The reasonable solution to this is to legally require every single image and video (or at least those used in commercial / charitable / public sector / journalistic settings) to be marked with a flag indicating the level of amendment. If it’s untouched apart from cropping / colour grading etc no mark needed. If it’s had some touch-up work require that to be flagged at minimum in the image metadata. And if large chunks or all of it has been imagined by an AI, require a visible watermark along with metadata tagging.
Yes, this would require government regulation. That’s a good thing here, and is what regulation should be used for: requiring the things that the market won’t adjust for.
Unfortunately for you, "the government" is not an almighty and all-seeing god, even though hackers worship the government in such a way.
Thus those regulations and solutions you are calling for are simply impossible and it won't matter how much money and prayers you send to the government. It won't change reality.
It's become a trope of HN that the first, second or third top-level comment for any and every subject will be somebody calling for government regulations.
In this case, it's calling for government regulations to make sure that people do not lie. Good luck with that, I say. Those are regulations which will be guaranteed to be imperfectly written and imperfectly enforced, and smart people - like the commenter I replied to - should understand that.
Unless you are of the faith that "the government" is an almighty and all-seeing god, which to be fair is what many people think and why government worship is the largest religion on the planet right now. Both in devotion of the believers, in tithes paid, and in willingness to kill for and die for the faith.
What will happen in reality if the government regulates picture veracity like suggested is this:
- Any pictures (real or manipulated or generated) which are in line with government policies and ideology will be marked as 100% true, real and verified.
- All pictures (real or manipulated or generated) which go against government policies and ideology will be marked as 100% fake and lies.
How does that help though, if a charity uses an entirely raw unedited photo that is still totally fabricated or misleading?
I think that’s the real problem - it’s not really any better if a charity uses a paid actor on a set, or finds the absolute poorest person in the worst street in the country and uses their photos as if they’re representative of an entire country for the purpose of soliciting donations. If the AI pictures were actually representative of the situation then I wouldn’t think it’s all that bad.
This is already the law in France. It was mostly originally intended to combat unrealistic e.g. beauty standards in ads, to make it clear that this is not what a human looks naturally, but it was edited. However the law predates widespread use of AI images everywhere, and I'm not sure that it applies the way it is written.
Yes, this would require government regulation. That’s a good thing here, and is what regulation should be used for: requiring the things that the market won’t adjust for.