Meta lures users into training AI by giving them a discount
Teaching AI to be AI.
Meta AI. Image by Regi Cris | Shutterstock
- Meta offers discounted Muse Spark access to users who let it use their AI interactions for model training.
- The contributor tier charges 10 cents per million input tokens, versus $1.25 on the standard tier.
- Meta paused a separate employee tracking program after a leak may have exposed private workplace data.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Meta promises lower token costs for users who help train new AI models.
Meta found a way to lure users into sharing how they communicate with AI, helping the company train new models.
While users have the right to opt out of having their interactions used to train AI, Meta is now offering a discount to those who choose not to.
The company is offering a discounted use of its Muse Spark model.
While the standard tier pricing is $1.25 for 1 million input tokens, the contributor tier costs 10 cents.
The standard price for output tokens is $4.25, while the discounted tier offers them for 20 cents.
This gives Meta an opportunity to obtain original data for training AI, an issue other AI companies face, too.
The new initiative comes after Meta had to pause tracking its employees' digital activity and keystrokes for AI training.
The Model Capability Initiative (MCI) program, created to train Meta’s AI models, was suspended in June 2026 after an internal leak that may have revealed employees’ private conversations, performance metrics, and meeting transcripts.
The company installed this tracking system in April, which would run on work-related applications and websites and take screenshots of content employees were working on.
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The aim was to use the collected data to improve AI models, so they would interact with computers similarly to how humans do.
These are only a few examples of how companies are trying to find unique data to train and upgrade their models.
It was previously reported that Amazon is after rare books after an AirTag was hidden in the company’s book order.
The books ended up at Amazon’s AI training facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they were reportedly disassembled for scanning.
While it seems that the company is on a mission to digitize large print collections, many worry that Amazon is simply destroying rare books.
