Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content (marcatura ed etichettatura dei contenuti generati o manipolati dall'IA)

This Annex contains the EU icons that may be used by deployers to comply with Measure 1.1. Three main icons are provided. One icon is intended to disclose fully AI-generated deep fakes or published text (Figure 1), a second icon is intended to disclose AI-manipulated/partially modified deep fakes or published text (Figure 2), and a third basic icon is included to enable deployers to supplement it with an interactive layer with further information or an alternative textual label, where appropriate (Figure 3). The design and development of the EU icon have been subject to empirical user-testing conducted across several Member States, which evaluated the perception of authenticity, noticeability and recognition, understandability and trust. The user-tests included various icon designs and demonstrated that while all tested designs achieved high noticeability and reliability, the variants that include a clear textual label (i.e. “modified”) performed significantly better in terms of noticeability and clarity for end-users. Respondents participating in the survey indicated that explicit text on AI-generation or manipulation reduces the ambiguity regarding the nature of the content. Consequently, based on this user feedback, the Code includes an icon for fully AI-generated content (“AI + GENERATED”) and one for partially manipulated content (“AI + MODIFIED”) to increase transparency for the persons exposed to the content and fulfil the disclosure objectives of the AI Act. The findings and methodology of the empirical study will be made public. These icons are publicly available for Signatories to use in line with the placement specifications, without the need for attribution to the Commission or the AI Office. The task force will explore the integration of an interactive second layer with the aim to enrich the above static icons with provenance data and information on what has been modified. The development of this interactive layer will be in alignment with the technical capabilities of deployers and other actors distributing and/or verifying content. An-audio-only EU icon will also be developed.

Figure 1. The EU icon developed by the AI Office for fully AI-generated content in several variations against a background (black, white, black transparent, white transparent).

Figure 2. The EU icon developed by the AI Office for partially AI-modified content in several variations against a background (black, white, black transparent, white transparent).

Figure 3. The basic EU icon developed by the AI Office in several variations against a background (black, white, black transparent, white transparent).