Facebook parent company Meta has announced that it is officially retiring its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) feature that allowed users to generate custom images using photos from their public Instagram accounts. The social media giant has publicly acknowledged that the design and privacy settings of its tools have grossly misjudged public sentiment. The announcement follows a wave of global backlash from privacy advocates and Hollywood talent agencies.“Earlier this week, we announced that one of the ways people can generate images with Meta AI is by @mentioning the public Instagram accounts they want to reference,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Variety.“Our goal was to provide a useful creative tool and give people control over whether their published content can be viewed in this way. We’ve heard feedback that this feature misses the mark, so it’s no longer available,” the company spokesperson added.
What does Instagram do and why is there a backlash?
The trouble started this week when Meta debuted Muse Image, the company’s first standalone AI image generation model. Designed to enhance the social experience, this tool allows anyone using the Meta AI chatbot to easily @mention and tag public Instagram accounts. The AI instantly collects images from that person’s public profile and creates an entirely new digitally altered image or deepfake of that person.However, the feature quickly sparked outrage due to its aggressive “opt-out” policy. Instead of asking for permission, Meta automatically opted in all public account holders over 18 by default. This meant that regular users, influencers, and celebrities could have their facial likenesses used by complete strangers without their explicit knowledge or consent, unless they manually went into their settings and disabled the feature.Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a prominent Hollywood talent agency that represents A-list stars such as Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, immediately contacted Mehta to protest the tool.CAA said: “An individual’s name, image, likeness, voice, or creative work should not be used by third parties, including AI models, without explicit written consent. True innovation puts creators first. It respects creators’ rights, protects their livelihoods, and gives creators actual control rather than handing power over to platforms.”Meta previously noted that while the tool was initially limited to Instagram, the company plans to roll out alternative generative AI capabilities to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger over time.
