TikTok is introducing a updated setting that permits them to cut down on the volume of AI-made content appearing in their feeds. This move comes as the company disclosed that it presently contains more than 1 billion AI-generated clips.
Testing and Rollout
This change is in a pilot phase over the coming weeks before a global rollout. This development aligns with a increase in AI content, driven by recent video-generation tools.
The Broader AI Trend
Recent reports that nearly 10% of the most rapidly expanding content creators on a popular video site exclusively feature clips produced artificially. A considerable share of this output is considered “AI slop”, a term for substandard, factory-style content that is often illogical or bizarre.
Based on user feedback that many people like content made with AI tools, including computer-generated images to educational videos, and we want to give people the power to increase or decrease of that, based on their own choices,” said a spokesperson.
Scale of AI Content
TikTok disclosed that there are presently 1.3bn videos on its app identified as AI-generated. Overall, over 100 m pieces of content are added to the service each day, making clips made by AI a relatively small part of its total content library.
How to Adjust Settings
Users will be capable of decrease or raise the volume of artificial media they view by using the topic control setting in the application and picking AI-made media. Further subjects that can already be adjusted under the setting cover politics, fashion, beauty, and dance.
Platform Guidelines
The platform’s rules mandate content makers to tag convincing AI-made content, and it prohibits dangerous AI impersonations of celebrities or crisis events. Any authentic-looking AI-generated clip that is unmarked can be removed under its terms of service.
Additionally, the platform will from now on add an “AI-made” tag to content created with its built-in AI features, or flagged by an collaborative effort for recognizing artificial media. This step is intended to stop users from attempting to evade the tagging system.
Educational Initiatives
TikTok is furthermore establishing a $2m AI literacy fund for professionals and groups to create informative material about using AI responsibly. This project will support educational bodies focused on training computer science.
Platform Protection
The platform has defended its content review process, amid controversy over plans to cut jobs for hundreds of review team members in the UK. It is set to eliminate a significant number of roles in its content moderation department in London, with trade unions and internet security professionals raising concerns that people are being substituted by machine-led review.
A trust and safety lead clarified that people-led review would remain essential, but artificial intelligence can protect employees by removing the most distressing content before it has to be seen by people. TikTok reported a notable drop in shocking and graphic content handled by human moderators over the previous year due to intervention by its machine learning processes.
“We think that it’s essential to balance humans and technology to keep the platform safe,” she said. “We’ll have humans as involved in the system, but we also think it’s extremely critical to reduce exposure to unsafe media as rapidly, which is the area in which a lot of the machine support is really helping us process content quickly.”
