We desperately need a technological solution to be able to somehow "sign" images and videos as being real and not generated or manipulated by AI.

I have no idea how such a thing would work.

It won't work, because most people do not understand what a digital signature is and they will just say that has been faked as well.

Journalists will know how to check it in high profile cases.

And annoyed and suspicious techies can use it to check other people's content and report them as fake.

Yeah, there are a lot of dumb people who want to be deceived. But would be good for the rest of us to have some tools.

This will just create a black market for AI generated video content that doesn't have a signature. Which I'm sure that China, Russia, hell even the US governments would not have a problem with because that would be extremely useful for them.

So everything without a signature should just be assumed to be AI.

Honestly - not gonna be feasible to sign things that are not AI-generated. For example, my friend's phone uses generative AI for the insane zoom capability it has - so every photo my friend takes would not be able to be signed.

And this is the crux of the issue - we are beelining to a world where EVERYTHING gets an AI filter in front of it. In a few years there will be no authentic content at all.

Enter “analog deep-fakers” who create misleading images using the lost arts of our ancestors. I guess it would at least be more expensive than AI, so might not be as prevalent and damaging.

Such a thing exists currently, at least for images created by Google and other major AI companies.

We desperately need a high-tech solution to disengage from the torrent of AI slop. I have found a form of photosynthesizing plant that grows in the soil of many places where humans live. Apparently, touching this with the palm of your hand creates a kind of protective endorphin effect that coalesces conflicting versions of reality into the one you're actually experiencing. It'll take a lot of money to advertise this to the general population, but I'm fundraising as hard as I can: this approach will be called "Touch Grass" and I hope to see you all when we do it together.