Much of the debate over the use of AI in the creative industry revolves around transparency, or being clear whether or not AI was used in the process of creating a work. Now, a startup is offering AI-free certificates to verify that creative work is made by humans. To celebrate the official launch, which began on March 18, the company is giving away the first 10,000 certificates for free.
AI-Free is a certification project that gives human creators a sort of certificate of authenticity, verifying that the work was created without the use of generative AI. The project is open to all types of creative work, a list that includes photography and videography as well as other genres like literature. Certified artists receive a certificate that can be displayed with the work, along with being listed in an online directory of certified works.
The certificate is designed to indicate that a work is free of most – though not all – uses of AI. The company notes that AI can be used to do computerized tasks that existed prior to the existence of generative AI, such as cropping a photograph. AI cannot be used to change a photograph’s look or feel, to adjust the lighting, or to remove or add an object to the image.
The company says that the process takes “just a few minutes” and involves completing a survey, uploading a portion of the work, and signing the declaration. That system, however, relies on human honesty rather than software to detect whether or not AI was used.
It does not, for example, require an unedited RAW and finished photograph to be uploaded as part of the vetting process. As the AI-Free Standards reads: “AI Free relies upon the honesty of the Creator(s) and applicant in this process.”
That honesty-based system may dissuade some creators, particularly after the 10,000 free certificates are given out. The company did not indicate how much a certificate costs after the initial giveaway.
The industry for tools to detect AI has grown along with the generative AI industry, albeit at an arguably slower pace. Currently, some software tools use a mix of metadata and software analysis to determine if AI was used in the creation process, such as Hive AI.
Other initiatives come from the software giants themselves. Adobe, for example, is part of the Content Authenticity Initiative. Currently, Photoshop and Lightroom users can opt-in to this beta program, which embeds data on how the image was edited into the file. Viewers can then use the online tool to see if an image has Content Authenticity data embedded.
The Leica M-11P was the first camera to embed such credentials right into the image file at its creation, rather than during the editing process.
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For more on AI, read up on how to spot an AI image or the best photo editors.
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