Since May, Meta has been labeling photos created with AI tools on its social networks to help users better identify the content they're consuming. However, as TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports, this approach has faced criticism as many photos not created using AI tools have been incorrectly labeled, prompting Meta to reevaluate its labeling strategy to better reflect the actual use of AI in images. From the report: There are plenty of examples of Meta automatically attaching the label to photos that were not created through AI. For example, this photo of Kolkata Knight Riders winning the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament. Notably, the label is only visible on the mobile apps and not on the web. Plenty of other photographers have raised concerns over their images having been wrongly tagged with the "Made with AI" label. Their point is that simply editing a photo with a tool should not be subject to the label.

Former White House photographer Pete Souza said in an Instagram post that one of his photos was tagged with the new label. Souza told TechCrunch in an email that Adobe changed how its cropping tool works and you have to "flatten the image" before saving it as a JPEG image. He suspects that this action has triggered Meta's algorithm to attach this label. "What's annoying is that the post forced me to include the 'Made with AI' even though I unchecked it," Souza told TechCrunch.

Meta would not answer on the record to TechCrunch's questions about Souza's experience or other photographers' posts who said their posts were incorrectly tagged. However, after publishing of the story, Meta said the company is evaluating its approach to indicate labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image. "Our intent has always been to help people know when they see content that has been made with AI. We are taking into account recent feedback and continue to evaluate our approach so that our labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "For now, Meta provides no separate labels to indicate if a photographer used a tool to clean up their photo, or used AI to create it," notes TechCrunch. "For users, it might be hard to understand how much AI was involved in a photo."

"Meta's label specifies that 'Generative AI may have been used to create or edit content in this post' -- but only if you tap on the label. Despite this approach, there are plenty of photos on Meta's platforms that are clearly AI-generated, and Meta's algorithm hasn't labeled them."