With the progress of generative AI technologies, synthetic media is getting more realistic. Some of these outputs can still be recognized as AI-altered or AI-generated, but the quality we see today represents the lowest level of verisimilitude we can expect from these technologies moving forward.

 

We work for WITNESS, an organization that is addressing how transparency in AI production can help mitigate the increasing confusion and lack of trust in the information environment. However, disclosure techniques such as visible and invisible watermarking, digital fingerprinting, labelling, and embedded metadata still need more refinement to address at least issues with their resilience, interoperability, and adoption. WITNESS has also done extensive work about the socio-technical aspects of provenance and authenticity approaches that can help people identify real content. See, for instance, this report or these articles here and here.