A take on the opportunities presented by Deep Fakes.

What did I just see?

A couple of days ago I had a weird experience that made me reconsider reality, or what I accept as reality. Long story short, I came across a video on TV that was about a speech a leader of the East Mediterranean region gave. I was shocked to see it and made me wonder if I was seeing this or if my mind was playing games. After cooling down a bit, I re-played it in my head. It was a 30’ or so clip, The guy gave the speech from a podium without anyone else appearing in the set. It was short, punctual, and direct. Something that I’m not used to seeing from these guys. So, my intuition was that something was wrong. I searched everywhere to find the video and see it again. Online, youtube, the streaming service of the tv station. Nothing. It was like it never happened. But the video was playing in my head on repeat.

And this is where it hit me. What if that was a deep fake? What if that was an experiment that someone was conducting to measure reactions? It was smart. No traces. It played once. Not in prime time (2 pm local). No traces of it online. Just a message that someone wanted to plant in our heads. I can tell you it worked. If they gave me a feedback option, I’d smash the “it worked” button.

The ERA of “What you see is what you DONT get”

Technology is great. AI is great. We are experiencing the greatest advancement in technology that we have ever seen, arguably after electricity was discovered. AI is a deflationary technology that will accelerate the development of everything from medicines to spaceships and agriculture. But it also has a dark side. The one that is used to manipulate and present a reality that is either distorted or false outright. This is what I call the “WYSIWY-D-G”. Deep fakes, half-truths, and unproven lies that are hard to uncover.

What can we do about it, if anything then?

Fortunately, technology is here again to save us from this and not only save us but also it presents a great entrepreneurial opportunity. I strongly believe that the market of “reality” will be one of the fastest growing markets in the ERA of AI deployment.

Companies that will solve the issues of identifying deep fakes, alerting users of potential dangers of the content they are engaging with, and validating the sources or events outright kicking out misleading information and content, will thrive.

We have the tools to do this and this is as simple as using the same existing technology that we use to create the deep fakes. AI can tell if something is AI. In the same way, an American can tell if someone is American or Greek from the way they speak a language. The accent, the way they project, the attitude. It might not be the greatest analogy but you get the point. Machines can tell machines.

Combine this with timestamping of content and sources using immutable ledgers (aka blockchains) and you can trace the content back to the creator, will all the sources they used. And if the sources are also timestamped and stored on-chain, eventually you can find the truth. This is something that if done correctly, will not only make great ventures and businesses but also help shape the future of our society.

In my case, if I knew that the content existed on a ledger, I could go and find it (ie, it played on this tv channel, at this date, and here it is) online. Then if the content has all the meta data immutable as well, ie this is where it was captured, at this time etc, I could cross validate it with others and draw my own conclusions. Way different experience that my current state of exploding head.

We have the technology. We have used blockchains for a long time now. We understand how machines work and how they can trick us. It’s a matter of just putting together the right pieces in the right order and we can lay the groundwork for a future where machines work for the RIGHT people.

Upwards and onwards.