EntertainmentMeta to label AI-generated content on Facebook and Instagram

Meta to label AI‑generated content on Facebook and Instagram

On Instagram and Facebook, markings of materials created by AI will appear.

Images source: © @meta.com, Canva

5:58 AM EDT, April 21, 2024

Starting in May, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will begin displaying "made with AI" labels on images, videos, and audio content created using artificial intelligence.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has markedly widened the gap between digital and analog realities. The internet is now awash with texts, images, videos, and audio, all generated by algorithms. As technology advances, distinguishing between content created by AI and that crafted by humans is becoming increasingly challenging.

AI-created content to be labeled on Facebook and Instagram

To help users navigate this new reality more easily, Meta announced it will start labeling AI-generated content in May 2024. Owned by Mark Zuckerberg, the digital giant will mark video, audio, and image content as "Made with AI." This labeling will be based on AI indicators detected by Meta's algorithms and when users disclose that they post AI-generated content.

Meta conducted a public opinion survey involving over 23,000 respondents across 13 countries to understand how social media platforms should handle artificially generated content. According to the company's website findings, a substantial majority (82%) favored warning labels for AI-generated content depicting people saying things they did not say.

Preventing misinformation and model collapse

Labeling AI-generated content aims to prevent misinformation and the phenomenon known as "model collapse." Descriptively termed "artificial intelligence," these programs simulate human-generated content, drawing on data from the internet. There's a worry that if they begin to source their own generated content from the internet, the quality of the resulting images, videos, etc., could deteriorate. This could render "artificial intelligence," which relies on digitally altering human creations, ineffective.