UK Plans To Require Labels On AI-Generated Content (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0181037210
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/03/18/1846248/uk-plans-to-require-labels-on-ai-generated-content
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/uk-examine-labelling-ai-content-among-wider-copyright-reforms-2026-03-18/
> Britain plans to [1]consider requiring labels on AI-generated content to protect consumers from disinformation and deepfakes, the government said on Wednesday, as it outlined other areas of focus to tackle the evolving global challenge. Technology minister Liz Kendall stressed the need to strike the right balance between protecting the creative industries and allowing the AI sector to innovate, saying in a statement that the government would take time to "get this right."
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> The next phase of the government's work on copyright and AI would also look at the harms posed by digital replicas without consent, ways for creators to control their work online and support for independent creative organizations, she said. [...] Louise Popple, a copyright expert at law firm Taylor Wessing, noted that the government had not ruled out a broad exception that would allow AI developers to train on copyright works. "That's a subtle difference of approach and could be interpreted to mean that everything is still up for grabs" she said. "It feels very much like the hard issues are being kicked down the road by the government."
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> In 2024, Britain proposed easing copyright rules to let developers train models on lawfully accessed material, with creators able to reserve their rights. On Wednesday, Kendall said that having engaged with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions and academics, the government had concluded it "no longer has a preferred option." "We will help creatives control how their work is used. This sits at the heart of our ambition for creatives – including independent and smaller creative organizations -- to be paid fairly," she said.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/uk-examine-labelling-ai-content-among-wider-copyright-reforms-2026-03-18/
prop 65 warning (Score:3)
Just as everything in California comes with a warning that it may contain chemicals that might contribute to an individual's overall lifetime risk of cancer... all content in the UK will come with a warning that someone, somewhere, somehow, may have used AI to create some part of the content. Danger, Will Robinson!
Re: (Score:2)
That is an excellent point. Too many "warnings" is no warning at all.
Re:prop 65 warning (Score:4, Insightful)
The California Prop 65 law is a great example of doing it wrong. There is a real possibility of being penalized if you fail to warn someone and it turns out that chemicals were present. It is therefore safer to just warn people that everything and every place may contain chemicals. No effort is made to accurately label anything -just label everything as a potential hazard and call it done.
Re: (Score:2)
> The California Prop 65 law is a great example of doing it wrong. There is a real possibility of being penalized if you fail to warn someone and it turns out that chemicals were present. It is therefore safer to just warn people that everything and every place may contain chemicals. No effort is made to accurately label anything -just label everything as a potential hazard and call it done.
Honestly, there are some business processes we use, since we sell in California, that require us to accurately label things. Meaning we have to have full chemical breakdowns of every product we sell so that it gets precisely the correct wording of the Prop65 warnings added to it from the point of ordering to the point of shipping. It's insane to keep track of, and takes our products team several days a year to keep updated just for new products and minor changes to finishes and catalysts on painted products
Re: (Score:1)
Try dealing with fire marshals who require MSDS sheets for every single item in the store (with location noted) when you have 60,000 SKUs. There's an entire industry to handle it.
Delusional (Score:1)
There is also a law to put a label on horse- donkey- or kangaroo-lasagna and criminals just ignore it.
And it's tasty, like those videos, or people wouldn't consume them.
YouTube (Score:2)
I just wish there was a way to filter AI content on YouTube.
So much slop.
Re: (Score:1)
There's an easy way to filter it. Add this to your hosts file:
127.0.0.1 youtube.com
So what? (Score:2)
No one's going to enforce it. Another dead law.
Re: (Score:1)
But their virtue has been signaled, and pearls have been clutched, and in the end, that's all the politicians - and the voters - really care about.
Lip service (Score:3)
Yup, because those people intentionally looking to mislead or defraud others through the use of AI fakes are certainly going to follow this law to the letter...
Clickbait much? (Score:2)
Look at the title, then look at the first sentence in the summary.
The Evil Bit from RFC 3514 (Score:2)
Remember the Evil Bit from RFC 3514, and how it got us rid of all malicious network traffic, once and for all?
good luck (Score:3)
Good luck enforcing that. I agree that the deluge of slop is lame, but I don't see it going away either.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't see a label stating that what you are looking at it AI, just assume that it isn't. Most of the humans on the planet are trustworthy and would never lie about such things...
Re: (Score:1)
What percentage has to be AI to get the label?
I mean if someone take AI generated art, for instance, and opens it in Photoshop/Affinity....and alters it...is it AI then?
Or reverse...start with human generated and sent to AI to finish it?
What does it take to be AI label required?
Re: (Score:1)
Or someone creates something in Photoshop by hand, then uses the automated tolls in PS to pretty it up. That kinds of automated tools have been around a long time, but I'll be the pearl clutchers behind this are incapable of explaining the difference.
Re: good luck (Score:2)
If money exhanges hands then it is quite possible to enforce such a law. If you bought something that was misrepresented at the bare minimum you get your money back, but in a civil case you can have enough penalties tacked on to make hiding AI generated content an unviable business model.
Re: good luck (Score:2)
Just like many other illegal content on social media, the service is required to do something about it.