Image Source: Generated by Wujie AI

The popularity of Stable Diffusion has created a strong demand for users who are trying to develop their own models to share their work with other enthusiasts. Recognizing this opportunity, Justin Maier, who previously worked as a web development contractor at Microsoft, built a platform called Civitai (a play on the word "Civitas," meaning community). On this platform, users can publish their AI image models based on SD for others to discover, as well as for consumers to browse and appreciate.

Explaining the reason for creating the platform, Maier said that after finishing a project at Microsoft, he became interested in Midjourney. "It's like web development, where I see something — or I have something in my head — and I can input some text to get something out. It became this collaborative experience where I could explore my creativity and be pulled in directions I hadn't planned for," he said. However, Maier soon found himself limited by the Midjourney credit system, having to wait 5 minutes each time to generate images.

Coincidentally, around the same time, an open-source version called Stable Diffusion emerged. As a result, the community around Stable Diffusion grew, and people began learning how to use the model to do different things by providing prompts or adding new concepts to the model, such as using their own images to create AI-generated selfies. Maier began to see people releasing their own models, such as generating synthetic wave styles or punk styles, and merging models together to create new concepts. However, these models were being released on networks like Reddit or Discord, rather than in a centralized community.

To organize these models, Maier built Civitai (originally Model Share).

Initially, Maier laid the foundation for Civitai by contacting model creators and asking if they could publish their work on the website. Reportedly, the website initially had only about 40 or 50 different models. However, over time, Civitai began to grow.

"People are excited to have their efforts seen by others. So, by around January, we became the preferred place to share these models and creations," Maier said. "People have also posted information on other websites, such as HuggingFace… but these websites are not image-centric," he explained. "So, we became the standard for sharing models, various AI resources, and images."

By January 2023, the website had reached 100,000 registered users, and Maier began to realize that it could be not only a community project but also a company. As a result, together with Maxfield Hulker and Briant Diehl, Maier "officially" founded Civitai. Three months later, the website had reached one million registered users. Currently, the number of registered users is around 3 million, with monthly unique visitors ranging from 12 to 13 million.

"Its growth rate is unbelievably fast, definitely exceeding our expectations in January," Maier said.

However, among these 3 million users, initially only about 10,000 independent creators uploaded new models each month. After Civitai added the functionality for users to train new models on the website, this number increased by about 25% last month.

With the growth of the business, Civitai also secured a $5.1 million investment led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in June this year, valuing the company at $20 million. It is reported that other participants in this round of financing also included legal teams that helped them complete the financing.

In a statement, Brian Kim, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said, "Civitai is a classic example of a company that has created an incredibly engaging community without spending a penny on marketing." "Our investment in the company will only inject more momentum into a platform that is already running very well, contributing to a world where anyone can take advantage of the greatest technological revolution of our generation — artificial intelligence."

Exposed for Profiting from Pornographic Content

However, along with the success, scandals soon followed.

According to independent media company 404 Media, in August of this year, the company released an investigative report on Civitai, explaining how the platform operates and how it allows artificial intelligence to generate non-consensual pornographic images and profit from them. Reportedly, Civitai allows users to share modified models of the open-source text-to-image AI tool Stable Diffusion. These modified models are typically trained on images of celebrities, internet celebrities, YouTubers, and athletes (almost all female). These models can then be combined with AI models trained on pornographic images to instantly generate non-consensual adult images.

Technically, Civitai's policy prohibits users from generating non-consensual adult images, but it allows models that generate adult images and models that generate real images. Combining the two is not allowed, but this does not prevent people from combining them to generate non-consensual adult images and sharing them on the Civitai platform.

According to reports, although Civitai has enforced this policy multiple times and removed such content, such images are still frequently posted on the website, sometimes remaining online for months.

The issue of non-consensual AI pornography on Civitai has escalated since the release of the investigative report in August. Previously, Civitai directed users to other generative AI platforms to actually use the models to create images. Now, Civitai has its own web interface to directly use models to generate images on the website.

In addition, Civitai recently introduced "bounties." These bounties allow users to request the Civitai community to create artificial intelligence models to generate images of specific styles, compositions, or specific real people and reward the best AI model with a virtual currency called "Buzz." 404 Media also found that there are dozens of bounties for celebrities, Instagram influencers, and Twitch streamers. However, there are also bounties for individuals with no significant public influence online.

Before news of the investment in Civitai emerged, a16z had mentioned the company multiple times. In September of this year, a16z published a blog analyzing the generative AI market, listing Civitai as the seventh most popular tool in the field, but did not mention the adult content on Civitai or that non-consensual pornographic images are a major driver of the platform.

In response, Civitai pointed out that its policy prohibits suggestive content, provides a form for content removal requests and an email address, and stated that it does not allow the use of resources intended to replicate real human portraits through its on-site generator (Stable Diffusion's base model can generate real human images). Civitai also noted that the "bounties" are private, but if the generated images are shared on the website, they must comply with the existing "real human" policy.

References

• https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/14/andreessen-horowitz-backs-civitai-a-generative-ai-content-marketplace-with-millions-of-users/
• https://www.404media.co/andreessen-horowitz-invests-in-civitai-key-platform-for-deepfake-porn/

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