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Meta AI logo is seen in this illustration taken on Sept. 28, 2023.
How to train your AI — without humans
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has prided itself on releasing innovative open-source models as an alternative to the proprietary — or closed-source — models of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other leading AI developers. Now, it claims one of its newest models can evaluate other AI models. (That really is meta.)
Researchers at Meta’s Fundamental AI Research – yep, they call it their FAIR team – detailed their work on what they’re calling a “self-taught evaluator” in an August white paper ahead of the new model’s launch. The researchers sought to train an AI to evaluate models based not on human preference but on synthetic data. In short, Meta is trying to develop an AI model that can evaluate and improve itself without reliance on humans.
This could push AI to a place where it can sense its own imperfections and improve without being told to do so — a greater level of autonomy. Dystopian? Maybe.
A blue verification checkmark on Instagram account on Instagram displayed on a laptop screen and Instagram logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Poland on February 19, 2023.
Your Facebook and Instagram posts are now AI-training data
Remember that embarrassing picture of you on Facebook? The one with the red solo cups in the background that you tried to hide from future employers? No, no not that one. The other one.
Meta’s global privacy director, Melinda Claybaugh, recently told Australian legislators that, yes, the company’s artificial intelligence systems are trained in part on users’ public posts on Facebook and Instagram. The Facebook data trove dates all the way back to 2007, a year after it opened its service to the public.
The company allows users to set their posts to public or private and maintains that only the public posts are used for training AI. In Europe, users can opt out of having their information used to train Meta’s language models due to the EU’s privacy laws, and in Brazil, Meta was recently ordered to stop using its citizens’ data for this purpose.
In the UK, Meta paused training its AI on users’ posts following an inquiry from Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office but plans to resume doing so after answering the regulator’s questions.
Given these revelations, you can guess that if you ask Meta’s AI for “embarrassing pictures from college,” its responses might be a little too accurate.
Meta’s news ban in Canada has led to a media disaster. What does that mean for US efforts to wrangle big tech platforms?
It’s been a year since Meta yanked Canadian news from its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Threads – in response to a government bill that would see tech giants pay news outlets for linking to their online content. The Online News Act, which is similar to legislation passed in Australia, led to threats from both Meta and Google that they would pull news content originating in Canada. Google eventually struck a deal with media outlets; Meta did not, and it shows no sign of changing course a year later.
The full effects of Meta’s news ban are just coming to light. A report released this month by the Media Ecosystem Observatory finds that nearly half of online news media engagement has dropped in the last year, including 85% on Facebook and Instagram, a loss that “has not been compensated by increases on other social media platforms.”
It also finds that nearly a third of local news outlets that were active on social media are now dormant. What’s more, a whopping 75% of the public is unaware of the ban that has led to Canadians consuming less news – and more disinformation – than ever before.
“Canadians continue to learn about politics and current events through Facebook and Instagram,” the report summarizes, “but through a more biased and less factual lens than before, and many Canadians do not even realize the shift has occurred. They do not appear to be seeking news elsewhere.”
It’s a worst-of-all-worlds scenario in Canada as a struggling media industry and a growing online disinformation problem collide, depriving outlets of much-needed views and shares, and readers of access to reliable, high-quality journalism. In an ironic twist, a law meant to preserve news media by filling the coffers of news outlets, allowing them to keep staff and grow coverage, is contributing to its demise.
Will the Liberals stand up for their law?
The Liberal government isn’t backing down in the face of this new data, though. Ottawa is now saying Meta may still indeed be regulated by way of the Online News Act since some news is still sneaking through the block, which looks like a technicality but speaks to the government’s intention to double down on the law.
Moreover, there’s big money at stake. Google has signed a CA$100 million dollar deal to fund journalism. That money will be managed by small independent outlets focused on digital journalism. It’s too early to say what effect the money will have on news media in Canada, since the program is just starting to roll out, and there’s plenty still to be determined. But you know what they say – tens of millions here, tens of millions there, it eventually starts to add up to real money.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says “The de-platforming of Canadian news content is probably not what the government expected when they launched their Online News Act, and it’s having the perverse effect that now Canadians are less exposed to quality, reliable journalism and reporting on social media platforms.”
But he doesn’t expect Canada will back down “unless there’s a change in government.”
By the next federal election in 2025, there may be one as the Conservatives are up in the polls. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the legislation and suggested it was “like 1984,” claiming it’s censorship and expressing concern that the government was trying to ban Canadians from seeing the news. That tone suggests he may be inclined to rescind the law, or at least change it.
US efforts to extract media payments from platforms are moving … slowly
Canada isn’t the only country working on securing payments from the tech sector to offset the harmful effect their advertising market dominance has on news media. But the Canadian experience may serve as a warning, or at least a lesson, for US lawmakers.
A bill before Congress, the Journalism Competition Act of 2023, would set a process for collective negotiation between news media and online platforms for payments to the former in exchange for access to their content. Introduced in 2021, in the last Congress, by Sen. Amy Klobuchar and again in 2023 for the current one, the bill is going nowhere fast. It has seen no movement since it was placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar in July 2023.
The state of California is considering a similar bill. Meta has threatened to block news there if the bill, which enjoys bipartisan support, passes. The California Journalism Preservation Act passed the state assembly 46-6 and is now in the Senate, where it’s working its way through committee in the face of opposition from tech giants who claim the bill won’t support local journalism, but rather act as a giveaway to hedge funds and big media companies.
A 2023 white paper found that Google and Meta made billions from linking to news – $21 billion and $4 billion respectively – and “owed” $10-12 billion and $1.9 billion annually to publishers as payment for the profit they make from news media content.
Scott Bade, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s geo-technology unit, expects the US won’t rush to emulate Canada’s approach. He notes that a divided Congress and looming election means lawmakers won’t be keen to make headway on a controversial tech regulation bill. The latest data from Canada won’t exactly spur action, either.
When it comes to California, where Democrats have control of the state legislature, the chances of a bill passing may be higher, he notes, but they still face intense lobbying from the tech industry, and it’s not a given that Gov. Gavin Newsom would even sign it.
A matter of life and death
The consequences of news bans are real. They suppress the capacity of media organizations to get factual, reported information to the public – and thus put media, particularly local outlets, at further risk of folding. They also facilitate the flow of unreliable information. The consequences of this dynamic can be quite literally a matter of life and death.
The recent far-right, anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom were violent and included fires being lit at hotels in which asylum-seekers were staying. There have been hundreds of arrests so far after online misinformation and disinformation spread, claiming that a Muslim immigrant was responsible for the stabbing deaths of three youths in Southport – in fact, the suspect is a non-Muslim who was born in Cardiff.
As Time reports, the riots were brutal as “[f]ar-right groups were seen looting, attacking police and locals, and performing Nazi salutes in the street. As the mobs chanted ‘send them home’ and ‘Islam out,’ they also destroyed mosques, libraries, and graffitied racial slurs on homes.”
Ahead of the upcoming US presidential election and 2025 Canadian federal election, there is worry that online disinformation will pose a serious, even “unprecedented” threat, which could lead to harassment, intimidation, and even violence.
The next war
Governments are trying to extract funds from well-heeled tech platforms and struggling to keep media outlets afloat while fighting to displace misinformation and disinformation with more reliable sources of news. But track records are spotty, and the future is uncertain.
In some ways, the media funding battle is the “last war,” says Bade, and a new struggle is increasingly emerging over artificial intelligence and the “bigger threat” of content stripping.
“If media companies are going to have collective negotiation with tech companies,” Bade says, “it probably should be over that.”
The Meta logo is seen in front of a stock graph in this illustration.
Wall Street wants more from Meta
Meta is one of the biggest players in generative AI — but, while Wall Street typically loves AI chatter from companies, an episode this week showed that there are limits to this unbridled enthusiasm.
Meta posted impressive first-quarter earnings last week, but the company’s stock plunged 15% on news that it would spend $35-40 billion this year on AI-related investments alone. (That’s up from a previous estimate of $30-37 billion.) The costs were largely for AI infrastructure: data centers, graphics chips, and research and development.
Just mentioning AI has tended to goose valuations on Wall Street. Is this the first indication that’s changing, or is it Meta-specific? The company still makes most of its money from advertising on its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, and it’s made its Llama line of generative AI models (mostly) open-source, meaning anyone can access and modify the model online for free. Open-source models aren’t impossible to monetize, but for now, it seems Meta’s AI investments are meant to keep more users on its platforms. Meta flooded its apps with AI features last week, adding a chatbot experience in the Instagram search bars, the Facebook news feed, and Messenger conversations.
Meta’s AI spending has made it an unavoidable player in the space. It’s adopting a very different strategy than any other AI company — and one that investors may not value as highly.
SUQIAN, CHINA - FEBRUARY 2, 2024 - Illustration Meta plans to increase AI investment in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, China, February 2, 2024.
Meta’s AI full-court press
If you use any Meta product — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger — buck up for an onslaught of AI. The social media giant is rolling out AI-powered assistants across its apps in unavoidable ways.
Meta’s AI, quite simply, will be everywhere: in your searches, conversations with friends, and chiming to conversations on Facebook groups. It’s powered by the company’s LLaMA 3 model, and is meant to help you answer questions or complete tasks — whatever you want, really. GZERO searched for Thai food on Instagram and instantly initiated a conversation with the Meta AI chatbot. (It gave five good options nearby.)
Meta has taken an open-source approach to developing artificial intelligence, releasing its powerful model for the world to use. That’s different from rivals like OpenAI, which charge consumers and companies to use their closed-source tech.
Now, it’s putting its models to use in a bid to ensure you spend as much time on its platforms as possible. Meta’s bread and butter, as an advertising giant, is attention. If you don’t need to leave Instagram to Google something, or write something with ChatGPT, that’ll quickly mean more money for Meta.
If users aren’t so horribly annoyed or creeped out that they disengage completely, that is. 404 Media reported that Meta’s AI told a parents group on Facebook that it has a disabled-yet-gifted child before the company received complaints and removed the comments. And, for people who want to opt out entirely, it doesn’t help that currently there’s no real way to turn the AI off either.Meta AI logo is seen in this illustration taken September 28, 2023
AI labels are coming to Instagram and Facebook. Will they work?
Sir Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, announced Tuesday their platforms would begin labeling AI-generated images.
Meta is working with AI image generators like Midjourney and Shutterstock to add metadata to images that have been created by artificial intelligence, which will then automatically trigger a label when posted. Clegg framed it as a crucial safety measure and said the company would build the technology over the next year.
There are some drawbacks. First, the technology won’t work on video or audio yet, but Clegg says Meta will take down any unlabelled AI-generated clip that “creates a particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of importance.”
Second, even still images may be able to get around Meta’s detector by doing something as simple as processing it through photo editing software to generate new metadata, according to experts.
And as far as AI-generated text, Clegg says it would be pointless to try to identify and label it all. “That ship has sailed,” he told Reuters.
Facebook logo is seen through broken glass in this illustration taken, January 25, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Facebook turns 20, DeSantis’ vote cost, Eurozone inflation falls, Dark money Down Under, Paris’ Grape Escape
20: On Sunday, Facebook turns 20 years old. Take a moment to look back at the social network’s early days – when it was a platform for dorky teens playfully “poking” each other. That was before the Obama 2008 campaign demonstrated its political utility, before young Egyptians showed dictators its threat to their power in 2011, and long before the site became a dumpster fire of Boomer conspiracy theories. And as for the teens? On Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to families who had been victimized on his platforms during a Congressional hearing on online child safety.
7,169: How much does getting your vote cost? Well, if you caucused for Ron DeSantis in Iowa, it came out to about $7,169 after the once-hopeful rival to Donald Trump spent a staggering $168 million on his campaign, only to flame out and quit after he wound up 30 percentage points behind the GOP front-runner.
2.8: Inflation in the Eurozone fell to 2.8 after rising in December, but don’t get too excited about a possible rate cut from the European Central Bank. The index is still running well ahead of its 2% target, and prices for services in particular remain stubbornly high.
57 million: Nearly AU$57 million (~US$37 million) donated to Australian political parties in 2022 and 2023 was of unknown origin, according to an analysis by the Australian Electoral Commission published Thursday. The so-called “dark money” represents about a quarter of all funding to major political parties Down Under, where the identities of donors below AU$15,200 are not subject to compulsory disclosure. (~US$9988).
1.6 million: French police are investigating the theft of 83 wine bottles from one of Paris’ finest restaurants in a $1.6 million caper. The loss was noticed when the sommelier of the 442-year-old Tour d’Argent restaurant did an inventory of his 300,000 bottles and could have occurred anytime between 2020 and 2024. GZERO sends our condolences *hic* – we have no idea what happened *hic*. 🥴😬Logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix displayed on a screen.
Canada averts a Google news block, US bills in the works
The act, which is modeled on Australian legislation, led Google to threaten to de-index news from its search engine. In protest of the law, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked links to Canadian news in the country on both platforms. It’s currently holding out on a deal as Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge tries to get the company back to the bargaining table.
The Online News Act kerfuffle is a symptom of a bigger issue: the power of governments to regulate large tech firms – a fight that is playing out in Canada, the US, and around the world. California is considering a law similar to Australia's and Canada’s. The bill passed the Assembly but is now on hold in the state senate until 2024. In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sens. Mike Lee and Amy Klobuchar, introduced a similar bill in the Senate, casting it as an anti-trust, pro-competition measure. Meta has made similar threats to pull news in response to the US push to mirror the Australian and Canadian laws.
Tech giants are resisting attempts to extract funds from them to support news media, a tactic that is part of a broader strategy to oppose regulation. But the Australian and Canadian successes may encourage California, the US Congress, and other states to move forward with similar efforts. The coming months will be a test of whether governments are able – and willing – to regulate these powerful companies. All eyes should be on the progress, or not, of the California and Congressional bills along with Canada’s negotiations with Meta since these cases will help decide the future of tech regulation itself.