The A.O.C. Deepfake Was Terrible. The Proposed Solution Is Delusional.

Brave New World and 1984 combined:

…The other crucial thing that the abundance of such easily generated information makes scarce is credibility. And that is nowhere more stark than in the case of photos, audio and video, because they are among the key mechanisms with which we judge claims about reality. Lose that, lose reality.

It would be nice if, like members of Congress or large media organizations, we all had a large staff who could be dispatched to disprove false claims and protect our reputations and in that small way buttress the sanctity of facts. Since we don’t, we need to find other models that we can all access. Scientists and parts of the tech industry have come up with a few very promising frameworks — known as zero-knowledge proofs, secure enclaves, hardware authentication tokens using public key cryptography, distributed ledgers, for example — about which there is much more to say at another moment. Many other tools may yet arise. But unless we start taking the need seriously now before we lose what’s left of proof of authenticity and verification, governments will step right into the void. If the governments are not run by authoritarians already, it probably won’t take long till they are.

Source: The A.O.C. Deepfake Was Terrible. The Proposed Solution Is Delusional.