Even today, there are plenty of open models that generate images with no labeling whatsoever. These AI models can be shared and improved upon indefinitely, even if most of the major AI players adopt a multifaceted approach to labeling AI content. The generative genie is out of the bottle, and there’s no stuffing it back in.

Since there will always be unlabeled AI content, you can’t count on watermarks to tell you what’s true. As AI labeling becomes more common, people may think an image or video that lacks one is automatically legit. That’s a dangerous but understandable mistake for someone to make. While the existence of invisible watermarks might give people some sense of security as they explore an increasingly distorted Internet, they aren’t a reliable way to know what’s true.

“The future that we live in will increasingly be a world of unlimited content,” said Rose. “It’s economics 101, supply and demand. Supply goes through the roof, and the value of content is going to continue to crash. But increasingly, there is going to be a demand for authenticated content, a way to prove that something is what it purports to be.”

The scale of AI content alone will make it impossible to label all of it. Google’s 100 billion SynthID images and videos are just the tip of an iceberg that has already eclipsed authentic content on the Internet. It may be smarter to focus on verifying truth rather than outing falsehoods.

“There’s a limit to how much content can be created with actual physical cameras in the world,” explained veteran photojournalist and Starling fellow Mike Caronna. “There’s no limit to how much synthetic content can be made. That’s why we want to pivot to what’s scarce, and what’s scarce is high-value, truthful information. If we can secure that and prove that it’s authentic, we can defend against the liar’s dividend.”