Companies must ensure people know when they are interacting with artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look real
EU is bi-polar. Making some of the best regulations (GDPR, AI Act…) and then suddenly fucking people over with stuff like Chat Control.
Chat control was US big techs baby. They wanted to keep scanning peoples messages but GDPR messes with that so they’ve been trying to get Brussels to give them an exception forever. The “CSAM” angle is just plausible deniability
Hmm, I also hate US Big Tech, but do you have any source for your claims?
Yes. There was a lot of questionable links and donations uncovered between the politicians and US firms. Even after the temporary law expired in April they continued to scan illegally . I also recall reading an article about how Zuckerberg met directly with members of the EU Parliament before it was passed by default but can’t find that article at the moment.
Thanks for sharing. I keep underestimating the evil intent of these companies…
The EU is a collection of different states with different values and priorities, any of which can propose legislation or recommendations. Many of the states and parties disagree with each other on diverse issues.
Y’know, like a democracy.
Chat control is a divisive idea and one that has never had majority support.
This isn’t America where the gob-king just says “tarifs are 200% now!!” and people act like it’s true.
Chat control never had majority support, indeed. Still, Chat Control Light is in effect right now. Not making the EU looks very democratic.
The US is in a unique situation in which the President has tossed all illusions of regularity out the window, and checks from Congress and SCOTUS have been completely nullified. (Though Congress is shifting as Trump is making Republicans unelectable.) The federal government has been literally captured by corporate and oligarch interests.
Before Trump, the US was not a democracy – not really – but it pretended to be one, and did so convincingly for a large enough number of voters that little was done to assure rights were preserved. (For the record, a report from Oxford quantifies the US as behaving like an oligarchy with some democratic features.)
And after the 9/11 attacks and during the International War on Terror, a lot of rights were quietly stripped away, since everyone was afraid of foreign Islamist extremist terrorists… completely ignoring the radical far-right home-grown terrorists we have. The FBI’s disinterest in white supremacists through the George W. Bush and Obama eras is conspicuous.
Most people don’t realize the Bill of Rights has been gutted until they’re on the business end of a police encounter. And by then it’s too late.
Anyway, depending on the results and aftermath of the midterm elections this November, the US might pull back towards democracy the way it has at prior points in its history, or go full Third Reich.
It depends on how pissed we are without food and healthcare and an ongoing war that’s being poorly conducted. But maybe the big propaganda machine will keep us wanting to own the libs and hate on trans folk (and concentrating and torturing immigrants) for a while longer.
This kind of regulation needs to be enforced with bounties and fines.
AI slop can be made realistically enough to deceive, and there should be increasing sentences if willful intent to deceive is proven in court.
I do wonder if they plan to draw a line somewhere in “how AI” the image needs to be. Like, if it’s a raw photo, that’s fine. If it’s enhanced by filters or something, probably not AI fair to say.
But what about the, like, magic eraser and infilling? If I use a tool to erase a bunch of people from a bridge and draw new parts of bridge that weren’t in the original photo… is that AI?
If I use AI to pull a mask and cut someone out from the background, and then put them overtop of a stock background, that uses AI to do work I could have done by hand. Probably fine. But what if I use AI to paint a new background that didn’t exist before this photo. Is that AI?
If I take a picture of me in a real place, doing a real thing, and then use AI infill to paint a different face onto my face so it’s not me anymore, but the rest of the photo including my body is real, is it AI because that person doesn’t exist?
I would say most of those materially alter the content of the picture. Something like filters or ordinary lighting settings alter how the picture appears, but don’t alter its content.
Plan? Id be surprisrd if UK lawmakers barely undetstand what a digital image even is
I think the line is are you enhancing the image or enhancing the truth?
I’d be okay if there were a running list of disclaimer boilerplates:
~ Generated with AI
~ Altered with AI
~ Edited with AI
~ Cleaned with AI
~ Fixed [with non-AI image editing software]I can’t see any meaningful distinction between altered, edited, and cleaned.
Generated: Produced entirely from prompts and LORAs
Altered: Changed significantly so that the spirit of the moment represented is starkly different from the original
Edited: Changed while mostly preserving the essence of the moment represented.
Cleaned: Making minor alterations such as removing obstructions, correcting colors or illuminating detailsAnd then, for completion, another boilerplate would be used in official images that have been shopped (or GIMPed or otherwise altered with image-editing software.)
not so sure about that. fediverse servers could end up fined for not applying these labels
I have a feeling that this will backfire. There will obviously still be a lot of unlabeled AI content made in/by foreign nations and local models, and since AI content is supposed to be labeled, people will be less cautious and more easily fooled by it.
It’s nice to see what semi-competent adults running a region can accomplish…
glares at a giant whiny baby of a country rolling in its own shit
The rules will not apply to users’ personal content
So… easy workaround then? It’s just my personal content bro, not at all paid for by the state/business interests
This is tautologous, if a label is needed to differentiate AI generated imagery how do you identify unlabelled generated images to enforce the rule.
The same way you detect any other fraud. It can range from analysis to whistleblowers. The point is not even to catch all fraud, it’s to catch it often enough that most people and companies will not attempt it.
There are analysis techniques that can determine if AI generated an image. They aren’t certain, but the can provide a % degree of confidence.
The problem is that AI will get better at avoiding this (even if it’s not being designed to specifically), and AI “ enhancement” also leaves similar artifacts (things like clearing up sensor-tearing or compression artifacts; iOS does a bunch of this and I think Android too)
Detection will always be an arms race; the real problem is how to we verify those techniques? How do we determine that government witnesses are testifying to verifiable methods? If we cannot do that then everything falls apart, from responsible disclosure in news articles to trials in a court of law.
As often, it’s more of a liability thing than anything else.
They will do what happened in California. They will label everything so it doesn’t have the intended affect anymore.
It reminds me of backup beepers on construction vehicles. Ever work on a busy construction site? It is nonstop beeping from every direction. Your brain eventually blocks it out.
