New California law will change the internet forever as ‘digital fingerprints’ added

California is putting a digital leash on AI fakes.

A landmark new state law taking effect this week will require artificial intelligence companies to add invisible “digital fingerprints” to AI-generated images, videos and audio, giving users a way to determine whether the content they’re seeing was made by a human — or a machine.

Written by Bay Area lawmakers, it will require AI companies to embed difficult-to-remove data known as “provenance” into their creations, allowing people to check a file’s origins through content verification tools.

The goal is to make the internet a little less of a Wild West.

“While AI has some benefits, we’ve seen AI content used for election misinformation for scams and abusive deepfakes,” state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, recently told KQED.

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