Two months ago, media giant Fox Corp. partnered with Polygon Labs, the team behind the Ethereum-focused layer-2 blockchain, to tackle deep false mistrust.
Fox and Polygon have launched Verify, a protocol that aims to protect their IP while allowing consumers to verify the authenticity of content. And since then, government regulatory commissions, publishers and others have seen it as a viable solution to a “present-day problem,” said Fox Corp. CTO Melody Hildebrandt. TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast.
Hildebrandt said she is positive that more news agencies, media companies and others will incorporate this technology as AI technology enters the mainstream. It can be beneficial for both AI companies and creators: Models gain knowledge and outlets, and people can verify their work.
And it’s important for end users, who are unsure whether the content they’re consuming is trustworthy or not, Mike Blank, COO at Polygon Labs, said during the episode.
“There’s obviously pace on the hill,” Hildebrandt said. While most publishers want to participate in this kind of ecosystem, they don’t want to sign “all their crown jewels,” he added. This means imposing some technical guardrails that allow creators to move forward, but still be able to retain some optionality in the future.
“We had this immediate kind of ‘aha’ moment,” Hildebrandt said. “I think we could think of the origin of the blockchain as a small basis for thinking about the ‘introduction to the model’ question and how to think about the origin and media in an AI-generated world.”
There is an opportunity for blockchains to help establish the accuracy of data and authenticate content proliferating online, Blank said. The hope is to expose unreliable content so consumers can feel some comfort in a world where things aren’t always reliable.
One of the key advantages of blockchain technology is the ability to store data in a way that ensures the integrity of that data. Blockchains can also cryptographically validate the authenticity of images, text, video, or other media assets.
“When you put that content on the chain, you can now validate that the content was created by a specific person or brand,” Blank said.
Ultimately, it’s in a brand’s best interest to proactively provide verified information, Blank said. “It’s going to be increasingly simple for end users to understand where they’re getting their content from and whether it’s actually valid or verified in some way.”
AI-powered content is being created at an unprecedented rate and will continue as AI becomes more capable. “I think we all have to work together to make sure that the technology environment that we’re creating allows for the scale to solve this problem at a rate that, again, the end consumer can and can consume efficiently.” Blank said.
This story was inspired by an episode of TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast. Sign up in Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to hear more stories and advice from the entrepreneurs building today’s most innovative companies.
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