TikTok is introducing a updated setting that permits them to reduce the volume of artificial intelligence-produced media appearing in their streams. This move comes as the service announced that it now features more than 1 billion content made with AI.
Pilot Phase and Launch
The new functionality is undergoing trials over the following weeks before a widespread launch. This shift coincides with a rise in AI-generated material, fueled by recent AI video creators.
AI Proliferation Online
Recent reports that approximately 10% of the fastest-growing channels on a competing service primarily display content made by AI. A large amount of this material is deemed low-quality AI content, a phrase for inferior, bulk-generated content that is typically nonsensical or surreal.
“We know from our community that a lot of users appreciate content created using AI tools, from AI artwork to science explainers, and we want to provide users the ability to see more or less of that, according to their own preferences,” stated a spokesperson.
AI on the Platform
The service announced that there are presently 1.3 billion videos on its service labeled as made with AI. Collectively, more than 100 m pieces of content are added to the app daily, making clips made by AI a relatively small part of its total content library.
User Control Features
Users will be able to reduce or increase the volume of artificial media they watch by accessing the content preference setting in the application and choosing “AI-generated content”. Other topics that can already be modified under the setting cover current affairs, fashion, beauty, and dance.
Platform Guidelines
The platform’s rules mandate creators to label “realistic” artificially created content, and it prohibits harmful AI impersonations of celebrities or critical incidents. Any authentic-looking AI-generated clip that is without a tag can be taken down under its community policies.
Additionally, the app will from now on add an artificially created tag to content created with its built-in AI features, or flagged by an cross-platform project for identifying content made by AI. This measure is intended to deter users from attempting to circumvent the labeling process.
Responsible AI Funding
The company is furthermore launching a $2 million AI literacy fund for experts and organizations to develop informative material about responsible artificial intelligence. This program will benefit non-profit groups dedicated to educating computer science.
Content Safety Approach
The platform has defended its safety measures, following discussion over plans to lay off a large number of review team members in the UK. TikTok is set to reduce hundreds of positions in its trust and safety team in the UK capital, with trade unions and online safety experts raising concerns that staff are being displaced by machine-led review.
A trust and safety lead clarified that people-led review would remain essential, but artificial intelligence can protect employees by removing the most graphic content before it gets reviewed by people. The company reported a significant reduction in explicit and harmful content seen by content reviewers over the past year due to the use of its machine learning processes.
We believe it is crucial to balance people and machines to maintain a secure environment,” the executive stated. “We’ll have people as part of that process, but we further consider it’s highly necessary to minimize viewing of dangerous material as rapidly, which is where a significant AI assistance is really helping us process content quickly.”
