After Meta began tagging photos with the label “Created with AI” in May, photographers complained that the social networking company had slapped labels on real photos on which they had used some basic editing tools.
Due to user feedback and general confusion about what level of AI is being used in a photo, the company is changing the tag to 'AI Info' across all of Meta's apps.
Meta said the previous version of the tag wasn't clear enough for users to indicate that the image with the tag wasn't necessarily created with AI, but may have used AI-powered tools during the editing process.
“Like others in the industry, we found that our labels based on these indicators didn't always match people's expectations and didn't always provide enough context. For example, some content that included minor adjustments using AI, such as retouching tools, included industry standard indicators that were then labeled as 'Made with AI,'” the company said in a updated blog post.
The company is not changing the underlying technology for detecting the use of AI in photos and labeling them. Meta still uses information from technical metadata standards such as C2PA And IPTC that contain information about the use of AI tools.
That means if photographers use tools like Adobe's Generative AI Fill to remove objects, their photos may still be tagged with the new label. However, Meta hopes that the new label will help people understand that the image with the tag is not always created entirely by AI.
“'AI Info' can include content created and/or modified with AI. The hope is that this will be more in line with people's expectations as we work with companies across the industry to improve the process,” Meta spokesperson Kate McLaughlin told JS via email.
The new tag still won’t solve the problem of fully AI-generated photos going unnoticed. And it won’t tell users how many AI-powered edits have been performed on an image.
Meta and other social networks need to set guidelines without being unfair to photographers who haven't made changes to their editing workflows, but the tools they used to retouch photos have a generative AI element. On the other hand, companies like Adobe should warn photographers that when they use a particular tool, their image may be tagged on other services.
