Google announced on Tuesday that there are new ways for users to find out whether an image was created using generative artificial intelligence (AI). While the tech giant is working on developing internal tools to watermark AI-generated content, it also joined the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) in February as a steering committee member. After working with other industry players to develop new technical standards, the company is now integrating them into images accessible through its own devices.
Google will help users recognize AI-generated images
The risk with AI-generated images is that many digitally created and enhanced images cannot be distinguished from real images. Due to this, the problem of deepfakes has grown massively, where a realistic image generated by AI representing a person, place or event is claimed to be real in order to spread misinformation.
Google said in a blog post that in the first half of the year, it worked with other members of the alliance to develop a new version (2.1) of the technical standard called Content Credentials. It is said to be more secure against various types of tampering and has strict technical requirements. This standard is now being added to images that can be viewed using Google tools.
The tech giant said that content credentials will be integrated into images that appear on Google Images, Lens and Circle Two Search. This means that when users visit the “About this Image” section of an image, they can check the C2PA metadata to see if the image was created or edited using AI tools.
Additionally, Google stated that it intends to integrate C2PA metadata using its advertising systems. This data will guide the company’s key policies and enforcement strategies in the future. Additionally, it is also looking at ways to relay C2PA information to viewers on YouTube to help them know whether a video was captured using a camera or created digitally.
Notably, the tech giant is developing an in-house watermarking technology called SynthID for AI content. This system was created by Google DeepMind and embeds information within the pixels of the image in such a way that it remains invisible to the eye but becomes visible when examined using special equipment.
