TikTok to tell on your AI content if you forget to brand it as AI-generated

TikTok is now on a mission to help users distinguish between reality and computer-generated fantasy after the ByteDance app spoiled content creators with AI filters in the first place. TikTok wants you to confess and inform your followers if you’ve used AI in your viral 30-second video. And, if you for some reason forget to do so, the app will do it for you.

The famous (and in a growing number of states – infamous) app is now launching a new tool to help creators label their AI-generated content (via Engadget). It should be rolled out as soon as this week and according to TikTok, the change will serve two purposes: “to empower creativity” and to give people an “important context about content they're viewing”.

In other words, viewers have to be informed that what they’re seeing is AI-generated. According to TikTok, such content “can potentially confuse or mislead viewers if they're not aware content was generated or edited with AI”. The new AI warning label should be used when the content is significantly altered or modified by AI technology.

You can expect TikTok’s AI effects to be renamed and to explicitly include "AI" in their name and corresponding effects label so that everybody knows what you’ve been using.

This will also make it easier to comply with TikTok’s Community Guidelines' synthetic media policy, which was introduced earlier this year. That’s the policy that makes AI labeling not exactly optional because it requires creators to label their content as AI-generated if it contains realistic images, audio or video.

The new tool is not the only way to make the announcement – there are other types of disclosures, like a sticker or caption. But if they were used often enough in the first place, maybe there wouldn’t be a need for the release of this new tool.

If you somehow forget to disclose the AI usage in your short video, TikTok is making sure that you don’t escape the labeling machine. The ByteDance-owned app is developing its own algorithm that will scan and label any AI-generated content on the platform. So, if you happen to record a truly outstanding out-of-this-world video, don’t be surprised if it’s labeled as AI. Cut the algorithm some slack…