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.
“This is going to be a work in progress that’s always going to be a game of essentially cat and mouse, but it’s a start,” said Ritesh Kotak, a Toronto-based cybersecurity and technology analyst.
He cautioned that, just as Meta’s own technology for detecting and labelling AI-generated imagery improves, so too will an AI tool’s ability to deceive detection technology.
As for what kind of penalty users might be subject to, Kotak said it might entail being suspended or removed from the platform. That could lead to broader repercussions, he added.
“If you’re unable to access your account, if you’re unable to leverage the platform in itself, [that] might have additional repercussions such as economic loss if you’re using your account to generate money,” he said.
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.
Can you spot the deepfake? How AI is threatening elections
AI-generated fake videos are being used for scams and internet gags, but what happens when they’re created to interfere in elections? CBC’s Catharine Tunney breaks down how the technology can be weaponized and looks at whether Canada is ready for a deepfake election.
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.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
