Great for him, but when you mention research and fun, I have to say I'm not aware MJ published any research whatsoever.

And on the topic of fun, while it's certainly highly subjective, I remember that the moderation with the MJ tool was at one point so strict that you could not generate an image containing a "treasure chest" since they censored the word "chest".

I'm happy that state of the art models are now developed by actors who publish comprehensive technical reports and open-weights.