Tech giant Meta has pulled a feature on Instagram that allows its new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to generate images using photos from public profiles after facing backlash.
It is among the key features of Meta AI’s Muse Image, which the company launched on July 7.
According to Meta’s press release, users can generate images by @-mentioning public accounts they wish to reference without profile owners being informed about it.
Such accounts are opt-in by default, although they can turn it off through their settings.
This is done by navigating to “Sharing and Reuse” and toggling off “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta” for posts and reels.
‘Creepy image manipulation’
However, despite the choice to opt out, Meta still faced criticism immediately after the announcement because of privacy concerns.
“We’ve already seen a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images on social platforms just in the past year,” Donald Campbell, advocacy director at tech justice non-profit group Foxglove, told BBC, describing the Meta AI feature as an “obvious recipe for disaster”.
“It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea”.
Meta, on July 10, announced that it will remove the feature.
“Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way,” Meta wrote in its blog post.
“We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available”.
Human rights charity Privacy International called the feature “the latest sign AI companies see people’s images and data as raw material to be exploited”.
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The ‘deepfake’ problem
AI-generated images are all over the internet, from simple profile pictures to business advertisements — they have seamlessly weaved themselves into the World Wide Web, unregulated and inescapable.
Organizations and authorities alike have raised concerns about the harms of AI-generated photos, or what is often called “deepfakes”.
Groups like Hollywood union SAG-AFTRA had called on its members and all Instagram users to protect their likeness.
They expressed that there had been an “utter miscalculation of public sentiment regarding the obvious dangers and harms inherent in such use”.
Perhaps one of the most concerning results of the fairly novel technology is sexual deepfakes, as seen in the ongoing investigation into Grok, the AI tool of Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter.
Earlier this year, UK communications watchdog Ofcom launched a probe into Grok after receiving “deeply concerning reports” of the AI chatbot.
The concerns related to the chatbot’s use of creating and sharing undressed photos of people — mostly women — and “sexualised images of children”.
The European Commission also began an inquiry into Grok around the same time for similar reasons.
Grok generated nearly three million sexualised images in less than two weeks, The Guardian newspaper reported, citing a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The figure includes 23,000 images that seemingly depict children.
What is Muse Image?
Muse Image is available via the Meta AI app and is integrated with Instagram Stories and WhatsApp. It will soon be launched on Facebook and Messenger, along with a special feature for advertisers.
According to Meta, Muse Image “uses advanced reasoning to understand complex prompts, seamlessly blending multiple photos into high-quality creations you can download and share anywhere — including directly to your chat, story, or feed”.
A video version of the tool is currently in development.
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Lucia Caporalini 
Diana Mae Y. Cleto 
Angelica N. Hall