Please don’t auto downvote before reading.
A little bit ago some asked a question about why the hate of the blockchain, and that got me thinking if there even was a legitimate use case where the blockchain would be beneficial, but I couldn’t think of one outside maybe some sort of decentralized bank, but before I knew I was thinking it would instantly turn into some crypto scheme and strapped it, because crypto currencies are a scam on every level – and no they aren’t private or secret as some think either.
So I wanted to ask the community. Instead of using the blockchain for crypto, is there a better use where the blockchain could benefit society?
The “Blockchain” technology is gonna become crucial in the future of AI and Deepfakes.
Since videos, and especially still images can be faked. They would be treated just like witness testimonies, evidence that can be falsified.
What I think will happen is that people would have to use live internet connection to verify a video.
So what happens is that whenever a video is recorded, there will be a “blockchain verify” feature in the camera settings, when enabled either the video feed or the hash of the packets of video data is sent to a blockchain network where it gets timestamped and stored permanently on the blockchain.
The network would consist of various nodes that ideally aren’t government run. Think like the ACLU, EFF, or Journalists, or people who independently want to join the network. Each would run their own node independently.
So any time theres suspicion that a video may be faked, the courts can just ask the network to send their own copy of the blockchain, if theres a consensus, then the video can be proven to have been created at the time that is timestamped. So there’s no way of creating a fake video evidence after an incident since you wont have the timestamp on the blockchain.
Why would this require a blockchain, as opposed to standard public servers run by the same parties mentioned?
Because the fewer servers the more trust you need in the servers owners. And the trust is not limited by intentions, it’s also limited to their ability to not be compromised by private or state sponsored hackers.
who pays to maintain the network? This is not a cryptocurrency, whoever does the mining needs to be paid for their spent resources, and it won’t happen automatically
That’s a good point, people make nodes because the incentive helps make sure there are enough servers on the network to keep it secure.
However, back in the days before blockchain we had SETI. So a case could be made that people will volunteer resources for something that mutually benefits them. Protecting ourselves from doctored media and deepfakes would be a pretty good incentive.
Then again, there are a lot of different cryptos tied to tasks already - like using phones as nodes in a mesh network, using a decentralized search engine, learning about crypto itself, etc. If blockchain turned out to be a good way to verify media, there could be a pay off for joining the distributed ledger.
The blockchain is always “gonna become crucial” in lots of things, depending on whatever looks popular at the moment, yet it never does because it is obviously a bad idea.
It’s a grift, and if you’re not an active grifter, you are the mark
Full self driving in 2 years, I swear…
How does this protect the blockchain from someone just uploading hashes of AI generated video though?
It doesn’t prevent every falsification. It makes it much harder.
Say the incident is a car crash. And assuming dash cams also get this blockchain feature. The car crash already happened and you cant fake a video afterwards that make it look like the other person hit you first. And if you try to preemptively fake a video, you cant know every possible roads, roadsigns, nearby cars, or what vehicle the other person is driving, basically you cant predict everything that was on the scene before the incident occurs.
Imagine if you hit a truck at 5 PM heading west on Road 27 and on the intersection on Road 52. You’d have to know beforehand the road that the incident will occur on, the position of the sun (its 5PM and you’re heading west, remember), the road signs, how wide the road is and how many lanes, the fact that the other vehicle is a truck, what the truck looks like, etc.
I mean you have to create so many fake vehicle collision videos then when an incident happens, you’d have to hope one of the ones you faked matches the situation, then quickily find the video and send it to the blockchain.
Not to mention, the other person could have a dashcam video without any discrepencies. And any slight discrepency on your faked video would make court believe the other recording more than yours.
I mean its not impossible fake something. But its hard to do it before something happens.
It still doesn’t prevent me from making a camera that generated ai with timestamps, real block chain, and instead of capturing pixels from lens, generates then from a prompt that says " politician bribes etc etc"