Artists Start Trend Feuding With Instagram For Training AI On Their Work
Photo 269396971 © Faithiecannoise | Dreamstime.com
Meta is under the lens after confirming that it has been training its artificial intelligence image generator with public Instagram photos. At Bloomberg’s Tech Summit, Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, disclosed that the company’s text-to-image model owes its “amazing quality images” to the vast dataset provided by Instagram, citing the platform’s repository of art, fashion, culture, and personal moments as a goldmine for AI training. This admission has ignited controversy, particularly among photographers and artists who feel their creative work is being exploited.
Creators argue that their content is being used without proper consent. Isabelle Doran from The Association of Photographers in the UK voiced the frustration of many in the creative community with PetaPixel, suggesting that photographers’ works are being taken with little regard for the impact on their livelihoods.
In a bid to reclaim control over their work, artists have been circulating a graphic on their Instagram Stories, declaring their ownership of their content and refusing consent for its use in AI training.
View this post on Instagram
This graphic, created by teenage artist _mini_buggy_arson, has become a rallying point for those opposed to Meta’s practices, urging Instagram to “get rid of the AI program.”
Screenshot via @nana.topia
Artists have expressed that they are moving on to Cara, a social media platform that also serves as a portfolio.
Screenshots via @wowocomics, @sr_aderezo, @micann_
The uprisal comes just days after Instagram introduced ‘Made with AI’ labels that, although designed to provide transparency, sometimes missed the mark and misidentified original artworks as AI-generated.
While Meta does provide a way to opt out of model training, it’s not as straightforward. The option primarily applies to third-party data, and the process is notably cumbersome for users outside the European Union. For EU users, privacy laws offer some protection, but the notification is buried within the app, making it difficult to find.
To opt out, users must navigate through several layers of the Instagram app: opening the profile, accessing the help menu, finding “About AIs on Instagram” and “how Meta uses information for generative AI models,” before being able to submit a request.
[via Fast Company and PetaPixel, images via various sources]
