Meta has serious ambitions for Meta AI, and its recent moves show that it’s not looking to play second fiddle to ChatGPT and Gemini for too long. Meta spent billions on its Scale AI acquisition and has also hired top talent from rival OpenAI in recent days.
To reach AGI and superintelligence, Meta needs to gobble up lots and lots of data from the web so it can continue to train more advanced systems. After harvesting public posts from Facebook and Instagram to train the AI, Meta now wants to convince you to give Facebook access to all the photos on your phone, which will be uploaded to Meta’s servers where the AI can access it.
Meta says this will allow its AI to suggest content to share on Facebook based on your camera roll. Also, the private photos will not be used for personalized ads or to train the AI. But remember, this is Meta we’re talking about here. The company doesn’t have a great record with user privacy.
Also, Meta AI doesn’t have a spotless reputation. Just remember what happened in the past few months, with Meta AI chatbots engaging in sexualized chats with minors or older Meta AI users sharing private conversations with the world without realizing it.
Giving Meta AI access to your phone’s Photos app to upload photos on a continuous basis is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea to do it with any AI provider, but especially Meta. Instead, you should ensure you never opt in to the feature if you see the Facebook prompt below.
Meta is currently running the experiment in the US and Canada. According to News, some users have started seeing the prompt below when creating a new Story to share on Facebook.
What Facebook asks
The prompt implies that all of the photos in your camera roll will be uploaded to Meta’s servers without saying so outright. Instead, Meta asks: “Allow cloud processing to get creative ideas made for you from your camera roll?” Cloud processing means your photos will be sent to Meta’s servers, where the AI will get access to them.
Here’s how Meta describes the feature:
- The best of your camera roll, curated for you: Get ideas like collages, recaps, AI restyling, or themes like birthdays or graduations.
- To create ideas for you, we’ll select media from your camera roll and upload it to our cloud on an ongoing basis, based on info like time, location, or themes. Learn more
- Only you can see suggestions. Your media won’t be used for ads targeting. We’ll check it for safety and integrity purposes.
Our full-throated recommendation is to click on “Don’t allow.”
What happens if you agree?
If you want the features above from Facebook, it means you have to agree to Meta’s AI Terms of Service. As News points out, your agreement will mean Meta AI can analyze your media and facial features. The AI will also look at what else is in the images, including people and objects. Here’s the exact language Meta uses:
Once shared, you agree that Meta will analyze those images, including facial features, using AI. This processing allows us to offer innovative new features, including the ability to summarize image contents, modify images, and generate new content based on the image.
The AI will also “retain and use” information you share for personalized results. Meta employees might review your interactions with Meta AI as well:
Meta may review your interactions with AIs, including the content of your conversations with or messages to AIs, and this review may be automated or manual (human). When you share your private messages with friends and family for AI features that use Private Processing technology, Meta cannot read or access the messages you have shared. Meta provides Private Processing as a service on your behalf.
Your photos aren’t specifically mentioned here, but the new feature will presumably suggest content for new Facebook Stories based on your camera roll. Interact with the AI this way, and all of the Meta AI policies listed above will apply.
News says there hasn’t been much backlash about the feature, but that’s understandable. Facebook users have just started seeing the prompt above.
One Redditor did see an unexpected suggestion from Meta AI in their Facebook experience. Meta AI turned an old public photo into a Studio Ghibli-inspired anime photo without the user actually wanting that action to happen.
What you can do
If you think Meta’s initiative is innocent, think about all the content you store in the Photos app. It’s not just photos and videos. You might have screenshots containing sensitive information, explicit photos you shared with a partner, or photos of your children. Meta AI will be able to see all of that if it continuously uploads your data.
While Meta told The Verge that it’s not going to use your camera roll to train the AI, the usage terms for Meta AI do not explicitly say that photos from your camera roll won’t be used to train future AI models.
Meta also told the site that it only uploads 30 days worth of photos at a time, but it might retain some data for longer than that. “Camera roll suggestions based on themes, such as pets, weddings, and graduations, may include media that is older than 30 days,” Meta says.
Also, with the permission enabled, Meta will continue to upload new photos to the cloud as soon as it finds new ones in your Photos app.
If you’ve accidentally approved the new Meta AI feature, you can disable it. Go to the Facebook Settings and look for a camera roll sharing suggestions menu. In there, look for the “Get creative ideas made for you by allowing camera roll cloud processing” option and disable it.
I would leave the feature disabled in perpetuity, even if Meta makes its terms of use language more clear to guarantee Meta AI will never train on unpublished photos.
Depending on how this Facebook test goes, we might see Meta test a similar feature in Instagram. I’m just speculating here, but if it happens, you might want to disable it there as well.
