Earlier this week, Meta found itself at the centre of controversy once again. The tech giant released its new AI image generation tool, Muse Image, but the feature went viral for the wrong reasons. Anyone could use Muse Image to create images of people with public Instagram accounts, just by tagging them in a prompt. Following the backlash, Meta has decided to remove this feature altogether.
In a blog post on Friday, the tech company confirmed that it was suspending this particular feature from Muse Image. Meta wrote, "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."
The tech giant acknowledged that it did not make the right call, after hearing feedback online. After Meta had announced Muse Image, many users expressed privacy concerns. "We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available," the company added. While Meta has removed this feature, Muse Image is still available for image generation.
Why did Meta remove new AI feature?
To give you some context, a key concern with the feature was that all public Instagram accounts were "opted-in" by default. That is, if you did not want your images to be created by someone else, you would need to manually deny permission by settings. Meta also did not notify users when someone created an image with their Instagram account.
This sparked fears that anyone could create images without consent, something that may have the potential to be misused. Though all private accounts, and accounts of users under the age of 18 were excluded.
Now, if you try to tag someone's Instagram account in Meta AI to create a picture, the AI chatbot will refuse to generate a result. You can see an example below.
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Meta has also removed the "Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features on Meta" toggle from settings for public Instagram accounts.
Do note that the feature sparked outrage even from Hollywood. Talent agency CAA, which represents actors such as Tom Cruise, Zendeya, and Meryl Streep, had also raised concerns. The agency previously issued a statement, "We call on Meta to make protection the default on Muse Image, not the exception, and enable individuals to opt-in if they want to allow usage of their image or likeness for AI content creation."
Meta is not the first company to face backlash over its AI image tool. OpenAI faced similar criticism over an opt-out feature for its Sora 2 video model before changing its policies and later shutting it down earlier this year. While xAI's Grok Imagine model was at the centre of controversy for stripping people into bikinis on X a few months ago.
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