Meta is launching a new tool that can embed an invisible watermark into videos created with artificial intelligence (AI). Named Video Seal, this new tool complements the company’s existing watermarking tools, Audio Seal and Watermark Anything. The organization indicated that the tool will be made open-source, but it has not yet released the code. Notably, the company asserts that the watermarking method will not compromise video quality, yet will withstand common techniques for removing watermarks from videos.
Meta’s Video Seal Tool Can Help Combat Deepfakes
The Internet has been inundated with deepfakes since the emergence of generative AI. Deepfakes are artificial content, typically produced using AI, that depicts false and misleading objects, individuals, or situations. This type of content is frequently utilized to disseminate misinformation concerning a public figure, produce counterfeit sexual material, or perpetrate fraud and scams.
Furthermore, as AI technologies improve, deepfake content will become increasingly challenging to identify, making it even harder to distinguish from authentic content. According to a McAfee survey, 70 percent of individuals already feel they cannot confidently distinguish between a real voice and one generated by AI.
According to internal data from Sumsub, deepfake fraud cases surged by 1,740 percent in North America and by 1,530 percent in the Asia-Pacific region in 2022. It was observed that the number increased tenfold from 2022 to 2023.
With escalating concerns about deepfakes, numerous companies developing AI models have begun releasing watermarking tools to differentiate synthetic content from genuine pieces. Earlier this year, Google introduced SynthID to watermark AI-produced text and videos. Microsoft has also unveiled comparable tools. Additionally, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is working on creating new standards to identify AI-generated materials.
Now, Meta has introduced its own Video Seal tool for watermarking AI videos. Researchers emphasize that this tool can mark each frame of a video with an imperceptible tag that cannot be altered. It is claimed to be resistant to methods such as blurring, cropping, and compression software. Nevertheless, despite the watermark being applied, the researchers assert that video quality will remain intact.
Meta has stated that Video Seal will be released as open-source under a permissive license; however, it has yet to make the tool and its codebase accessible to the public.
