China’s Witty Strategy to Make AI Watermarks a Reality
“China’s Plan to Make AI Watermarks Happen”
“To thwart deepfakes, researchers propose AI that places a digital watermark on videos and images when they are created. Any subsequent changes would alter the watermark, revealing the media had been tampered with.”
Breaking news: China hoping to pull a Houdini with deepfakes! They’re proposing that AI (Artificial Intelligence) puts a digital watermark on videos and images as they’re created. If anyone dares to play around and tamper with the media, the watermark changes. Voila! Caught red-handed. So simple, it’s almost laughable.
Of course, the tricky part will be getting all AI developers to play along. Not forgetting, the numerous platforms that would need to support these watermarked creations. A daunting task and an optimism level that borders on the naïve. Are we expected to believe that every developer and platform head honcho will just nod their heads and say, “Sure, why didn’t we think of that?”
Researchers behind this brainwave believe the watermarking technique could help verify the authenticity of everything from viral memes to political speeches. Watch out, altered, misleading, or misrepresented content, there is now nowhere to hide… allegedly. Seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nutshell, don’t you think?
Not to be unkind, but watermarking isn’t exactly a new kid on the block, having been used for years to protect intellectual property rights – with middling success. Plus, wouldn’t the watermarks have to be visible for this plan to work? This could result in having random patterns all over your favorite media channels – not exactly an Instagrammable moment.
In an ideal world where all tech cooperates and works in harmony, the proposal might just be the answer. But (there’s always a but), if the human ingenuity that brought us deepfakes in the first place is anything to go by, it’s not unlikely that somebody will figure out a way around this ‘unbeatable’ system quicker than you can say ‘AI’.
Oh well, at least A for effort and bonus points for optimism. Better luck next time, team.