Meta has discontinued a controversial feature that allowed users to use AI to edit photos on public Instagram accounts. The feature, which launched earlier this week along with other AI tools, is “out of standard” and is no longer available, according to the company.
Earlier this week, Meta announced Muse Image, a new AI image generator built by its dedicated AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta promoted a feature that would allow individuals to create images by @mentioning the public Instagram account they would like to reference. The feature, which is not designed to alert users when their photos have been used in this way, sparked immediate backlash.
TechCrunch has written its own guide on how to disable the feature.
Now the meta has changed direction. The company issued a blog post on Friday announcing it was removing the feature. Puck News founding partner Dylan Byers was the first to share the company’s decision.
“Our intention was to provide useful creative tools and give people control over whether they can reference public content in this way,” the company posted on its blog. “We have heard feedback that this feature is no longer available because it is off target.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for more information and will update this article if we hear back.
AI has been recklessly misused since its integration with social media platforms, often producing nude images of female celebrities. Platforms have attempted to mitigate this trend, but the guardrails introduced have often fallen short.
In the case of Meta’s newly removed features, it seems rather obvious that they could have been abused in this way. In fact, Byers points out that the decision to remove the feature was made “amid an investigation by users and entertainment agencies, including CAA.”
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