Google To Tackle Deepfakes The Right Way, Says V-P Mitra

It is working on a policy for content creators and dissemination, as Centre mulls new law

- Gulveen Aulakh, Shouvik Das

Google is crafting a policy to educate creators on the proper use of ‘synthetic’ or deepfake content, as well as how to prevent its misuse. The policy will be regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content on platforms such as YouTube.

According to the company, the policy is focusing on creator disclosures when it alters reality, and mandates labelling of electoral advertisements crafted by GenAI, among others, besides enabling creators to watermark their content using Google’s tools.

“We are working on the right way to tackle this issue. On YouTube, we plan to have disclaimers about deepfakes or synthetic content for video descriptions, and in certain more sensitive cases, within videos themselves," said Saikat Mitra, vice-president and head of trust and safety for Asia-Pacific at Google, in an interview with Mint.

“YouTube’s also working on policy (which will) expect content creators to disclose that this content has synthetic media and altering reality, and the consequences of not following that," he added.