can you spot the AI?

This week we caught up with the FT’s artificial Intelligence editor, Madhumita Murgia, to ask her a simple question: as we enter into an age of words, images, voices, music and video being created by AI, how will we be able to tell if something has been made by human or made by computer?

Madhu’s answer: we won’t.

Already, it is becoming increasingly hard, she points out. “For a while, the images had weird qualities, appreciate they couldn’t do fingers, but those inconsistencies are going away,” she said.

And she added that while some people think they can spot certain turns of phrase in AI-written text, even OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, have had to take down their tool for spotting AI-generated text because it wasn’t performing well enough.

But AI companies are starting to put watermarks on AI-generated content. “DeepMind and Google have said their images will have a watermark. Audio start-up ElevenLabs have said they will watermark audio. This will be something encoded in the file and you will have a watermark reader that will say, ‘This has been created by ElevenLabs,’’ said Madhu.

Illia Polosukhin, one of the creators of the transformer, the technology that has enabled the recent advances in generative AI, is working on a blockchain project that will keep a record of AI provenance, she added.

But Madhu says the watermarks will only help up to a point. Humans are likely to find ways of sneaking AI content into their essays, presentations or even books without acknowledging it.

“I went to an event hosted by my publisher Pan McMillan recently,” said Madhu. “They basically said they would have no way of telling if their authors were using AI.”

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Our favourite pieces

Jonathan Guthrie, who heads Lex, the FT’s flagship investment column, retires at the end of this year. So he’s taken the time to ponder on what he has learned in his 37 years as a financial journalist. Perhaps the most important lesson he has for us is that markets are inherently unstable and prone to crashes.
Malcolm Moore (@malcolmmoore)
Editor, FT Edit

The FT is one of the few papers left that does real travel writing, rather than the sponsored listicles that have become the norm. We often run the best of these articles in FT Edit on a Friday and this week’s was a particular delight. Sure, it’s nice to read about all the amazing places we should visit before we die. It’s also extremely satisfying to read about all the places we shouldn’t.
Hannah Rock
Deputy editor, FT Edit (@HannahRockFT)

Joshua Chaffin’s Big Read on the scandal embroiling Ivy League presidents over the last few weeks is a tour de force. He expertly weaves in many of the news stories that have happened and explains the knotty relationship between universities and their donors that is now on public display. If you’ve been struggling to comprehend what’s going on, this article is all you’ll need.
Caryn Wilson
US editor, FT Edit (@CarynAWilson)

Gideon Rachman’s opinion on the Israel-Hamas war, reminds us of the real tension of pursuing a two-state solution and the need for a long-term vision for Palestine.
Aru Fukuda
Senior Data Analyst, FT Edit

Something to listen to

• The Financial Times’s award-winning podcast series Hot Money is back. Miles Johnson investigates a mysterious murder in a small town that leads to a web of drugs, money laundering and state-sponsored assassinations stretching from Dublin to Dubai.

• It’s the work Christmas party season: you’re out of the office, and the alcohol is flowing. How can you make sure you don’t embarrass yourself (or derail your career)? And how can you bounce back if you do go wrong? Isabel Berwick speaks to FT columnist and veteran party-goer Stephen Bush, author and comedian Viv Groskop and party-shy FT columnist Emma Jacobs to find out.

Something to watch

The FT explores three companies who have used incentives from Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act to invest in the US and examines whether the legislation signals the end of globalisation.