Meta Platforms could penalize users who fail to label AI-generated audio and visual content posted on its platforms, its top policy executive said on Tuesday.
The comments were made by Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, during an interview with Reuters.
Clegg said he felt confident that technology companies could label AI-generated images reliably at this point, but said tools to mark audio and video content were more complicated and still being developed.
“Even though the technology is not yet fully mature, particularly when it comes to audio and video, the hope is that we can create a sense of momentum and incentive for the rest of the industry to follow,” Clegg said.
In the interim, Meta would start requiring people to label their own altered audio and video content, and could apply penalties if they failed to do so, Clegg added. He did not describe the penalties.
CBC News has reached out to Meta for more information.
Meta will label AI-generated images on its platforms
This photo, taken in New York, Thursday, July 6, 2023, shows Meta’s new app Threads. Meta will apply labels to AI-generated images posted to its Facebook, Instagram and Threads services, in an effort to signal to users that the images — which in many cases resemble real photos — are actually digital creations. (Richard Drew/The Associated Press)
The comments came following Clegg’s announcement in a blog post that Meta would begin detecting and labelling images generated by other companies’ artificial intelligence services in the coming months, using a set of invisible markers built into the files.
Meta will apply the labels to any content carrying the markers posted to its Facebook, Instagram and Threads services, in an effort to signal to users that the images — which in many cases resemble real photos — are actually digital creations.
The company already labels any content that was generated using its own AI tools. Once the new system is up and running, Meta will do the same for images created on services run by OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, Shutterstock and Alphabet’s Google, Clegg said.
He added during the interview that there was currently no viable mechanism to label written text generated by AI tools like ChatGPT, saying, “that ship has sailed.”
A Meta spokesperson declined to tell Reuters whether the company would apply labels to generative AI content shared on its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp.
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The announcement provides an early glimpse into an emerging system of standards technology companies are developing to mitigate the potential harms associated with generative AI technologies, which can spit out fake but realistic-seeming content in response to simple prompts.
The approach builds off a template established over the past decade by some of the same companies to co-ordinate the removal of banned content across platforms, including depictions of mass violence and child exploitation.
Meta’s independent oversight board on Monday rebuked the company’s policy on misleadingly doctored videos, saying it was too narrow and that the content should be labelled rather than removed. Clegg said he broadly agreed with those critiques.
The board was right, he said, that Meta’s existing policy “is just simply not fit for purpose in an environment where you’re going to have way more synthetic content and hybrid content than before.”
He cited the new labelling partnership as evidence that Meta was already moving in the direction the board had proposed.
TORONTO – Cineplex Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year ago as it was hit by a fine for deceptive marketing practices imposed by the Competition Tribunal.
The movie theatre company says it lost $24.7 million or 39 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $29.7 million or 40 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The results in the most recent quarter included a $39.2-million provision related to the Competition Tribunal decision, which Cineplex is appealing.
The Competition Bureau accused the company of misleading theatregoers by not immediately presenting them with the full price of a movie ticket when they purchased seats online, a view the company has rejected.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $395.6 million, down from $414.5 million in the same quarter last year, while theatre attendance totalled 13.3 million for the quarter compared with nearly 15.7 million a year earlier.
Box office revenue per patron in the quarter climbed to $13.19 compared with $12 in the same quarter last year, while concession revenue per patron amounted to $9.85, up from $8.44 a year ago.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
