Meta releases AI model 'SAM,' can identify items within photographs

Facebook parent Meta released an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can pick out the different items within the photographs, Fox News reported.

Meta's research division said that it has published a Segment Anything Model (SAM) and the corresponding dataset to foster research into foundation models for computer vision.

In its statement, Meta said that SAM can identify the objects within images and videos - even in cases where it had not encountered those items in its training.

"The model is designed and trained to be prompt, so it can transfer zero-shot to new image distributions and tasks," Meta said in a blog post.

"We evaluate its capabilities on numerous tasks and find that its zero-shot performance is impressive - often competitive with or even superior to prior fully supervised results," it added.

By using SAM, the 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, according to Fox News.

Meta already uses 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 images to an accompanying prototype likewise must agree to use it only for research purposes.

AI has burst to the forefront of the national and global conversation in recent months after the release of the popular ChatGPT A.I. chatbot, which helped spark a race among tech giants to unveil similar tools, Fox news reported.