🤖 Know What's Real: AI Can Look Real Now. We Deserve to Know When It Isn't. 👁️

To: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, media companies, and other digital platforms.

We just want to know what we're looking at. 

About eight months ago, we started this petition after some of our friends shared videos that looked like real news. People in the comments were reacting like they were real too. Later, we found out they were made with AI. No one noticed at first, and honestly, that's what scared us.

Our first idea was simple: if AI was used, just tell us. Eight months later, we still think that matters. But we've realized a label by itself isn't the whole answer. We're high school students. We see AI content every day, on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and in group chats. So we're updating our original idea. We're still asking for a clear AI label, but now we're asking for a few other things too:

🚦 Label it clearly: One simple AI label people can recognize on every platform.

🤝 Use it responsibly: Think about what could happen to other people when you create or share something with AI.

🧠 Think critically: Learn to question AI content, check where it came from, and look for evidence before believing or sharing it.

👤 Protect real people: Make it clear when a realistic AI-generated person is fictional.

Some platforms already label AI content, but not the same way. A video can move from TikTok to Instagram to a group chat, and the label shouldn't change every time.

🚦 One Universal AI Label

We thought about it like a nutrition label: simple colors and symbols that mean the same thing everywhere. 

🟢 Human-Led · 🟡 AI-Enhanced · 🔴 AI-Generated

Symbols could show what AI was used for: 👤 Person · 🎤 Voice · 🖼 Image · 🎬 Video

🤝 Responsible AI Use

When we use AI to create or share something, we also have to think about what could happen to other people. Something we make as a joke could look real to someone else. A fake voice could make it sound like a real person said something they never said.

Using AI doesn't remove our responsibility for what we create or share.

🧠 AI Literacy & Critical Thinking

But even responsible use and clear labels aren't enough. We still have to think for ourselves.

A label tells us AI was involved. It doesn't tell us whether something is true. Before we believe or share something, we should check where it came from, see if other reliable sources back it up, and not trust it just because it looks or sounds convincing.

👤 Protect Real People

We didn't think about this part when we first started. We've seen stories about students having AI-generated images made of them without permission — that's already happening in schools.

But what if nobody used your photo or even knew who you were? AI can create a fictional person who happens to look like someone real.

Imagine that AI person shows up in a video about a crime or another serious situation, and someone from school sees it and asks, "Is that you?"

For content like that, we want a clear notice: AI-GENERATED PERSON — NOT A REAL INDIVIDUAL

When we started this petition, we were mostly worried about getting fooled by AI ourselves. Now we're also worried about someone getting hurt by something AI made up.

We're high school students, and we're still figuring this out. But we don't think asking to know what we're looking at is asking too much.

If you agree, please sign and share this petition.

🟡 AI-Enhanced: This petition was written by us. We used AI to help edit and organize our writing.