Google's SynthID watermark is hard to break, but it doesn't solve AI disinformation

AI 中文解读

Google的SynthID水印技术确实很难破解，但这并不等于它能解决AI虚假信息泛滥的问题。先看一组震撼的数据：人类从发明相机到1975年共拍出15亿张照片，历时149年；而生成式AI只用了18个月就完成了同样的数量。今年春天谷歌宣布，其工具在短短几年内已生成超过1000亿张AI图片和视频，这还只是冰山一角。谷歌随之大力推广SynthID水印，希望通过给AI内容打上隐形标签，帮人们分辨真假。通俗来说，SynthID就像给每张AI图片盖了个看不见的“电子印章”，即使图片被裁剪、压缩，印章依然能识别出来。但问题在于，水印只能标记由谷歌自家工具生成的内容，而市面上还有无数其他AI平台，更别提恶意使用者根本不会主动加标签。所以，哪怕水印技术再牢靠，也无法覆盖所有AI造假的源头，更没法阻止别有用心的人利用AI传播谣言。对普通人而言，这项技术意味着以后看到带水印的图片能更放心些，但绝不能把水印当成“照妖镜”。面对社交媒体上真假难辨的信息，我们依然要保持批判性思维。毕竟，技术能标记一部分AI生成内容，却无法根治虚假信息的传播，最终还得靠我们自己多留个心眼。

The scale of AI-generated media can be hard to grasp. Starling Lab, a research collaboration from Stanford University and the University of Southern California, estimates that it took until 1975—149 years after the invention of the camera—for humanity to create 1.5 billion images. It took generative AI just 18 months to do the same. And AI didn't stop there. This spring, Google announced at I/O that its tools had been used to create more than 100 billion AI images and videos in just a couple of years, and Google is far from the only source of AI content. The company coupled this staggering statistic with a slew of partnerships to expand the use of its SynthID watermarking technology, which can be used to label AI-generated content and potentially help people identify what's real.Read full article Comments