Meta has rolled out an opt-in AI feature to its US and Canadian Facebook users that it claims will make its photos and videos more “shareable”. The only catch is that this feature is designed for your phone’s camera roll. No Media you have already uploaded to Facebook. If you choose, Meta’s AI will comb through your camera roll, upload Your unpublished photos Clouds of meta, and surface “hidden gems” that are “lost in screenshots, receipts and random snaps,” the company says. Users will be able to save or share suggested edits and collages.
If Facebook wanting to see your unpublished photos sounds familiar, it might be because we wrote about the initial test back in June. At the moment, the company claimed, private photos were not being used to train MetaKAI, but it declined to rule out whether it would do so in the future.
Well, the future is now, and it sure looks like Meta wants to train its AI on your photos — under certain conditions. In Friday’s announcement of the feature, Meta says, “We don’t use media from your camera roll to improve the AI in Meta, unless you choose to edit, or share, that media with our AI tools.”
Verge Asked to confirm with Meta: Meta will If you choose to use this feature, use your camera roll to train its AI, right? We also asked for an explanation when Meta starts using your unpublished photos to train its AI. Does this happen when you select a new feature? After choosing to edit something with the tool? Or only after you choose to conclude?
Meta spokesperson Mari Melgozo sent us the following explanation: “This means that camera roll media uploaded by this feature will not be used to improve the AI in Meta. Only if you edit suggestions with our AI tools or publish those suggestions on Facebook, the AI in Meta can be improved.”
So, Meta will collect and store your photos in the cloud and let Meta’s AI look at them, but the company won’t use them unless you take some additional action — at least for now, according to Meta. Today, the feature says it will “select media from your camera roll and upload it to our cloud on an ongoing basis”; In June, Meta told us it had some of that data for more than 30 days. The company claims that your media “will not be used for ad targeting.”
Last year, Meta admitted that it had already quietly trained its AI models on all public photos and text posted on Facebook and Instagram by adult users since 2007.
Facebook’s blog today revealed that users will be asked if they want to “allow cloud processing to get creative ideas from your camera roll for you.” It’s not yet clear whether the gesture will also warn users that the feature could train MetaKey’s AI on your photos. The company says the feature is intended to help users who enjoy hiding photos but want to improve their photos before posting, or who don’t have time to “create something special.” Facebook says the feature will roll out in the coming months.
