TikTok is introducing a fresh option that allows them to lessen the volume of AI-made media appearing in their timelines. This step comes as the service announced that it currently hosts in excess of 1 billion AI-generated clips.
Trial and Implementation
The update is undergoing trials over the coming weeks before a widespread launch. This development comes amid a increase in content created by AI, driven by emerging AI video creators.
The Broader AI Trend
Studies have shown that approximately one in 10 of the quickest rising video streams on a competing service only show content made by AI. A considerable share of this output is classified as “AI slop”, a label for substandard, factory-style content that is frequently illogical or surreal.
Based on user feedback that many people like content produced via AI tools, including computer-generated images to science explainers, and we intend to offer the community the ability to adjust the amount of that, according to their own preferences,” said a spokesperson.
AI on the Platform
The platform disclosed that there are presently 1.3bn videos on its network labeled as AI-generated. In total, more than 100 mn media items are uploaded to the platform every day, making clips made by AI a minor percentage of its total content library.
How to Adjust Settings
Members will be in a position to decrease or raise the level of AI content they view by opening the content preference feature in the application and picking the AI content topic. Other topics that currently be modified under the setting encompass news, style, aesthetics, and dance.
Platform Guidelines
TikTok’s guidelines oblige users to label lifelike AI-generated content, and it forbids dangerous deepfakes of well-known individuals or critical incidents. Any believable artificial content that is not labeled can be taken down under its terms of service.
Furthermore, the service will henceforth add an AI-generated watermark to content created with its proprietary AI systems, or detected by an industry-wide initiative for spotting artificial media. This measure is designed to stop users from attempting to bypass the tagging system.
Responsible AI Funding
TikTok is furthermore establishing a $2m awareness program for professionals and organizations to produce informative material about ethical AI use. This project will assist educational bodies specializing in teaching programming and robotics.
Moderation Strategy
The platform has supported its moderation strategy, following debate over plans to cut jobs for a large number of content moderators in the UK. It is expected to reduce hundreds of positions in its content moderation division in the UK capital, with trade unions and digital protection specialists raising concerns that humans are being replaced by AI moderation.
A trust and safety lead explained that staff-based oversight would continue to be important, but AI can protect employees by removing the most graphic content ahead of it gets reviewed by people. The platform reported a 76% decrease in explicit and harmful content seen by human moderators over the past year due to reliance on its machine learning processes.
It is vital to integrate people and machines to ensure user safety,” she said. “We’ll have people as part of that process, but we additionally believe it’s highly necessary to limit contact with unsafe media as rapidly, which is why a lot of the machine support is proving valuable work at speed.”
