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Meta on Friday discontinued an artificial intelligence feature that allowed users to generate images by referencing public Instagram accounts, days after rolling out the tool as part of a broader rollout of AI-powered creative features on Instagram.
The company announced the decision in an update to its Instagram blog.
“Earlier this week, we announced that one way for people to generate images in Meta AI is to @mention public Instagram accounts they want to reference,” the company wrote. “Our goal was to provide a useful creative tool and give people control over whether their public content can be referenced in this way. We’ve heard feedback that this feature has served its purpose and is therefore no longer available.”
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Russia has banned Meta-owned WhatsApp and urged citizens to use a state-run messaging alternative. (Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The feature was announced Tuesday alongside more than 30 new AI-powered effects for Instagram Stories using Muse Image, Meta Superintelligence Labs’ first image generation model. Instagram says the new effects allow users to transform photos with a single tap, while a redesigned Edit Composer allows users to preview AI-generated changes before sharing them.
As part of the launch, Meta also introduced a feature that allows users to @mention public Instagram accounts in Meta AI to create creative images using those accounts, including personalized birthday cards, group travel memes, and other edited images.
“We want our community to have control over how their content is used for creation,” Instagram said in Tuesday’s announcement. The company said that users who do not want their public Instagram content to be used through the AI feature can disable it through the app’s sharing and reuse settings.
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The Instagram logo is seen on a mobile device in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland, July 20, 2023. ((Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
SAG-AFTRA, which represents artists in film, television and other media, urged its members on Thursday to opt out of the feature, writing on social media: “Take action to protect your likeness.”
Neal K. Shah, an NIH-funded nursing researcher and CEO of CareYaya, said he has already seen AI-generated ads misuse his likeness to promote supplements that falsely claim to help people with dementia.
“I think the biggest red flag for me was that I actually saw the fraud in real time,” Shah told FOX Business. He said followers began messaging him after seeing ads in which he appeared to endorse products he had never promoted.
“All these elderly people have been scammed and my image has been used to scam them and I can’t do anything about it,” Shah said, adding that he spent hours replying to followers to warn them that the advertisement was fake.
Shah said he has since started warning viewers in his own videos not to trust ads in which he appears to be promoting products, and he has spent hours responding to followers who asked whether the endorsements were real. He also said he repeatedly reported the ads to Meta, but they remained on the platform.
Friday’s update removes the ability to generate images by @mentioning public Instagram accounts, while maintaining the broader rollout of Instagram’s new AI-powered creative tools.
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Meta has made artificial intelligence a core focus of its business, expanding AI-powered features across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, while investing heavily in AI infrastructure and the Llama family of AI models.
In response to a request for comment from FOX Business, Meta directed Fox Business to the updated Instagram blog post announcing the change.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/meta-shuts-down-ai-tool-after-backlash-over-public-instagram-accounts
