Adobe, OpenAI and Microsoft are among the major firms backing a California bill that would require tech companies to label AI-generated content with watermarks embedded in the metadata. Such data is easily accessible via browser for material circulated on the Internet, and the initiative would likely involve a campaign to educate the general public on how to find it. The proposed law encompasses video and audio as well as images. The three companies currently supporting the bill initially opposed it, using terms like “unworkable” and “overly burdensome.”

The legislation, Assembly Bill 3211, “also requires social media platforms like Instagram and X to clearly mark content made by AI,” reports PetaPixel.

But the bill seems to have benefited by comparison to another artificial intelligence bill that Big Tech more stringently opposes, Senate Bill 1047, which stipulates mandatory AI model safety testing. Amendments to AB 3211, including a reduction of the fines available, may also have made it more acceptable.

“AB 3211 has already passed the state Assembly by a 62-0 vote,” after earlier this month passing the senate appropriations committee, “setting it up for a vote by the full state Senate,” writes Reuters, noting that “if it passes by the end of the legislative session on August 31, it would advance to Governor Gavin Newsom to sign or veto by September 30.”

“New technology and standards can help people understand the origin of content they find online, and avoid confusion between human-generated and photorealistic AI-generated content,” OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote to the bill’s author California State Representative Buffy Wicks in a letter reviewed by Reuters. The letter cites the importance of transparency and watermarking to thwarting deepfakes during a U.S. presidential election year.

“With countries representing a third of the world’s population having polls this year, experts are concerned about the role AI-generated content will play, and it has already been prominent in some elections, such as in Indonesia,” explains Reuters.

Adobe, OpenAI and Microsoft are all part of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, creator of the C2PA digital signature system for image provenance that TechCrunch calls “a widely used standard for marking AI-generated content.” PetaPixel notes it is “starting to be incorporated into cameras by manufacturers.”