Meta removes AI feature on Instagram after days of backlash
Meta on Friday suspended a new artificial intelligence feature on Instagram that allowed users to create images based on people’s public accounts, citing widespread criticism.
The feature, unveiled by Meta on Tuesday, automatically activated any Instagram user with a public account. As a result, countless human likenesses were used in AI images without their consent. Users complained about privacy and copyright.
“Our intention was to provide a useful creative tool and give people control over whether their public content can be linked in this way,” Meta said in a statement. “We’ve heard feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
The release of this feature was the latest in a series of missteps by AI companies that allowed the technology to freely manipulate a wide variety of images.
OpenAI, the start-up behind ChatGPT, faced similar copyright concerns when it released Sora, its AI video generator, in September. The company eventually struck deals with some studios to create AI videos with copyrighted content, but shut down the app in March.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI, claiming it infringed copyright on news content related to AI systems. The company denied the claims.)
Social media platform X blocked its Grok chatbot account from posting some images this year after millions of doctored images of real women and children in little or no clothing appeared on the site. And other companies, including Google, have faced backlash over how AI creates images.
The Instagram feature was part of the larger launch of Muse Image, Meta’s new AI image generator. Muse Image is still available on WhatsApp and Meta AI, the company’s standalone chatbot product. Other AI features that the company announced this week are still available on Instagram, such as special filters created by Muse Image.
Shortly after Meta added an AI image generator to Instagram, thousands of users took to social media to voice their privacy concerns. Others have shared instructions on how to opt out of the feature by setting profiles to private or changing certain settings in the app.
Hollywood agencies and unions also weighed in. Creative Artists Agency, a prominent talent agency in Los Angeles, reached out to Meta on behalf of its clients, calling the company’s new feature irresponsible.
“Artists deserve to decide whether and how their likeness and work will be used, with consent and the ability to set their own terms,” the agency said in a statement Wednesday.
SAG-AFTRA, the largest actors’ union, said in a statement Thursday that Meta’s decision to sign users up for the feature was a “complete miscalculation of public opinion” about the use of AI.
Still, Meta Pushes AI On Thursday, the company released a new version of its Muse Spark AI model and plans to release an AI video generator in the coming months.