Google wants to help you determine whether the photos you see online are genuine.
As AI photo generation and AI-powered photo editing programs become more common, it can become harder to distinguish the real thing from the fake. Google saysNew technologies can help.
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The feature, called “About This Image,” is part of Content Authenticity, a technology standard for tracking the provenance and history of online assets. By using a photo’s metadata, “About This Image” can tell you if it’s original, edited by software, or generated by AI. Google developed the tool in collaboration with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), an organization dedicated to addressing the issue of AI-generated content.
This feature is available in Google Images, Google Lens, and Circle to Search.
When an image with C2PA metadata appears in a search, you can click “About this image” to learn about its origins. Google said it has started integrating C2PA into its ad systems and will gradually use it more to enforce its ad policies. The tech giant is also exploring how to use C2PA on YouTube to communicate information to viewers about how creators produced their content, such as the model of camera they used.
Amazon joined the C2PA committee last week and agreed to link content authentication information to content generated by Titan Image Generator and add the tool to AWS Elemental MediaConvert.
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Adobe is a founding member of C2PA, so while their editing programs Photoshop and Lightroom add certain metadata, many programs don’t, so the number of photos you see in the “About this Image” program may be low at first. And it seems like you can thwart Google’s system just by removing the metadata from your photos, which is a good start in fighting misinformation.
