Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A C2PA-signed image with verifiable metadata showing it was generated by a named model on a given date
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A claim by an author that they did not use AI, absent any verifiable metadata, is a declaration but not provenance
Editorial commentary
Provenance is the systemic answer to the disclosure problem. Standards such as C2PA attach signed metadata to media at creation. For text, provenance is harder and currently relies on a combination of watermarking, author declaration, and detection tools, none of which is fully reliable in isolation.
References
- C2PA Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity Specification (2023)
- EU AI Act Transparency Provisions (2024)
Also known as
Content provenance · Generative provenance
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
xml
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="AI provenance"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-provenance" />json
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "AI provenance",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-provenance",
"description": "The chain of evidence — metadata, cryptographic signatures, watermarks, or attestations — that documents whether a piece of content was produced or modified by an AI system, by which system, when, and under what prompt or input.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/generative-ai-use-and-disclosure/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/ai-provenance",
"sameAs": [
"Content provenance",
"Generative provenance"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
