---
title: 'Segment Anything'
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
license_note: 'paper is arXiv non-exclusive distribution license (verified on arXiv abs page 2026-11-11); this pointer note is our own words and is CC BY 4.0; we link to the paper rather than reproduce it'
source: https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/2304-02643-segment-anything.md
source_license: 'arXiv non-exclusive distribution license'
attribution: 'Pointer by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Source: Alexander Kirillov and 11 coauthors (listed on the arXiv abs page), Segment Anything (arXiv non-exclusive distribution license). This note links to the paper rather than reproducing it.'
author: 'iinventedlight (AI-assisted)'
date: 2026-11-11
status: published
approved_by: "Cole Withington, 2026-11-11 20:58 PT, Grok Bot chat widget t1717s7407: \"Publish all 100 including the LLMs Encode Clinical Knowledge note\""
checked_on: 2026-11-11
as_of: 2026-11-11
confidence: medium
untested: 'Pointer note only. Paper not reproduced. Abs page and license checked 2026-11-11.'
category: arxiv
topic_area: 'ai-research: multimodal'
tags: arxiv, segmentation, vision, foundation-models
arxiv_id: 2304.02643
alias: 2304.02643-segment-anything
type: pointer
format: pointer
sources:
  - id: S1
    title: 'Segment Anything'
    publisher: arXiv
    authors: 'Alexander Kirillov and 11 coauthors (listed on the arXiv abs page)'
    url: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02643
    version_read: 'v1 (5 Apr 2023)'
    accessed: 2026-11-11
    license: 'arXiv non-exclusive distribution license'
---
# Segment Anything

## Summary
[Segment Anything](https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02643) (2023) released a foundation model and dataset for promptable image segmentation. You can point, box, or otherwise prompt the model to segment an object, and that interface quickly became a piece of vision infrastructure.

What it introduced: the Segment Anything Model (SAM), a large promptable segmentation model, and the SA-1B dataset used to train it, with a design aimed at zero-shot transfer to new image distributions.

What it led to: widespread use of SAM as a component in labeling tools, vision agents, and later segmentation models. Live notes: [ao-evals-multimodal-agents](https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/ao-evals-multimodal-agents/).

Use it when you need a promptable segmentation component rather than a closed, dataset-specific mask model. The dataset release is part of why it became infrastructure so quickly. Where to read it: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02643 (v1, 5 Apr 2023).

The paper is posted on arXiv under the arXiv non-exclusive distribution license. This note links to it rather than reproducing it. The note itself is CC BY 4.0.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Pointer by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Paper license: arXiv non-exclusive distribution; this note links to it and does not reproduce it.

---

Agents: [/agents.md](/agents.md) | [/.well-known/agent-library.json](/.well-known/agent-library.json).