谷歌宣布下周起，谷歌照片将标注经AI编辑的图像信息。此前，谷歌照片中AI编辑的图像已包含基于国际新闻电信理事会技术标准的元数据，现会在照片应用中使其更明显。该标注不仅限于生成式AI，还包括含多图元素的“照片”。但此元数据易被故意规避。目前谷歌将继续收集反馈并评估更多增加透明度的方案。

🎯谷歌照片中经AI编辑的图像已含元数据，现会在应用中使编辑信息更明显，如文件名、位置和备份状态等信息旁显示AI编辑情况。

💡标注不仅针对生成式AI，还包括含多图元素的“照片”，如Pixel的Best Take和Add Me功能生成的内容。

🚧此元数据易被故意规避，谷歌表示会继续收集反馈并评估更多增加透明度的方案，此前其AI工具的元数据对终端用户几乎不可见。

There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle when it comes to generative AI forever shaking our trust in photos, but the tech industry has a responsibility to at least be as transparent as possible when these tools are used. To that end, Google has announced that starting next week, Google Photos will note when an image was edited with the help of AI.

“Photos edited with tools like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser and Zoom Enhance already include metadata based on technical standards from The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) to indicate that they’ve been edited using generative AI,” John Fisher, engineering director of Google Photos, wrote in a blog post. “Now we’re taking it a step further, making this information visible alongside information like the file name, location and backup status in the Photos app.”

GIF: Google

The “AI info” section will be found in the image details view of Google Photos both on the web and in the app.

These labels won’t be limited strictly to generative AI, either. Google says it’ll also specify when a “photo” contains elements from several different images — such as when people use the Pixel’s Best Take and Add Me features. That’s encouraging to see. This metadata can easily be circumvented by those intentionally trying to do so, however.

“This work is not done, and we’ll continue gathering feedback and evaluating additional solutions to add more transparency around AI edits,” Fisher wrote.

Until now, the metadata attached to Google’s AI tools has been pretty much invisible to end users. The lack of any obvious this was made with AI label in Google Photos was a concern of mine back when I sowed a bunch of chaos with Magic Editor’s Reimagine tool, which lets you add AI-generated objects to an image that were never present in the original scene. Google and Samsung both let you do so with their respective AI tools. But Apple, which will roll out its first image generation features with iOS 18.2, has said it is very purposefully steering clear of photo realistic content. Apple’s Craig Federighi said the company has grown “concerned” about AI casting doubt on photos being “indicative of reality.”

As we’ve covered repeatedly at this point, retouching photos is nothing new. But today’s wave of generative AI tools make it possible to create convincing fakery with very little effort or skill.