Protecting the Intellectual Property of AI with Watermarking

If we can protect videos, audio and photos with digital watermarking, why not AI models? This is the question my colleagues and I asked ourselves as we looked to develop a technique to assure developers that their hard work in building AI, such as deep learning models, can be protected. You may be thinking, "Protected from what?" Well, for example, what if your AI model is stolen or misused for nefarious purposes, such as offering a plagiarized service built on stolen model? This is an concern, particularly for AI leaders such as IBM. Earlier this month we presented our research at the AsiaCCS '18 conference in Incheon, Republic of Korea, and we are proud to say that our comprehensive evaluation technique to address this challenge was demonstrated to be highly effective and robust.