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How Blockchain Technology Can Combat the Growing Threat of AI-Generated Deepfakes
As AI continues to weave its way into our daily lives, it’s hard not to see the impact it’s already having on nearly every industry. In the financial sector, for example, AI is facilitating smarter investing, analyzing market trends and predicting stock performance, ultimately helping individuals and institutions make more informed business decisions.
While most advances with AI are exciting and continue to push several industries forward, there are those who abuse the technology for more nefarious purposes. With generative AI, one of the biggest risks that individuals and organizations need to be aware of are so-called “deepfakes.”
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Deepfakes are highly realistic digital forgeries produced with artificial intelligence to manipulate or generate visual and/or audio content. For example, a deepfake might involve an AI-generated video showing a celebrity engaging in actions or making statements that never actually happened, as when comedian Jordan Peele created a deepfake of Barack Obama to show the threat the technology generated by artificial intelligence could represent.
While we might believe what we see, this type of falsified or deceptive AI-generated content is becoming increasingly common. Between 2022 and the first half of 2023, deepfakes as a percentage of content in the United States increased almost 13 times, from 0.2% to 2.6%, according to a recent report by Sumsub Research.
Experts are already concerned that deepfakes could be used to try to influence public opinion or influence major events such as elections, with bad actors attempting to use artificial intelligence to impersonate elected officials. They are “completely terrified” that the next presidential race will involve a “tsunami of misinformation“, driven largely by deepfakes and misleading content generated by artificial intelligence, another recent report noted. Many view the ability of deepfakes to blur the line between truth and fiction as a fundamental threat to democracies and fair elections everywhere the world.
So how can we – as a society – mitigate the prevalence and risks of deepfakes, as well as similar risks that may emerge as generative AI continues to become increasingly sophisticated?
Blockchains could be the crucial technology we need to help address this problem. Fundamentally, public blockchains, such as Ethereum, have several key characteristics that make them uniquely positioned to establish the authenticity of content and information. This includes blockchain’s inherent transparency, decentralized nature, and focus on security and immutability of the network.
For those who don’t know, a public blockchain transparently records information in a time-limited way, accessible to all, globally and without gatekeeping. This allows anyone to verify the validity of a piece of information, such as its creator or a timestamp, making it a source of truth. Public blockchains are also decentralized, eliminating the need for a central decision maker and reducing the risk of manipulation. This decentralized structure also offers high network security by eliminating single points of failure and ensuring an immutable and tamper-resistant record.
Furthermore, blockchains have already demonstrated their ability to authenticate content. For example, with digital art such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain technology allows anyone to verify the creator and owner of a work of art, allowing us to distinguish between the original and its potential replicas. This potential for transparency and authentication extends to videos, images and text, providing important foundations for developers to create solutions and tools aimed at combating deepfakes, such as Worldcoin, Irys and OpenAI’s Numbers Protocol.
As the impact of AI on society grows, AI-generated content and deepfakes will become increasingly important. Harvard experts already predict it over 90% of online content will be generated by artificial intelligence in the future. To protect yourself from threats like deepfakes, it is critical to anticipate the problem and implement innovative solutions. Public blockchains, owned and operated collectively by users, offer promising features such as network security, transparency and decentralization that can help counter the problems presented by deepfakes.
However, much of the ongoing work is still in its early stages and challenges remain related to the technical development and widespread adoption of blockchain-related protocols. While there is no quick fix, we must remain committed to shaping a future that supports truth, integrity, and transparency as our society faces these emerging technologies (and the risks they present) together.
Note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.