discord

DALL·E 2 enters beta with paid credits