Magazine article
New EU laws make AI content labels compulsory – but might just make it harder to spot deepfakes
The Conversation, Vol.17 August 2026
2026
Appears in The Conversation
Abstract
As the world is increasingly flooded with deepfakes, the European Union is taking action to help people distinguish what is real and what is not.
It recently started enforcing transparency obligations for tech companies which require them to clearly label any photos, videos and audio which are created using their artificial intelligence (AI) systems and designed to look authentic.
This is a step up from the approach of other countries, such as Australia, which only recommend AI developers mark AI-generated content to help people identify it. This matters because research suggests that when confronted with sophisticated AI-generated content, our ability to distinguish fake from real can be little better than a coin-toss.
But will the EU’s approach actually work? And could requiring the labelling of AI-generated content have unintended consequences? Could it potentially make us more vulnerable to the very content designed to deceive us?
Details
- Title
- New EU laws make AI content labels compulsory – but might just make it harder to spot deepfakes
- Authors
- Rory Mulcahy - University of the Sunshine CoastAimee Riedel - Griffith UniversityLucas Whittaker - Swinburne University of TechnologyRenee Barnes - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- The Conversation, Vol.17 August 2026
- Publisher
- Conversation Media Group
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.64628/AA.gscfxyvmw
- ISSN
- 2201-5639
- Copyright note
- © The Conversation Media Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Work, Live and Play Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991255195502621
- Output Type
- Magazine article
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1 Record Views