Meta Is Tagging Real Photos As 'Made With AI,' Says Photographers

Since May, Meta has been labeling photos created with AI tools on its social networks to help users better identify the content they're consuming. However, as TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports, this approach has faced criticism as many photos not created using AI tools have been incorrectly labeled, prompting Meta to reevaluate its labeling strategy to better reflect the actual use of AI in images. From the report: There are plenty of examples of Meta automatically attaching the label to photos that were not created through AI. For example, this photo of Kolkata Knight Riders winning the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament. Notably, the label is only visible on the mobile apps and not on the web. Plenty of other photographers have raised concerns over their images having been wrongly tagged with the "Made with AI" label. Their point is that simply editing a photo with a tool should not be subject to the label.

Former White House photographer Pete Souza said in an Instagram post that one of his photos was tagged with the new label. Souza told TechCrunch in an email that Adobe changed how its cropping tool works and you have to "flatten the image" before saving it as a JPEG image. He suspects that this action has triggered Meta's algorithm to attach this label. "What's annoying is that the post forced me to include the 'Made with AI' even though I unchecked it," Souza told TechCrunch.

Meta would not answer on the record to TechCrunch's questions about Souza's experience or other photographers' posts who said their posts were incorrectly tagged. However, after publishing of the story, Meta said the company is evaluating its approach to indicate labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image. "Our intent has always been to help people know when they see content that has been made with AI. We are taking into account recent feedback and continue to evaluate our approach so that our labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "For now, Meta provides no separate labels to indicate if a photographer used a tool to clean up their photo, or used AI to create it," notes TechCrunch. "For users, it might be hard to understand how much AI was involved in a photo."

"Meta's label specifies that 'Generative AI may have been used to create or edit content in this post' -- but only if you tap on the label. Despite this approach, there are plenty of photos on Meta's platforms that are clearly AI-generated, and Meta's algorithm hasn't labeled them."

EXIF

[bobbutts]

So to trigger the AI tag or not all we have to do is preserve or spoof the EXIF data? I wonder if AI images with EXIF that appears to be from a camera device would avoid the AI tag.

Re:

[test321]

We don't know how many detection layers Meta has implemented. Here it was an obvious case of an image self-declaring as made by AI, so obviously it got tagged.

Regarding cameras, big manufacturers are developing digital signatures to tag real photographs https://slashdot.org/story/24/... [slashdot.org]

Re:

[slack_justyb]

The catch with their idea for signatures is including time, date, and location of when the photo was made. I distinctly remember when that almost got someone killed. [wired.com]

Additionally, the signature is supposed to be embedded into the pixels. Which means it's likely loss on lossy compression. So it'll be up to the social media websites to "trust us bro" because I highly doubt they'll be lossless enough to transmit the embedded pixels onward to consumers in mass. Which that's exactly what we want, "trust me"

Re:

[ls671]

Indeed all those technologies have an error margin and can possibly be hijacked as well. I am pretty sure some non-guilty people rest in jail after being convicted with DNA samples. I remember some clerk telling me once that the computer is always right and never makes mistakes, LOL

Re:

[groobly]

Including the data in the pixels can survive lossy compression, but is itself a degradation of the image, similar to lossy compresson in that it allegedly is perceptually imperceptible. Except it isn't.

Free!

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

It's the zen of products. Yin and Yang. You get what you project on it.
But you don't seem to realize the part they are getting.

So you get your photos indexed.
Call me cynical, but.. are they using all that "data" for AI training?
No?

Re:Free!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Given their past behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if this is Meta's operating plan.

1) Meta leadership becomes aware that hoovering up and using everyone's data in their for-profit AI work, without permission and without attribution, is becoming a PR problem and may soon become a legal problem.
2) Meta leadership sees recent stories about courts declaring that an AI cannot assert copyright
3) Meta leadership uses back channels to inform their coding team they need a "bug" introduced that will erroneously tag professional photographers' photos with a "made with AI" identifier.
4) Meta continues hoovering up everyone's data and feeding it to the AI.
5) Meanwhile, Meta leadership works with Meta's legal team to prepare for the eventual "we made a mistake, we're terribly sorry, we won't do it again" testimony in front of Congress.
6) Mark Zuckerburg's Facial Manipulation team begins new preparations for making Mark's expression look at least marginally human by the time the Congressional questioning is likely to begin.

Working Correctly

[Luthair]

Adobe's tools have been using ML for some time which is exactly what the Facebook tool was meant to identify. As an added bonus maybe airbrushed photos of celebrities will start getting tagged so young people will be less affected by body dysmorphia.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Celebrity photos have been cleaned (doctored) since the dawn of photography.

Re:Working Correctly

[AmiMoJo]

Some of the example photos look straight out of camera. Some pre-date the existence of Photoshop.

Re:

[timeOday]

The photo on the right [reddit.com], for example. That's supposed to be labeled "real" because it didn't come out of dalle?

AI getting jealous already now?

[thesjaakspoiler]

Can't keep track of all the new AI developments.

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

No. If you mark a photo as "AI made", you obviously don't have to pay royalties or even acknowledge the maker. Profit!

Remember, AI does very little except being stoned digitally.

Almost all the "consequences of AI" are consequences of human actions.

So what happens with a photo edited with AI?

[Whatsmynickname]

So if a photo has been edited by AI based tools, including from Adobe, is it fair to identify it as AI based? That includes AI based tools such as photo sharpening and removing of elements... If not, why not?

Like CA prop 65, everthing is AI

[joe_frisch]

CA prop 65 required businesses to post signs if they had cancer causing chemicals. Pretty soon those signs were so ubiquitous that everyone ignored them. Same can apply to AI. When everything is AI, the label becomes meaningless and they can continue to produce what is now effectively unlabeled AI content at will.

Yo dawg...

[kmoser]

Meta heard you like AI so they're using AI to identify AI photos. Got a complaint? Talk to our AI.

It's hard to tell what's AI

[Ken_g6]

Remember this real photo [cnn.com] that won an AI photo contest?

AI and meta

[thephydes]

Meta using AI to identify AI ......

I'm sorry to say this to photographers, but

[vbdasc]

their business is finished. Meta probably made a (semi-) honest effort, and the result was less than optimal. With the progress of the AI models, pretty soon neither Meta nor the human eye will be able to distinguish a real photography from the sh!tload of AI-generated stuff.

As a consolation to photographers, their business will be far from the only one obliterated by AI. Interesting times are coming.

Re:

[nwaack]

Not entirely. Photographers who document things - weddings come to mind - still have a few good years left. But yeah, people who go out and take photos of random stuff are totally done for.

Muddying the waters

[VeryFluffyBunny]

My guess is that Metasticised-Facebook are deliberately muddying the waters to make it seem as if it's an insurmountable task to distinguish between AI & authentic images. In that way they can plead incompetence, among many other excuses, & that their systems should be allowed to continue to plagiarise everyone's work.

It's a money-grab, pure & simple but we'll let them get away with it because "technology." You know, in the same way that they've stolen news agencies' news feeds & plastered their own dodgy scam & malware laden advertising all over them.

Does Meta really expect their

[Tablizer]

...guessing engine to be sufficiently accurate? Sounds like a fool's errand from fools.