After a brief setback for the company, Meta has now gained approval to use public user posts within its AI training in the UK.
Meta paused the development of AI systems based on the publicly available UK user posts back in July. However, after negotiations with the British authorities, the company got permission to use public posts for AI training.
Here is what Meta said in a blog.
“We will begin training for AI at Meta using public content shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram in the UK over the coming months. This means that our generative AI models will reflect British culture, history, and idiom and that UK companies and institutions will be able to utilize the latest technology.”
This wording is just another way of saying that we will use people’s data to train AI models in order to replicate human interactions.
This is the main point of any AI system. Meta needs data to build the AI models that can understand context, and produce accurate responses. Along with Meta, every other company is vying for this data, so they can create human-like AI models.
The company has been granted permission to use the UK-based users’ public posts under legal provisions around “legitimate interests”, which ensured that it’s covered for such usage under UK law. However, the company has to be careful about using private posts or DMs within the dataset.
“We do not use people’s private messages with friends and family to train for AI at Meta, and we do not use information from accounts of people in the UK under the age of 18. We’ll use public information – such as public posts and comments, or public photos and captions – from accounts of adult users on Instagram and Facebook to improve generative AI models for our AI at Meta features and experiences, including for people in the UK.”
With this ruling, Meta will be able to train their AI models using the publicly available data on their platforms.
