After Meta began tagging photos with a “Made with AI” tag in May, photographers complained that the social media company was tagging real photos where they had used some basic editing tools.
Due to user feedback and general confusion about the level of AI used in a photo, the company is changing the label to “AI Info” on all Meta apps.
Meta said the previous version of the tag was not clear enough for users to indicate that the tagged image was not necessarily created with artificial intelligence, but may have used AI-powered tools in the editing process.
“Like others across the industry, we found that our labels based on these indicators weren’t always aligned with people’s expectations and didn’t always provide enough context. For example, some content that included minor modifications using artificial intelligence, such as retouching tools, included industrial indicators that were subsequently labeled ‘Made with AI,'” the company said in a updated blog post.
The company is not changing the underlying technology for detecting the use of artificial intelligence in photos and tagging them. Meta still uses information from technical metadata standards such as C2PA and IPTC which include information about the use of AI tools.
This means that if photographers use tools like Adobe’s Generative AI Fill to remove objects, their photos may be tagged with the new tag. However, Meta hopes the new tag will help people understand that the tagged image isn’t always entirely created by AI.
“AI Info may include content created and/or modified by AI, so we hope this is more in line with people’s expectations, while we work with companies across the industry to improve the process,” said Meta spokeswoman Kate McLaughlin. TechCrunch via email.
The new tag still won’t solve the problem of AI-generated photos going undetected. And it won’t tell users how much AI processing has been done to an image.
Meta and other social networks should work to set guidelines without unfairness to photographers who haven’t made changes to their editing workflows, but the tools they used to make photos have some genetic AI component. On the other hand, companies like Adobe should warn photographers that when they use a certain tool, their image may be tagged on other services.
