Instagram incorrectly marks photos as made by artificial intelligence and generates controversy

Instagram incorrectly marks photos as made by artificial intelligence and generates controversy


Instagram’s new label for flagging AI-generated content has been the subject of controversy after appearing inappropriately in publications

OR Instagram recently added a sign to indicate that the content was created with artificial intelligence, but the feature has already been the subject of controversy: many users complain that the social network mistakenly adds watermarks to publications that have not gone through a watermarking tool generative artificial intelligence.



Understand the case

The “Created by AI” tag is an alternative to Objective to identify photos and videos generated by artificial intelligence on social networks and arriving on Instagram in recent weeks. The user can add the tag themselves before publishing, but the network also detects the image and can insert the tag automatically.

One of the first cases of abuse occurred with Australian photographer Peter Yan, who posted a photo of a mountain in Stories and received a warning for AI-created content. The professional complained about the incident on Threads, published the original photo next door and said he only used the Adobe Photoshop to edit some spaces.

The incident caught the attention of Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who contacted the professional to ask if the brand would appear automatically. Meta doesn’t yet explain why this happens, but one hypothesis is that Photoshop itself may report the use of AI in image metadata and the Instagram engine may consider the information no matter how simple the editing.

Posted by @yantastic

View on threads

The problem is that this seems to affect the images that pass through the editing software. Reddit user LASLOW01 said that a 3D image created in Blender received AI tags on the social network and confirmed that they did not use any generative AI tools in the process. For now there is still no way to appeal Instagram’s decision.

Being flagged as fake by Insta with the Made with AI label

Of u/LASLOW01 In Instagram

The brand was used in the Tesla photo

Another episode occurred in a publication of the automaker Tesla, posting promotional photos of the Lunar Silver paint for the company’s cars. The carousel received the label for using artificial intelligence and prompted a taunt from the automaker in the comments: “the silver is so shiny that Instagram marks real photos as AI,” the brand commented.




Tesla's official profile highlights Instagram tags (Image: Screenshot/André Magalhães/Canaltech)

What Instagram says

Consulted by Canaltech, Instagram has not commented on the matter. Instagram’s support page lays out some rules about tagging and says it applies the method “when content is detected to have industry-standard signals that indicate it was generated by artificial intelligence” and includes materials “created or edited in AI-generated tools by artificial intelligence”. “.

The company also reinforces some examples of content that requires the label, such as a video of realistic-looking people, a song with AI-generated voices, or an AI-created narrative. Videos with few cuts in the editing do not necessarily require marking.

However, this passage opens up some interpretative gaps:

“Meta requires you to label the content you share, including photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that has been digitally generated or altered, including with the use of artificial intelligence. This means that if this type of content was created or modified with a digital creative or AI tool, you must label it before sharing it.

It can be interpreted that the Meta requires labeling for any digital edition of an existing material, which would explain the markings on edited photos or 3D objects. On the other hand, this can limit the work of design professionals and photographers who need editing software, since many of these tools have features that use artificial intelligence for quick adjustments, but do not change the structure of the image.

You can also check out some tips for identify whether an image was generated by artificial intelligence.

Trends on Canaltech:

Source: Terra

You may also like