Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to impact our everyday lives and every sector. From finance to healthcare, AI is pushing through boundaries, ensuring our lives get even easier. In finance and cryptocurrency, for instance, it analyzes market behavior and predicts stock/crypto performance, helping us make smarter investment choices. AI can also help in executing trades in real-time in volatile markets. It’s revolutionizing the health industry by predicting potential health risks based on its analysis of the patient’s medical history and current data.
It’s obvious that advancements in AI are improving human living, but the technology is being manipulated by a few for nefarious activities. One of the biggest threats to individuals and organizations is the rise of deepfakes. With Generative AI, manipulators are spreading misinformation and stealing digital identities, blurring the line between deception and truth. As deepfakes are on the rise, can blockchain be the saving grace? Can it help verify truth in an era of hyperrealism and restore truth?
Deepfakes Explained
A deepfake, as the name suggests, is a hyper-realistic digital forgery, typically videos, images, or audio, created using AI. The whole idea is to mimic a person’s real voice, appearance, and artistic expressions. What was initially labeled as entertaining has evolved into a serious threat.
Now, manipulators can fake speeches and interviews, impersonate a prominent individual, and even steal an identity. They make it look as though the actions happened or statements were made in real life. A typical example of how much of a threat deepfakes are was when Jordan Peele created a deepfake of Barack Obama.
How Dangerous Are Deepfakes?
Deceptive AI-generated media is becoming rampant, and that’s not a good thing. Anyone with access to a smartphone or laptop can use Generative AI to create convincing digital forgeries, making it more difficult to differentiate between facts and fiction. A statistic revealed that the proportion of deepfake content in the United States soared 13 times from 0.2% to 2.6% between 2022 and the first half of 2023.
But the real threat Generative AI poses is erosion of trust. If people question everything they see or hear online, it becomes a huge problem. In an age of misinformation and false narratives, society risks crumbling.
So, what can we do as a society to curb the rising deepfakes? We need digital provenance, a credible and verifiable way to authenticate content and restore truth. This is where blockchain becomes crucial.
Blockchain Technology: The Source of Truth
Blockchain technology can be our immutable source of truth. At its core, blockchain is transparent, decentralized, tamper-proof, and secure, making it the best weapon yet against false content. It records information in real-time and makes it accessible to all without gatekeeping. You can validate the timestamp and even the creator, track alterations, and verify the identity to authenticate the content and prove its origin. With blockchain, users can trust the provenance of information.
How Blockchain Can Combat Deepfakes
This technology has already demonstrated that you can trust it in authenticating content. For instance, blockchain allows anyone to verify the creator and owner of an NFT. By doing this, you can differentiate between the original and the replica. Lens Protocol and Mirror.xyz are already experimenting on this.
The use case extends to media, such as videos, images, and audio. Blockchain can verify the integrity of media content using cryptography and decentralized storage. Truepic, OriginTrail, and Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative are already exploring the use of cryptography and decentralized storage to authenticate the origin of media content. Some smartphones and cameras can sign media on-chain, too, where a digital signature, geolocation, and time of creation are attached.
Blockchain can minimize identity theft through a decentralized identity (DID). This allows individuals to own and manage their identities on-chain. This means verified persons can digitally sign their posts and media content, making it harder for manipulators to impersonate them. Polygon ID, SpruceID, and Ethereum’s ERC-725 are examples of DID protocols.
Limitations of Blockchain
One of the major challenges of deploying blockchains in authentication is scalability. Managing large files on-chain requires hybrid systems, such as hash on-chain. In addition, media platforms and devices must adopt blockchain-based verification systems for it to work. This can be challenging to integrate due to costs and technical know-how.
Furthermore, AI models that generate a deepfake are rapidly evolving, almost faster than any technology that can detect their originality. Blockchains need to undergo similar innovation and development to have detection systems to authenticate fake content. Let’s not forget it needs to have the backing of regulators and satisfy AI ethics.
Final Say
As AI continues to impact society, AI-generated content, including deepfakes, will only grow popular. Some experts believe that 90% of content online will be AI-generated soon. We must get ahead of the game to implement solutions to fight against synthetic media content. Blockchains offer promising features that can help, but they are still developing. Plus, widespread adoption remains a challenge. Regulators, creators, digital platforms, and users must collaborate to adopt blockchain-based verification systems to maintain trust and truth.