Google may be exploring a new idea to take the guesswork out of whether a page’s content was written by humans or generated by AI.
A new Chrome platform status page explains the “AI content disclosure attribute,” which allows authors to specify the level of AI involvement for each HTML element.
The idea behind the feature is to enable exposure of elementary AI, allowing browsers like Chrome to show exactly which parts are human-written, AI-assisted, AI-generated, or autonomously generated.
How elementary AI disclosure could work
The proposal, detailed in this GitHub post, aims to introduce an “ai-disclosure” HTML attribute and a tag that marks specific parts of a page with labels indicating AI involvement.
Once the feature is rolled out, browsers will be able to detect whether a piece of content is AI-generated and flag it (visually) for users.
With the increasing use of generative AI tools for website content and the advancement of these tools, it is often impossible to tell what is written by a human and what is not.
Will this become a Chrome standard?
If the new “AI content disclosure attribute” is adopted by Chrome (and later other browsers), it could bring a layer of honesty and transparency to the web.
Although the feature would not include native AI content recognition, meaning it still relies on author integrity, it should allow users to distinguish between expert-authored and AI-generated text.
Currently the feature has been submitted to ChromeStatus. Although Google has shown interest, it could take some time for Chrome to adopt it.
If the feature works well in Google’s browser, it could also be adopted by Firefox or Safari, as AI-generated content masquerading as human content is a universal problem.
