Meta is facing a backlash over its new AI tool Muse Image, which can generate pictures using other people's profile pictures without telling them – a feature privacy campaigners have described as an “obvious recipe for disaster”.
Donald Campbell, advocacy director at tech justice non-profit Foxglove, told the BBC: “We’ve already seen a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images on social platforms just in the past year. It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea.”
“Meta's Muse AI tool lets users generate images from public Instagram profiles, prompting privacy backlash.”
Privacy International also criticised the feature, calling it “the latest sign AI companies see people’s images and data as raw material to be exploited”. One user wrote on X: “Pulling real users into generated photos without explicit consent is a privacy landmine waiting to detonate.”
The tool is available through the Meta AI app and web browser, as well as on WhatsApp and in Instagram Stories for US users. Meta says users can opt out even with a public account via a dedicated setting in Instagram’s “Sharing and Reuse” menu, separate from account privacy controls. If the account is private, it is already unable to be shared.
To test it, I asked Muse AI to make it look like I was driving a car – it happily did so, though the AI failed to notice the steering wheel goes on the right in a UK car. In a blog post, Meta said the tool uses “advanced reasoning to understand complex prompts, seamlessly blending multiple photos into high-quality creations you can download and share anywhere”.
The feature is likely to face heightened scrutiny as regulators and campaigners raise concerns about AI-generated images, with Ofcom currently investigating X over Grok’s role in creating and sharing non-consensual AI-altered images of real people. Meta is entering a crowded market, but its use of Instagram is new and powerful.
The company said the tool is free for “everyday creation”, but for critics like Campbell, the risk of harm is immediate.
