Spectral’s Pledge for the Ethical Use of Synthetic Media
As privacy experts and leaders in the synthetic media space, we are well aware of the vast opportunities this sector presents. Synthetic media leverages creativity through the use of AI and can also streamline processes to generate significant time and resource savings.
However, as with many modern technologies, it also brings with it risks such as bias, misuse by malicious actors, and the potential to spread disinformation.
We strive to use our technology for good, and to see this young and exciting industry evolve in a positive direction. We see it as our responsibility to help ensure that synthetic media is used in an ethical way, and to help lead the industry in achieving this.
As the use of this powerful technology grows exponentially, it creates an urgency to establish clear industry guidelines.
To that end, Spectral has partnered with leading privacy experts and ethicists to establish ethical guidelines and codes-of-conduct for this technology. This is a pledge we are making to bring transparency and fairness to our product and how we and our partners deploy them.
Today, we are issuing a pledge for how we intend to operate our business in an ethical way, and also intend it as a call for others in the industry to adopt it.
This pledge begins, but does not end, our commitment. It represents the start of an ongoing dialogue with our customers, the wider industry and consumers, as well as regulators and lawmakers. We will continue to work to maintain and build on these commitments.
We hope more partners will join us in making this a reality, to seize this opportunity to earn and grow consumer trust in what we all do.
We pledge the following:
Ethical Foundation
We will strive to develop and use technology to benefit society, even at the expense of customer and investor priorities.
Ethical Use By Customers
We will work hard to ensure that our customers are using our technology in ethical, responsible ways. We will endeavour to build “ethical use” clauses into all of our terms and conditions, which will allow us to suspend services and revoke the use license to those who fail to comply.
Work toward an industry-wide track & trace system
We will work to collaborate with major platforms, operators and others to create an industry-wide, standardized track and trace system (e.g. a digital watermark system) to allow users and vendors to detect/be alerted to synthetic media in all its forms. Until that exists, we will work to ensure that all uses of our technology are clearly marked or understood as synthetic. Our license agreements will permit the addition of such watermarks in a way that will not interfere with the content.
Avoid contentious areas
We will not knowingly license the use of our platform to political parties. Nor will we knowingly work with pornography publishers or terrorist organizations, gun or arms manufacturers. Should we discover that such organizations are leveraging our technology, we will do everything legally within our power to suspend services.
Ensure Moderation
Provided we are legally allowed, we will conduct random audits of both original and generated materials that use our technology, where legally and technically possible. We will do this to ensure that the material and created output are consistent both with our values as well as emerging standards and policies from governments and regulators.
Treat talent fairly and transparently
Where an actor is visible or audible, we do our best to ensure that our contract with them respects their privacy and consent, in line with existing industry standards and expectations. In certain cases, there is a need for talent behind the scenes, as drivers for synthetic output, either from us or our licensees. In such cases, we will do our best to require that the performers consent to their performances being used in this way, are fairly paid, and informed of the distribution of their performances.
Improve public awareness
Through a content program, we will educate the public about how our technology, and synthetic media in general, works and how to spot its use.
Make sure our datasets are unbiased
We will strive to train our platform with data sets that are diverse and do not favor any particular ethnicity, age or community.
Respect copyright
We will contractually require our licensees to have the proper rights, including processing rights, to all the source material including images, audio and video involved in any generated content.
Cooperate with regulators
We will cooperate with appropriate regulatory and non-governmental bodies for mutual dialogue about ethical development and deployment of our tech.