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Welcome to Crypto Long & Short! This week, William Ogden Moore, a research analyst at Grayscale Investments, explores the problems of AI-generated deepfakes and how blockchains can correct for disinformation.
Then, Julie Lamb, of CryptoMondays, looks at how organizations are using blockchains to improve their supply chain operations. As always, get the latest crypto news and data from coindeskmarkets.com. – Benjamin Schiller, head of opinion and features at CoinDesk
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How Blockchains Can Help Solve AI's Deepfake Problem |
As AI continues to work itself into our daily lives, it's hard not to see the impact it's already having on nearly every sector. Within the finance industry, for example, AI is facilitating smarter investments, analyzing market trends and predicting stock performance, ultimately helping individuals and institutions make more informed business decisions. While most of the advancements with AI are exciting and continue to push different industries forward, there are those abusing the technology for more nefarious purposes. With generative AI, one of the biggest risks that individuals and organizations need to be aware of are called "deepfakes." Deepfakes are highly realistic digital forgeries produced with AI to manipulate or generate visual and/or audio content. For example, a deepfake might involve an AI-generated video showing a celebrity engaging in actions or making statements that never actually occurred, such as when comedian Jordan Peele created a deepfake of Barack Obama to showcase the threat AI-generated technology could present. While we may default to believing what we see, this type of forged or deceptive AI-generated content is becoming increasingly more common. Between 2022 and the first half of 2023, deepfakes as a proportion of content in the U.S. increased almost 13 times from 0.2% to 2.6%, according to a recent report from Sumsub Research.. Experts are already concerned deepfakes could be used to try to sway public opinion or influence important events like elections, with bad actors trying to use AI to impersonate elected officials. They are "completely terrified" that the upcoming Presidential race will involve a "tsunami of misinformation," driven heavily by deepfake and misleading AI-generated content, another recent report noted. Many view deepfakes' ability to blur the lines between truth and fiction as a fundamental threat to democracies and fair elections around the globe. So how do we – as a society – mitigate the prevalence and risks of deepfakes, as well as similar risks that may emerge as generative AI only continues to get more sophisticated? Blockchains could be the crucial technology we need to help tackle this issue. At their core, public blockchains, such as Ethereum, have several key features that make them uniquely positioned to establish authenticity for content and information. This includes blockchain's inherent transparency, decentralized nature and focus on network security and immutability. For those unfamiliar, a public blockchain transparently records information in a time-bound manner, accessible to all, globally, and without gatekeeping. This allows anyone to verify the validity of information, such as its creator or a timestamp, making it a source of truth. Public blockchains are also decentralized, eliminating the need for a central decision-maker, and reducing the risk of manipulation. This decentralized structure also offers high network security by eliminating single points of failure, and ensuring an immutable and tamper-resistant record. Furthermore, blockchains have already demonstrated their ability to authenticate content. For instance, with digital art as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain tech allows anyone to verify the creator and owner of a piece of art, enabling our ability to distinguish between the original and its potential replicas. This transparency and authentication potential extends to videos, images, and text, providing important foundations for developers to create solutions and tools geared at combating deepfakes, such as OpenAI's Worldcoin, Irys and Numbers Protocol. As AI's impact on society grows, AI-generated content and deepfakes will only become more prominent. Harvard experts already predict that more than 90% of content online will be AI-generated in the future. To protect against threats such as deepfakes, it's crucial we get ahead of the issue and implement innovative solutions. Public blockchains, collectively owned and operated by users, offer promising features like network security, transparency, and decentralization which can help against the issues deepfakes present. However, much of the work underway remains in its early stages, and challenges remain with the technical development and widespread adoption of blockchain-related protocols. While there is no quick fix, we must remain committed to shaping a future that upholds truth, integrity, and transparency, as our society navigates these emerging technologies (and the risks they present) together. |
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How Blockchain is Reshaping Supply Chains Beyond Finance |
Have you ever wondered about the true potential of blockchain technology beyond its association with finance? Blockchain offers transparency, security, and efficiency, revolutionizing processes and unlocking new opportunities for businesses worldwide. Hence, the expected growth trajectories in the coming years.
Below we look at how these benefits can provide advantages to companies adopting blockchain tech beyond pure financial applications. |
Transparency: There's a common misconception that blockchain technology lacks transparency. In reality, it is inherently transparent, thanks to a decentralized ledger system. Each transaction is recorded on a public ledger, enabling quick and easy identification of affected products. This transparency enhances accountability and trust in supply chains, ensuring consumer safety and product integrity. Simplicity: While blockchain technology may seem complex at first glance, businesses can benefit from simplified explanations and practical applications. By focusing on real-world case studies and actionable insights, organizations that are using data science like GE, IBM, PayPal, AWS, Uber, John Deere, NASA and others have grasped data-driven insights across various sectors and its potential to streamline operations, enhance security, and drive innovation. Global Adoption: Blockchain is revolutionizing industry applications ranging from supply chain management and healthcare to voting systems and digital identity verification. For example, AWS introduced Track and Trace with Amazon Managed Blockchain, a fully-managed service that automatically scales to meet the demands of thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Added benefits to leveraging supply chains with blockchain include scalability, cost reduction, transparency and ease of process automation. |
Sustainability: Some major companies are leveraging blockchains for sustainability and fair treatment of workers purposes. In recent news, Mondelēz International, the parent to brands like Oreo, Ritz, Clif Bar, Cadbury, and Toblerone, announced that it's joining the Hedera Council, the entity that governs the Hedera Network, "a sustainable public ledger for the decentralized economy." By tapping Web3 tech, the Council expects Mondelēz to increase business efficiency and sustainability and innovate across customer engagement. Conclusion: It's not too late to explore the vast opportunities in the blockchain space. As the industry continues to evolve and mature, early adopters stand to benefit from investment opportunities, technological advancements, and market growth. Blockchain tech holds immense potential beyond finance, offering transparency, security, and efficiency across various industries. By dispelling myths, embracing opportunities, and staying informed, businesses can harness the power of blockchain to drive innovation, foster trust, and achieve sustainable growth. |
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From Nick Baker, CoinDesk's deputy editor-in-chief, here is some news worth reading: |
- CME MUSCLING IN?: Many people still call it the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and its roots are undeniably entangled with Chicago, but market giant CME Group has roamed way beyond the U.S. Midwest and agricultural derivatives trading. The exchange's 2017 decision, for instance, to introduce bitcoin (BTC) futures helped spur a crypto bull market and tantalize institutional investors, laying the groundwork for the eventual approval of bitcoin ETFs. It looks poised to make waves yet again. The Financial Times reported last week that CME plans to introduce bitcoin spot trading. TradFi raiders reluctant to do business with conventional crypto exchanges might be more enthusiastic about CME, which is home to stuff they're familiar with: popular futures contracts on the S&P 500, gold, interest rates and more. The incumbents might be less enthusiastic. Shares of Coinbase, for instance, sank after the news broke.
- $25M AND 12 SECONDS: U.S. prosecutors just alleged that two brothers plundered $25 million in all of 12 seconds, taking advantage of a flaw in something called MEV-Boost. This all concerns the trading practice known as MEV, a form of front-running or maybe arbitrage or possibly just picking off juicy transactions by being fast. The practice is rampant in Ethereum, and controversial. So, MEV-Boost was built to equalize things. It doesn't prevent MEV, but makes it so more people can engage in it – the idea being that at least that's more fair. Anyway, what the brothers did is reminiscent of – though not exactly the same as – "spoofing" in traditional markets. In both cases, bait is laid down to entice bots to do something that makes money for the baiter. Federal prosecutors look askance at both, apparently.
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