Meta on Tuesday unveiled Muse Image, its new AI image generator built by Meta Superintelligence Labs, the company’s dedicated AI unit. The feature, which was internally code-named Mango, is now available for free through the Meta AI app, as well as on Instagram Stories and WhatsApp.
Unfortunately, the new model is already causing controversy.
What exactly can you do with Muse? It sounds like the use cases are similar to most other AI image generators — you’ll be able to create plenty of goofy, cartoonish images, for instance.
If you’re short on inspiration and can’t come up with original prompts on your own, Meta says that Muse comes with “presets” — prefabricated image prompts — to “spark ideas.”
However, a particularly eyebrow-raising feature allows users to manipulate another Instagram user’s images with AI, as long as that user’s profile is public. Users merely tag the person, and it allows them to take their picture and use it to create a new AI image.
Said one X user after The Verge first pointed out how potentially invasive this is, “Pulling real users into generated photos without explicit consent is a privacy landmine waiting to detonate.”
Meta policy states that “people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta” and that “You will not be notified about content created using AI features at Meta.”
Meta claims users “have control” over this feature, noting that there are settings you can use to disable this kind of co-option of your pictures if you want to.
Muse has other, less invasive applications. One is creating custom ads (AI has notably crept into advertising over the past year). Another is experimenting with interior decorating ideas — in a promotional video, a user leverages Muse to see what a secondhand couch might look like in their garage. This last function is designed to integrate with Facebook Marketplace, Meta’s popular Craigslist-like locus of used furniture and accessories.
The model also features prompt-based image editing, which lets users create images to share across Meta’s apps and platforms
“Ask it to mock up an image of you in front of a historical landmark, cleanly erase a photobomber from the background of a shot, or write a custom prompt to build a functional QR code,” the company offers.
At the same time, Meta is launching a host of new AI effects for Instagram Stories, powered by Muse — notably, the same platform at the center of the photo-tagging concerns above. Those effects include customizable filters that can modify existing photos.
Meta says use of the new AI model is free for “everyday creation,” though users will need a subscription plan once they exceed a certain limit.
The company also said Muse Video — presumably an AI video generator — is “already in development.” TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for more information.
Meta has released a number of AI apps and services over the past year, including an AI assistant called Creator, and Pocket, an app that can be used to vibe code video games. The company has been accused of having a nebulous AI strategy, although it’s still on track to spend a whole lot on AI infrastructure this year as it continues to build out its services.
Meta’s privacy record is one reason for users’ unease over Muse. The company paid a then-record $5 billion fine to the FTC in 2019, after regulators found that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly harvested data from tens of millions of Facebook users — without their knowledge — to build voter-targeting profiles ahead of the 2016 U.S. election. Facebook had known about the data misuse for years before it became public.
Separately, the company shut down Facebook’s facial-recognition system in 2021 — a tool that had automatically recognized people in photos and videos — amid lawsuits and regulatory pressure over its collection of biometric data. Basically, Muse’s photo-tagging feature, which is opt-out by default, fits a pattern users and regulators have flagged before: broad use of people’s data unless they actively turn it off.
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