The Impending Evolution of the Internet: Code, AI, and Authenticity

Another page turns in the annals of internet history. A digital ecosystem saturated with images, voices, and identities, the web teems with unverified and possibly doctored content. From millions of innocent grandmothers being duped by a falsely attributed image of the Pope to surprising encounters with highly convincing synthetic voices, the line between authenticity and deception in the digital world is increasingly blurred.

As a digital creator, one of the looming fears is that tools such as those provided by 11 Labs can be exploited to clone an individual’s online persona, rendering their original presence irrelevant. Case in point, a fake news piece about climate activist Greta Thunberg launching an oil company left many baffled. Honeypot’s documentary showcased how easy it is to make anyone say anything using a deepfake animatron.

However, a potential solution seems to have arrived in the form of the Coalition for Content Providence and Authenticity (C2PA). Comprising industry giants like Adobe and Microsoft, C2PA aims to address the issues they unwittingly contributed to by developing the very tools enabling such deceptions.

The C2PA essentially offers a spec or set of guidelines that hardware and software providers can use to attach metadata to every media file — be it images, videos, audio, or other forms. This information, coupled with cryptography, would digitally sign every file, effectively making all files tamper-aware. The objective is to ensure that no changes can be made to a file without the changes’ provenance being tracked either within the file itself or within a permanently attached manifest.

Envision every image as a non-blockchain NFT. You could click an icon and inspect the provenance information, discerning whether an image was AI-generated or if it originated from a trusted news source. Such technology, although novel, has already garnered attention. The Coalition recently urged the U.S. Senate to mandate such technology, offering artists a new federal anti-impersonation right to guard against impersonation of their style or likeness.

This breakthrough could indeed prove beneficial to content creators, end users, and even corporations like Valve, which recently began banning games on Steam suspected of using AI-generated content that might violate copyright laws. Companies like Stability AI support the move, realizing that their AI-generated platform can be digitally tagged with metadata and watermarks. The U.S. Department of Defense also supports this initiative, believing it could help highlight bad actors or those creating synthetic content.

At first glance, it may seem perfect — a marriage of big corporations and government working towards a safer internet. However, the potential for misuse and overreach is palpable. Seen from another perspective, this could be interpreted as an insidious mass surveillance apparatus. The potential future of the internet might entail leaving a digital footprint for every pixel changed. Although the current specification allows anonymity, the technology’s possible integration with government-issued digital IDs can compromise user privacy, making it easier to track who is creating what.

When combined with digital currency and a social credit system, this tech can be used to police internet content and even mete out penalties. This effectively hands the establishment a monopoly on disinformation, allowing them to create AI-generated content while presenting it as trustworthy. Trust then becomes a function of authority, not authenticity.

Back in 1981, the CIA director said, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” In light of this new technology, we may find ourselves questioning the validity of those words.

This has been a dispatch from the frontlines of the digital age. As the internet continues to evolve, we will all be on the watch, wondering what comes next.