Why Blockchain Will Become Essential Sooner Than You Think?

Have you noticed the images used in this article? If so, you’ve uncovered their shared characteristic: they’re all fake, AI-generated images from the past few days. We’re being inundated with fabricated visuals depicting events that never occurred, such as the arrest of a former US president, a 2001 earthquake in Oregon, or the Pope donning a fashionable Balenciaga coat.

Truthfully, this is just the beginning. Soon, we will be faced with high-resolution deepfake videos, indistinguishable from reality and generated within minutes. In a matter of years, months, or even weeks, our trust in what we see with our own eyes will erode. Events portrayed in the media may be entirely fictitious.

Not only will our present be at risk, but our history and past as well. Did World War II really happen, or was it just fake news? Did Elvis Presley die, or, as some videos suggest, is he still living on a Caribbean island?

This is where blockchain technology could play a crucial role. As an immutable chain of ordered blocks, blockchain can offer humanity two essential solutions.

Fingerprinting

Firstly, blockchain can preserve our history. Let’s assume we use Wikipedia as our basis of truth. We could create a fingerprint (hash) of its current content and store it on the blockchain. This fingerprint would be placed in a block with a specific number, such as 1000. If any changes are made to the articles in the future, the new fingerprint based on the updated content will be different. Even if this new fingerprint is stored on the blockchain, its block number will be higher, for example, 2000. This will allow us to identify changes to the content and determine which version came first by checking the block numbers.

Identity

Blockchain is also an excellent tool for proving identity. If we have a private key associated with our account, we can sign any content, and any party can verify that the message was signed by the person holding the private key linked to that specific account. This will soon be crucial for establishing the authenticity of content. Was a statement made by the US president, or was it a deepfake? We will be able to determine this by checking if the content was signed by the president or not.

Conclusion

As artificial intelligence continues to advance, it is essential not to overlook blockchain technology. It may soon become our last bastion of hope in preserving truth and authenticity.

Disclaimer

This article has been checked and rephrased by Chat GPT-4.