TikTok will label AI-generated images and videos from OpenAI and other sources – 05/09/2024, 2:00 pm.

((Automatic translation by Reuters, see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto)) by Stephen Nellis

TikTok announced Thursday that it will begin using the technology to label images and videos created by artificial intelligence and uploaded to the video-sharing service.

TikTok said it would accept “Content Credentials,” a digital watermark that indicates how images were created and edited. Content Credential technology was first developed by Adobe ADBE.O, but it is open to use by other companies and has already been adopted by companies such as OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

Researchers have expressed concern that AI-generated content could be used as disinformation to try to interfere with the US elections this fall. TikTok was already part of a group of 20 tech companies that signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to combat the phenomenon.

YouTube, owned by Alphabet GOOGL.O Google, and Meta Platforms META.O, which owns Instagram and Facebook, also said they plan to use content certificates.

For the system to work, the manufacturer of the generative AI tool used to create the content and the platform used to distribute the content must agree to use an industry standard.

For example, if someone uses OpenAI’s Dall-E tool to create an image, OpenAI attaches a watermark to the resulting image. If this tagged image is subsequently uploaded to TikTok, it will automatically be tagged as AI-generated.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has 170 million users in the US, where a law was recently passed requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban. TikTok and ByteDance sued to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment.

TikTok already places a label on content created by AI using the app’s internal tools, but this new measure will allow the label to be placed on content created outside the service.

“We also have a policy that prohibits realistic AI that is not labeled, so if realistic AI-generated content appears on the platform, we will remove it as it violates our community guidelines,” said Adam Presser, Head of Operations , trust and safety in the company. Tik Tok, in an interview.