# MPEG-AI Part 6 — requirement mapping and alignment

> A preparation document, not a submission and not a normative extension. It maps
> what WAI already specifies onto the requirements of an open Call for Proposals,
> so the tree can be aligned *against* that work rather than diverge from it by
> default. Submitting an input contribution requires SC 29 national-body
> membership; **nothing here should be planned around an assumed submission.**

## 1. The work item

**ISO/IEC 23888-6** — *Information technology — Artificial intelligence for
multimedia — Part 6: Media authenticity and provenance indication.* Carried as an
ISO **PWI** project record. The Call for Proposals was approved by **WG 2** at
MPEG 155.

| milestone | when |
|---|---|
| CfP responses, as input contributions to MPEG 157 (Brisbane) | **13 January 2027** |
| CD / CDAM | MPEG 158 |
| DIS / DAM | MPEG 159 |
| FDIS / FDAM | early 2028 |

Scope, as published: system-level media authentication across the **entire
lifecycle** — authoring, creation, production, editing, storage, delivery and
playback — built on MPEG Systems technologies. Stage is
exploration/requirements; there is **no working draft**, no bitstream, no format
and no capability string to register. A contribution accepted in January 2027 has
roughly a year of drafting influence before the text sets.

## 2. Why this is not already covered by WAI's provenance ingest

WAI's existing provenance work is **authoring-side manifest provenance** — a
manifest asserting who made an asset and how, bound to it by hash. That is a
different layer from a **systems-layer delivery-and-playback authenticity
specification**, which is what this work item is scoped to.

The two are complementary, and treating the existing ingest as coverage would be
a category error: an authoring manifest says what happened before distribution;
this work item is about what can be asserted and checked *during* it.

## 3. What WAI has that the requirements space does not

Two positions in this tree are absent from every provenance standard surveyed in
[2030-transport-landscape](2030-transport-landscape.md), and both sit squarely
inside a lifecycle-scoped authenticity specification:

**Per-object measured energy with a declared acquisition class.** Provenance
standards record *what was done and by whom*. WAI's binding records *what it
cost, as measured, with the provenance of the measurement stated*: it is
per-object, carries `HwShunt` / `ModelBased` / `Estimator`, refuses to publish a
figure from a failed measurement, and binds the measured quantity to the media
object under signature.

**Determinism tiers separating byte-exact reconstruction from approximate
re-rendering.** Authenticity over generated or reconstructed media needs a
statement of *what reproduction means* for the object in question. A hard hash
over rendered output is only meaningful when the reconstruction is pinned; WAI
says when it is, and — since the tier fix — says that the tier covers what the
sink emits rather than the decode alone.

These map onto lifecycle requirements at the delivery and playback stages, which
are exactly the stages an authoring-side manifest does not reach.

## 4. Alignment actions, in order of cost

1. **Specify against the requirements, not around them.** As WAI's provenance,
   energy and determinism extensions are revised, state how each satisfies or
   declines a published requirement. This costs nothing now and is the difference
   between a profile and an alternative later.
2. **Keep the vocabulary reconcilable.** Where this tree names a concept the work
   item also names, prefer their term or state the mapping. Two vocabularies for
   one property is the failure mode already recorded for energy acquisition
   classes.
3. **Establish a membership path** if a contribution is wanted. This is an
   organisational decision with a lead time, and the deadline is fixed.

## 5. The asymmetry that makes silence expensive

The downside of doing nothing is not neutral. If this lands as **the**
systems-layer provenance format, WAI is either a profile of it or an alternative
to it, and that is decided by whether the alignment work happened — not by
whether a contribution was submitted.

Alignment is cheap and reversible. Being an alternative to a ratified
systems-layer standard is neither.

## 6. What this document does not claim

- It does **not** assert that a contribution will be made, or that membership
  exists.
- It does **not** treat the CfP requirements as final; the stage is
  exploration/requirements and requirements move.
- It does **not** describe WAI's mechanisms as adopted by, aligned with, or
  endorsed by that work item. They are not. This is preparation for a
  conversation that has not happened.