DRM – Excited Pixels

The ideas behind this initiative—that a metadata-powered glyph will appear above or around content produced by generative AI technologies to inform individuals of the providence of content they come across—depend on a number of somewhat improbable things.

A whole computing infrastructure based on tracking metadata reliably and then presenting it to users in ways they understand and care about, and which is adopted by the masses.
That generative outputs will need to remain the exception as opposed to the norm: when generative image manipulation (not full image creation) is normal then how much will this glyph help to notify people of ‘fake’ imagery or other content?
That there are sufficiently low benefits to offering metadata-stripping or content-modification or content-creation systems that there are no widespread or easy-to-adopt ways of removing the identifying metadata from generative content.

Finally, where the intent behind fraudulent media is to intimidate, embarrass, or harass (e.g., non-consensual deepfake pornographic content, violence content), then what will the glyph in question do to allay these harms? I suspect very little unless it is, also, used to identify individuals who create content for the purposes of addressing criminal or civil offences. And, if that’s the case, then the outputs would constitute a form of data that are designed to deliberately enable state intervention in private life, which could raise a series of separate, unique, and difficult to address problems.

Dieter Bohn, over at The Verge, has a masterful analysis of paper-based books versus Apple iBooks (and eBooks in general). A few choice quotations are below, but you should really just take a few minutes of your day and go read the whole article.

The list of “specs” for your standard paper book gets surprisingly long when you expand your definition of technology to include elements that don’t require a computer chip.

Readable with any form of light

Very high contrast display

Requires no battery power

Depending on model, lasts anywhere from five to five thousand years or more

Immersive and non-distracting user interface

Offers a spatial layout for immediate access to random information

Conforms to the standardized “page number” spec for easy reference

Supports direct interaction via pen or highlighter

DRM-free for easy lending and resale

Standards-based system not controlled by any single corporation or entity

Crash-proof and immune to viruses (though vulnerable to some worms)

Easy to learn user-interface consistent across most manufacturers

Supports very large number of colors and also black and white images

Compatible with a wide variety of note taking systems

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I understand that free and open access to paper books isn’t available everywhere, that various hegemonies have stifled and do stifle dissent. Books can be burned, banned, and censored. But if we are going to be putting our collective knowledge into digital formats with DRM, we are adding another layer of possible censorship on top of the layers of control we already contend with. This isn’t (entirely) paranoia that Apple or Amazon will control access to human knowledge, it’s also a practical concern founded in the experience of being blocked by poorly designed DRM.

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The thousand year view is simple: if you’re going to commit knowledge to writing in some form, you need to ensure that it will exist and be readable in a thousand years. I can tell you that I’ve personally gained insight and understanding about our world by reading a lightly-distributed instruction manual for rural, parish priests in England — written in the fourteenth century. Will an independently-created iBook 2 textbook be around in the thirty first century?