Chinese video-sharing app TikTok says it will begin labelling images and video uploaded to its service that have been created using artificial intelligence.
TikTok said it will use a digital watermark known as Content Credentials, technology spearheaded by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, a group co-founded by Adobe, Microsoft and others. It has already been adopted by the likes of ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
YouTube, owned by Alphabet’s Google, and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram and Facebook, have also said they plan to use Content Credentials.
Researchers have expressed concern that AI-generated content could be used to interfere with US elections this fall, and TikTok was already among a group of 20 tech companies that earlier this year signed an accord pledging to fight it.
The company already labels AI-generated content made with tools inside the app, but the latest move would apply a label to videos and images generated outside of the service.
Also on AF: Biden: Foxconn, Trump’s US Factory ‘Was Just a Con’ – ABC
“We also have policies that prohibit realistic AI that is not labeled, so if realistic AI-[generated content] appears on the platform, then we will remove it as violating our community guidelines,” Adam Presser, head of operations and trust and safety at TikTok, said in an interview.
For the system to work, both the maker of the generative AI tool used to make content and the platform used to distribute the contents must both agree to use the industry standard.
When a person uses OpenAI’s Dall-E tool to generate an image, for example, OpenAI attaches a watermark to the resulting image and adds data to the file that can later indicate whether it has been tampered with.
If that marked image is then uploaded to TikTok, it will be automatically labeled as AI-generated.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, has 170 million users in the US, which recently passed a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban. TikTok and ByteDance have sued to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
Read more:
TikTok, Bytedance File Legal Challenge Against Divestment Law
TikTok Allowing Manipulated Videos of Biden, Media Monitor Says
TikTok Employees Faced Questioning at US Borders – Forbes
TikTok Seen as Chinese Influence Tool by Most in US, Poll Finds
China Warns US Not to Implement Taiwan Aid, TikTok Sale
