Meta's New AI Model SAM Will Let Select Individual Objects From Within Image

Meta has teased several features that deploy the type of generative AI popularized by ChatGPT, which creates brand new content.

By Reuters | Updated: 5 April 2023 19:03 IST

Meta's New AI Model SAM Will Let Select Individual Objects From Within Image

Meta does already use technology similar to SAM internally for activities like tagging photos

Highlights

Big tech companies have been trumpeting their AI breakthroughs
Using SAM, objects can be selected by clicking them, writing text prompts
SAM dataset will be available for download under a non-commercial license

Facebook-owner Meta published an artificial intelligence model on Wednesday that can pick out individual objects from within an image, along with a dataset of image annotations that it said was the largest ever of its kind.

The company's research division said in a blog post that its Segment Anything Model, or SAM, could identify objects in images and videos even in cases where it had not encountered those items in its training.

Using SAM, objects can be selected by clicking on them or writing text prompts. In one demonstration, writing the word "cat" prompted the tool to draw boxes around each of several cats in a photo.

Big tech companies have been trumpeting their artificial intelligence breakthroughs since Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot became a sensation in the fall, triggering a wave of investments and a race to dominate the space.

Meta has teased several features that deploy the type of generative AI popularized by ChatGPT, which creates brand new content instead of simply identifying or categorizing data like other AI, although it has not yet released a product.

Examples include a tool that spins up surrealist videos from text prompts and another that generates children's book illustrations from prose.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said that incorporating such generative AI "creative aids" into Meta's apps is a priority this year.

Meta does already use technology similar to SAM internally for activities like tagging photos, moderating prohibited content and determining which posts to recommend to users of Facebook and Instagram.

The company said SAM's release would broaden access to that type of technology.

The SAM model and dataset will be available for download under a non-commercial license. Users uploading their own images to an accompanying prototype likewise must agree to use it only for research purposes.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Realme might not want the Mini Capsule to be the defining feature of the Realme C55, but will it end up being one of the phone's most talked-about hardware specifications? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.