DALL-E 1 came out in January 2021, but DALL-E 2 came out more than a year later. At first, only 200 artists and researchers who had been chosen by OpenAI were able to test it. By May, OpenAI was adding 1,000 new users each week from a list of people who put themselves on the list and hoped to be accepted by the company. So far, 1.5 million people have been able to use DALL-E, and OpenAI says that they are making 2 million images every day. During the beta testing phase, OpenAI limited access to get feedback and, most importantly, to see how well their safety systems blocked violent, sexual, or misleading images that could be used to spread fake news. One user found that some words, like "riot," "warrior," "battle," "fighting," and the name of a real person, could get a user banned.
OpenAI said in its announcement that it has made its safety systems stronger and added new features like Outpainting in response to user feedback. Outpainting lets users paint on larger canvases with a wider range of aspect ratios instead of the default square. People seemed to be posting a lot of DALL-E-like creations, so the fact that DALL-E was limited may have come as a surprise. However, applications like Craiyon, which used to be called DALL-E Mini, gave the public access to a system that was similar to DALL-E.
Selena Mattei