With artificial intelligence becoming increasingly prominent, Kickstarter wants you to know if and how it’s being used in any projects on the platform. The company will soon require creators to disclose any use of AI in their projects. The policy will apply to every project that’s submitted on or after August 29th.
“We want to make sure that any project that is funded through Kickstarter includes human creative input and properly credits and obtains permission for any artist’s work that it references,” Kickstarter’s director of trust and safety Susannah Page-Katz wrote in a blog post. “The policy requires creators to be transparent and specific about how they use AI in their projects because when we’re all on the same page about what a project entails, it builds trust and sets the project up for success.”
The project submission process will soon include a new set of AI-related questions. Creators will have to disclose if their project generates outputs using AI, if it primarily concerns the development of generative AI tech or if it uses AI in another way. They’ll need to reveal which parts of their projects feature entirely original work.
Kickstarter will also ask creators to state whether they have permission to use works or data that are employed in AI-generated aspects of their projects. They’ll need to provide a sense of how their sources of data deal with consent and credit. “If the sources don’t have processes or safeguards in place to manage consent, such as through an opt-out or opt-in mechanism, then Kickstarter is unlikely to allow the project,” Page-Katz wrote.
If creators don’t properly disclose their use of AI during the submission process, Kickstarter may suspend the project. Those who try to bypass Kickstarter’s policies or purposefully misrepresent their project won’t be allowed to submit another one.
Human moderators will review submissions and, if they’re accepted, Kickstarter will disclose any use of AI in a new section on applicable project pages in the creator’s own words. The company suggests its approach will help mitigate the community’s concerns over AI. It formulated the policy with the help of input from its staff, creators and backers, as well as “other platform leaders.” AI technologies will keep evolving quickly and as such, Kickstarter plans to revisit the policy and modify it if necessary.
