TikTok is introducing a updated setting that allows them to cut down on the quantity of artificial intelligence-produced content appearing in their timelines. This move comes as the service disclosed that it now features in excess of 1 thousand million AI videos.
Testing and Rollout
This change is undergoing trials over the coming weeks before a global release. This development coincides with a increase in AI-generated material, spurred by new content generation software.
AI Proliferation Online
It has been noted that approximately one in 10 of the fastest-growing content creators on another major platform exclusively feature clips produced artificially. A large amount of this output is deemed “AI slop”, a term for poor-quality, mass-produced content that is typically nonsensical or bizarre.
“We know from our community that many people like content created using AI tools, including AI artwork to informative clips, and we aim to give people the option to increase or decrease of that, based on their own choices,” commented a platform representative.
AI on the Platform
The platform announced that there are presently 1.3bn videos on its network labeled as made with AI. In total, in excess of 100 m videos are added to the app each day, making AI-generated material a minor percentage of its total content library.
User Control Features
Users will be able to reduce or increase the amount of AI content they see by accessing the topic control setting in the application and choosing “AI-generated content”. Other topics that currently be modified under the setting cover current affairs, fashion, cosmetics, and movement.
Platform Guidelines
TikTok’s policies mandate creators to identify convincing artificially created content, and it prohibits malicious AI impersonations of celebrities or crisis events. Any authentic-looking AI-generated clip that is unmarked can be removed under its user guidelines.
Furthermore, the app will now apply an AI-generated tag to content made using its built-in AI features, or identified by an industry-wide initiative for identifying AI-generated material. This step is aimed to help prevent users from seeking to evade the tagging system.
Responsible AI Funding
The company is additionally launching a $2m educational fund for specialists and groups to create educational content about using AI responsibly. This initiative will benefit charitable organizations specializing in educating programming and robotics.
Moderation Strategy
TikTok has supported its moderation strategy, following discussion over proposals to lay off hundreds of safety staff in the UK. The company is planning to cut a significant number of roles in its content moderation division in its British office, with trade unions and digital protection specialists raising concerns that people are being substituted by automated systems.
A trust and safety lead clarified that people-led review would still have a role, but AI can shield workers by eliminating the most harmful content ahead of it gets reviewed by humans. The company reported a 76% decrease in explicit and harmful content reviewed by content reviewers over the past year due to intervention by its machine learning processes.
“We think that it’s essential to integrate humans and technology to ensure user safety,” she said. “We’ll have humans as integral to the approach, but we further consider it’s highly necessary to reduce exposure to unsafe media as rapidly, which is why a lot of the machine support is proving valuable operate efficiently.”
