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China will enforce clear flagging of all AI generated content starting from September
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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rare chinese government w
yeah, if im going to live in a hypercapitalist shit hole where the internet is rabidly censored and there are no environmental protections, I'd rather have watermarks on the AI slop than nazis everywhere.
Not really rare these days when you compare them to America
For all the humans rights abuses, one has to admit that China is at least ruthlessly efficient.
Not really. Sure, China is able to make unpopular decisions better then democracies, but that makes them inefficient in different directions. E.g. high speed rail in areas where it is not needed but greatly lacking freight trains. Or their housing bubble.
China no doubt has it's problems. It's just crazy to think how fast the country has progressed in the last 50 years.
Anyone's praising this doesn't understand that this request is basically impossible and is merely posturing.
I'm a developer and I work a lot with LLM data and the only way to detect LLM text is through watermarks where some words or expressions are statistically preferred over others. This means it's only effective on large bodies of text that are not modified further.
If you take LLM content and remix it using traditional natural language processing then it's done - the content is indistinguishable and untraceable and it takes like 50 lines of python code and a few milliseconds of computing.
A government policy isn’t just posturing because the state now has a rule to cite if they’re gonna issue you a fine or whatever the punishment is supposed to be. So you will either comply, or go underground or abroad. That’s a real consequence.
So it's just another way for authoritarians to exert power over people then?
The only way to address AI is through low level laws we already have like anti-discrimination, defamation, online bullying etc. But those give people more rights and protections and you can't have that.
I would love to delve into this a little more.
It's impossible because the text these LLM-based models produce would be obtuse to watermark.
Huh?
What about photos and video and audio?! Why are you asking?
What about photos, videos and audio? You should see what the second L means in the LLM before you go at it
Too late now, pal. You've all poisoned the well and now you have to drink it too.
I suggest the shit emjoi being used as the indicator.
Meanwhile best we can do in America is hide tracking dots in every color printer.
...I'm...
In full agreement with this*
*with the provision that there are ways to ensure this isn't weaponized so that dissident or oppositional speech/photos/art isn't flagged as AI so that it can be filtered out.
Or propaganda that doesn’t have it is taken as legitimate.
That doesn't change anything though.
It doesn't matter whether this is used against dissidents or not. Their speech is censured either way. It shouldn't affect the much larger positive effect this will have on the majority of people.
This does provide another tool for them to claim it isn't censored but label it as AI to hurt the credibility of dissidents though. I don't think it doesn't matter.
So in short you disagree which is reasonable given the circumstances.
Besides, wouldn‘t it make much more sense to verify and mark genuine content rather than the slob which is becoming the majority of content?
I like that approach better. Just like I'd rather know what doesn't cause cancer in the state of California at this point.
When the dirty commies do the reforms we all know we need in our countries...
We're so fucked. ⚰️
As a dirty commie: you’ll get over it someday.
They don't want to pollute their training data.
Honestly?
Good. I assume this is more about controlling narratives but it's something that should be happening no matter what side of the AI debate you're on.
Not a bad law if applied to companies and public figures. Complete wishful thinking if applied to individuals.
For companies it's actually enforceable but for individuals it's basically impossible and even if you do catch someone uploading AI-generated stuff: Who cares. It's the intent that matters when it comes to individuals.
Were they trying to besmirch someone's reputation by uploading false images of that person in compromising situations? That's clear bad intent.
Were they trying to incite a riot or intentionally spreading disinformation? Again, clear bad intent.
Were they showing off something cool they made with AI generation? It is of no consequence and should be treated as such.
Would applying a watermark to all the training images force the AI to add a watermark?
Nope. In fact, if you generate a lot of images with AI you'll sometimes notice something resembling a watermark in the output. Demonstrating that the images used to train the model did indeed have watermarks.
Removing such imaginary watermarks is trivial in image2image tools though (it's just a quick extra step after generation).
I agree that it's difficult to enforce such a requirement on individuals. That said, I don't agree that nobody cares for the content they post. If they have "something cool they made with AI generation" - then it's not a big deal to have to mark it as AI-generated.
Notice: Those are not my girlfriend's boobs. I used Photoshop with an AI plug in to make them look fuller.
No thanks mate. Government and anyone selling anything should be held to those standards. If you are an influencer pushing a product for profit that applies to you too.
Why stop at "AI-generated"? Why not have the individual post their entire workflow, showing which model they used, the prompt, and any follow-up editing or post-processing they did to the image?
In the 90s we went through this same shit with legislators trying to ban photoshopped images (hah: They still try this from time to time). Then there were attempts at legislating mandatory watermarks and similar concepts. It's all the same concept: New technology scary, regulate and restrict it.
In a few years AI-generated content will be as common as photoshopped images and no one will bat an eye because it'll "just be normal". A photographer might take a picture of a model (or a number of them) for a cover or something then they'll use AI to change the image after. Or they'll use AI to generate an image from scratch and then have models try to copy it. Or they'll just use AI to change small details in the image such as improving lighting conditions or changing eye color.
AI is very rapidly becoming just another tool in photo/video editing and soon it will be just another tool in document writing and audio recording/music creation.
This really underscores the need for complete reform of the entire media apparatus....
In a few years AI-generated content will be as common as photoshopped images and no one will bat an eye because it’ll “just be normal”.
We're already there you just aren't noticing them because they've progressed beyond the Six Fingers / Halo Ring in the eyes level of believability.
My favorite genre of comment section is when every other post is talking about how someone/thing the poster doesn't like does something they think is good but they gotta reassure everyone that it'll still be bad.
Yeah, he saved the kitten from the tree, But at what cost? 😔
