Protect your art against AI/machine learning theft with customizable watermarks

rgbwatermark.net

13 points·jbothma··3 comments

People have already succeeded in generating adversarial images that confuse neural networks.

Until networks reach the point where those techniques don't work any more, it's probably a better option - it allows you to automatically perturb the image for a targeted deception, as opposed to specifically defining a large number of parameters without understanding what the impact will be.

But does it work?

Given everything I know about feature extraction/embedding, my armchair answer would be a resounding no... Given enough similar content the water mark would get rounded of as what it is -- noise.

Also, The fact that a service which in theory would have a high demand, offers 0 explanation or justification for their technique is highly suspect.

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The only way a watermark would be even remotely effective as a deterrent would be if everyone agreed on a fixed mark; this mark could be automatically detected (this a silly way of doing things), or if it was incorporated into the model would create a bubble of locality due to feature alignment (poising the well)

Neither of these are practical or reasonable solutions like: robots.txt, EXIF metadata, and digital signing - combined with regulations allowing for legal recourse

TL;DR - DRM of publicly available data is not a "winnable" fight

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