Users will soon have a new feature that allows them to cut down on the quantity of artificial intelligence-produced media appearing in their streams. This step comes as the platform disclosed that it presently contains more than 1 bn content made with AI.
Testing and Rollout
The update is in a pilot phase over the coming weeks before a full-scale rollout. This advancement comes amid a increase in content created by AI, driven by recent content generation software.
The Broader AI Trend
It has been noted that almost one in 10 of the fastest-growing video streams on a competing service only show clips produced artificially. A considerable share of this content is considered “AI slop”, a label for inferior, bulk-generated content that is often nonsensical or bizarre.
Based on user feedback that numerous viewers appreciate content made with AI tools, including computer-generated images to educational videos, and we want to provide users the ability to adjust the amount of that, depending on their own likes,” said a company executive.
AI on the Platform
The platform disclosed that there are now 1.3bn videos on its service tagged as artificially created. Overall, over 100 mn media items are uploaded to the platform each day, making clips made by AI a minor portion of its total content library.
How to Adjust Settings
Users will be in a position to reduce or increase the amount of AI-generated videos they see by accessing the “manage topic” option in the application and picking the AI content topic. Further subjects that can already be controlled under the setting include news, fashion, aesthetics, and dance.
Platform Guidelines
TikTok’s rules mandate content makers to label lifelike AI-generated content, and it prohibits harmful deepfakes of well-known individuals or critical incidents. Any authentic-looking artificial content that is not labeled can be removed under its community policies.
Furthermore, the platform will henceforth attach an “AI-made” label to content created with its own AI tools, or identified by an industry-wide initiative for spotting content made by AI. This measure is intended to stop users from attempting to circumvent the disclosure requirement.
Responsible AI Funding
TikTok is additionally introducing a $2 million AI literacy fund for professionals and groups to develop informative material about ethical AI use. This initiative will benefit charitable organizations specializing in educating coding and technology.
Moderation Strategy
The video-sharing app has supported its content review process, during controversy over proposals to lay off a large number of content moderators in the United Kingdom. It is set to eliminate 439 jobs in its user protection division in its British office, with trade unions and digital protection specialists raising concerns that people are being substituted by AI moderation.
A senior executive explained that staff-based oversight would continue to be important, but artificial intelligence can protect employees by removing the most graphic content before it is viewed by humans. TikTok stated a significant reduction in disturbing and violent content seen by human moderators over the past year due to intervention by its AI tools.
“We think that it’s essential to combine humans and technology to ensure user safety,” she said. “We’ll have humans as involved in the system, but we additionally believe it’s highly necessary to minimize viewing of unsafe media as rapidly, which is where a lot of the machine support is really helping us work at speed.”
