Rules that require all AI-generated content to be watermarked are unattainable to implement, and it’s also highly possible that watermarks could find yourself doing the alternative of what they’re presupposed to do, Leufer says. For one thing, in open-source systems, watermarking and provenance techniques will be removed by bad actors. It is because everyone has access to the model’s source code, so specific users can simply remove any techniques they don’t want.

If only the most important firms or hottest proprietary platforms offer watermarks on their AI-generated content, then the absence of a watermark could come to suggest that content isn’t AI generated, says Leufer. 

“Enforcing watermarking on all of the content that you may implement it on would actually lend credibility to essentially the most harmful stuff that’s coming from the systems that we will’t intervene in,” he says. 

I asked Leufer if there are any promising approaches he sees on the market that give him hope. He paused to think and at last suggested the larger picture. Deepfakes are only one other symptom of the issues we now have had with information and disinformation on social media, he said: “This could possibly be the thing that suggestions the scales to essentially do something about regulating these platforms and drives a push to essentially allow for public understanding and transparency.” 

Deeper Learning

Watch this robot because it learns to stitch up wounds

An AI-trained surgical robot that could make just a few stitches by itself is a small step toward systems that may aid surgeons with such repetitive tasks. A video taken by researchers on the University of California, Berkeley, shows the two-armed robot completing six stitches in a row on a straightforward wound in imitation skin, passing the needle through the tissue and from one robotic arm to the opposite while maintaining tension on the thread. 

A helping hand: Though many doctors today get help from robots for procedures starting from hernia repairs to coronary bypasses, those are used to help surgeons, not replace them. This latest research marks progress toward robots that may operate more autonomously on very intricate, complicated tasks like suturing. The teachings learned in its development is also useful in other fields of robotics. Read more from James O’Donnell here. 

Bits and Bytes

Wikimedia’s CTO: Within the age of AI, human contributors still matter
Selena Deckelmann argues that on this era of machine-generated content, Wikipedia becomes much more invaluable. (MIT Technology Review)