The implementation of the AI notifying system by Meta on Instagram & Facebook - good or bad?

As an Instagram user, a while back I was made aware of a new system put in place by meta to automatically label any content on Instagram and Facebook as AI if it thought this was the case. When it was implemented it created quite an uproar against users. I use Instagram for photography purposes and like many others my posts were all of a sudden now labelled as ‘made with ai’, without any choice in the matter.

I occasionally use the AI tool in photoshop within my retouching process as it is a quick and easy solution to a more time consuming way of doing the exact same thing. I would use it to remove little bits that I didn’t want to be in the image to tidy it up, but would never take it further than that. People have been doing this on photoshop for years, before the ai tool had been created.

So naturally, when I uploaded a photograph where I had retouched a tiny part of the image using this tool, it automatically labelled my content as ‘made with ai’. At first I was not happy, as the image had been curated, shot and edited all by me. I was the artist, and like any artist had removed a certain element from the artwork that I wasn’t happy with. So to have this label on my work, without any context, did annoy me a lot!

However as things went on, I started to use it less and less because I did not want this label on my work. I slowly became more ‘content’ with the natural shot and appreciate the beauty within the image I had taken. It also drove me to challenge my creativity in trying to get the best natural shot possible in order to do as little retouching as possible. It’s very easy to want the ‘perfect’ piece of artwork, and looking back, I think this was the effect the ai tool was having. A quick and easy way to correct an image by removing its imperfections, and expecting perfect to be normal, which we all know, just isn’t real life.

They have since changed the way this label is implemented, by giving the user the choice to add it or not, which I think is a much better solution. However, this whole experience taught me to be more creative and appreciate the natural things happening around me. I think the way they implemented this feature was done in a very badly organised way, but I do think there is a good reason why it is here, especially as screen time on social media is increasing, where do you draw the line between what is real and what isn’t? This experience challenged me creatively and I have definitely become a better artist because of it.

By Beth Flowerday