Instagram is letting adults build their own Stories filters with artificial intelligence. The new tool, called Effect Builder, is available now to U.S. users who are over 18. It arrived shortly after Instagram expanded its Edits app to macOS.
How does Instagram's Effect Builder work?
The process starts with a prompt box. Users describe the filter they want, and the chatbot generates it. Users can attach style reference images to guide the result, then upload their own photos to preview how the effect looks. Follow-up prompts let them ask for changes.
There is also an option that lets Instagram's AI rewrite a user's prompt. The Verge tested it with a one-line request, "Make a filter that turns photos into comic book pages." The AI expanded that into several paragraphs of detailed style instructions covering color palette and lighting. The filter it produced, however, looked nearly identical to the one generated from the original sentence.
Users can submit finished filters to Instagram directly from Effect Builder. Before anyone else can use them, though, the effects must pass a safety review. Once approved, an effect appears in Instagram Stories for any user to try. Each time someone uses it, Instagram links back to the creator's profile, a feature the company says makes it easier for others to find that person's work.
Meta widens age detection to teen accounts
Meta is also pushing its AI age-estimation technology further across its platforms. The company is expanding the systems globally to identify Instagram users who may be younger than they claim and move them into teen accounts. So far, the tech has been used in the United States, the European Union and Brazil.
How does Meta's AI age detection place users in teen accounts?
If the systems determine a user is between 13 and 17, that person is placed into a teen account. This happens even when the user entered an adult date of birth during sign-up.
What protections do Instagram teen accounts include?
Teen accounts come with stricter default protections. Strangers cannot message teens, and profiles and posts are set to private. Daily app time limits apply, and parents can use parental controls. Meta says it will soon begin sending parents in the United States a notification on Instagram that explains how their teen was placed into one of these accounts.
Meta has previously described the signals it uses to estimate age. These include analysis of the bone structure in photos, as well as references users make to things like school grades or birthday celebrations. In Australia, the company has started using Apple's age-range system as an additional signal. Meta has long pushed for legislation that would make app stores responsible for verifying users' ages.
The expansion will not stop at Instagram. Meta plans to bring its AI age-estimation tools to Facebook as well, and to Threads later this year.
The push follows a lawsuit that accused Meta of harming young users. In August, the company agreed to a settlement with 52 attorneys general under which it may have to pay as much as $18 billion. As part of that settlement, Meta said it is "investing in even stronger technology to proactively catch accounts that may belong to children under 13" and to detect accounts belonging to 13- to 17-year-olds.
This article was written with the assistance of AI.
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