Facebook's Meta logo sign is seen at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. on Oct. 28, 2021. Dec. 8, 2022, in San Jose, California. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)
Facebook and Instagram users will start seeing labels on AI-generated images that appear on their social media feeds, part of a broader tech industry initiative to sort between what’s real and not.
Meta said Tuesday it's working with industry partners on technical standards that will make it easier to identify images and eventually video and audio generated by artificial intelligence tools.
What remains to be seen is how well it will work at a time when it's easier than ever to make and distribute AI-generated imagery that can cause harm — from election misinformation to nonconsensual fake nudes of celebrities.
“It's kind of a signal that they’re taking seriously the fact that generation of fake content online is an issue for their platforms,” said Gili Vidan, an assistant professor of information science at Cornell University. It could be “quite effective” in flagging a large portion of AI-generated content made with commercial tools, but it won't likely catch everything, she said.
Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, didn’t specify Tuesday when the labels would appear but said it will be “in the coming months” and in different languages, noting that a “number of important elections are taking place around the world.”
“As the difference between human and synthetic content gets blurred, people want to know where the boundary lies,” he said in a blog post.
Meta already puts an “Imagined with AI” label on photorealistic images made by its own tool, but most of the AI-generated content flooding its social media services comes from elsewhere.
A number of tech industry collaborations, including the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative, have been working to set standards. A push for digital watermarking and labeling of AI-generated content was also part of an executive order that U.S. President Joe Biden signed in October.
Clegg said that Meta will be working to label “images from Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock as they implement their plans for adding metadata to images created by their tools.”
Google said last year that AI labels are coming to YouTube and its other platforms.
"In the coming months, we’ll introduce labels that inform viewers when the realistic content they’re seeing is synthetic,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan reiterated in a year-ahead blog post Tuesday.
One potential concern for consumers is if tech platforms get more effective at identifying AI-generated content from a set of major commercial providers but miss what's made with other tools, creating a false sense of security.
“There’s a lot that would hinge on how this is communicated by platforms to users,” said Cornell's Vidan. “What does this mark mean? With how much confidence should I take it? What is its absence supposed to tell me?”
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
