Support values of type TextObject for the name property to allow tagging of names as being AI generated

[alex-jansen]

Context - This is a proposal from Google based on our experience consuming schema.org Product markup and working with similar data from online merchants. If it were accepted, it would make it easier for us and others to understand whether names are AI-generated. This extends on issues #3391 and #3392.

Proposal -
Through inheritance from CreativeWork, TextObject has a property digitalSourceType, which allows specification whether a creative work (such as a MediaObject or a TextObject instance) was created using AI, e.g., using enumeration value TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource.

Since values of type TextObject are allowed for property description, descriptions can be tagged as being created by AI. However, the name property currently does not allow values of type TextObject, and can therefore not be tagged as created by AI. We propose, similar to description, to also allow values of type TextObject for the name property so consuming systems can understand whether names are AI generated.

We also propose, similar to MediaObject, to change the description of TextObject to also support embedded text objects, and not just file-based text.

A JSON-LD snippet of a name created using generative AI then looks as follows:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": {
     "@type": "TextObject",
     "digitalSourceType": "https://schema.org/TrainedAlgorithmicMediaDigitalSource",
     "text": "Stride & Conquer: Original Men's Blue & Orange Power Sneakers (Size 9)" 
   }
   ...
}