Meta trains its AI using a billion images from Facebook and Instagram

Meta on Wednesday released its own version of its AI engine for generative AI – “Emu” – which is part of the “Imagine with Meta AI” project. According to Meta, the model itself uses information from photos that users have uploaded to Facebook and Instagram, to train the AI ​​engine.

About 1.1 billion publicly viewable images with the “open for all to see” privacy setting were reportedly used from posts made on Meta’s social media sites Facebook and Instagram.

“Today, we’re expanding access to Imagine outside of chats, making it available in the US to start at imagine.meta.com. This standalone experience for creative enthusiasts lets you create images using technology from Emu, our image foundation model.”“, writes Meta in a press release.

Emu, Meta’s generative AI model, uses “quality control” which means that the generated content is created with a starting point that is as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Emu is able to create realistic images, but not as realistic as Midjourney.

“Imagine with Meta AI” can now be used starting in the US, then requires linking your Facebook or Instagram account to a Meta login. If you don’t want Meta to use your future photo posts to train its Emu AI engine, you need to set your future photo posts to not be public.