Meta's new image AI can generate pictures from public Instagram photos by default
Meta drew criticism after rolling out Muse Image, an image-generation feature that lets users create AI pictures from public Instagram profiles they tag with an @-mention. The tool pulls in publicly visible photos, including profile pictures, to build new images — and the reuse is turned on by default unless an account holder changes their settings.
Privacy groups warned the design makes it easy to generate altered images of people without their knowledge or consent, and argued it reflects a broader industry pattern of treating publicly posted personal images as raw material for AI. Users can disable the behavior in Instagram’s sharing settings, but switching an account to private afterward does not remove images already generated.
The friction is less about the technology than the default: putting reuse on automatically shifts the burden onto individuals to opt out, which for a platform of Instagram’s scale means most users’ public photos become usable unless they act.