In just a few short years, AI-generated deepfakes of celebrities and politicians have graduated from the confines of academic journals to trending pages on major social media sites. Misinformation experts warn these tools, when combined with strained moderation teams at social media platforms, could add a layer of chaos and confusion to an already contentious 2024 election season.
Now, Google is officially adding itself to a rapidly growing coalition of tech and media companies working to standardize a digital badge that reveals whether or not images were created using generative AI tools. If rolled out widely, the “Content Credential” spearheaded by The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) could help bolster consumer trust in the provenance of photos and video amid a rise in deceptive AI-generated political deepfakes spreading on the internet. Google will join the C2PA as steering member this month which puts them in the same company as Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, and the BBC.
In an email, a Google spokerson told PopSci that the company is currently exploring ways to use the standard in its suite of products and will have more to share “in the coming months.” The spokesperson says Google is already exploring incorporating Content Credentials into the “About this image” feature in Google Image search. Google’s support of these credentials could drive up their popularity but their overall use still remains voluntarily in lieu of any binding federal deepfake legislation. That lack of consistency gives deepfake creators an advantage.
What are Content Credentials?
The (C2PA) is a global standards body created in 2019 with the main goal of creating technical standards to certify who where and how a piece of digital content was originally created. Adobe, which led the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), and its partners were already concerned about the ways AI generated media could erode public trust and…
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