[NNagain] The growing challenges of discerning authentic vs. inauthentic information and identity

["David Bray, PhD" <david.a.bray@gmail.com>]

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Dear NNAgain’ers,

Today on a different listserv, I joined a discussion on what I sense will
be a pressing issue across multiple sectors in 2024. I recognize this is
not NN-related and so if it isn’t of interest, I apologize in advance.
However as most of us have technology background here, my sense is we
generally have a better sense of the looming issue than non-technical folks
at the moment. Below I outline some of the contours of the evolving problem
space, and invite each of you to share your thoughts as I sense the
diversity of perspectives here might help with brainstorming potential
solutions necessary for civil societies to continue:

Premise: We are at the precipice of an extended era where inauthenticity
vs. authenticity will be difficult to discern, that that involves multiple
forms of content including biometrics and more.

In isolated pockets, governments are becoming aware of this - however it’s
going to be really difficult for pluralistic societies like the U.S. where
any of the Estates that traditionally would have a role to play in
verifying the authentic vs. inauthentic nature of something have had public
trust in them as arbiters eroding. And it doesn’t help that both politics
and advertisement rely on presenting things as 100% authentic when they’re
often only somewhat so (or, to be more generous, mix facts with lots of
beliefs).

Not supporting autocracies, however they have a bit of a “home field”
advantage here because there is only one singular narrative - and anyone
who questions it can be fired/isolated, imprisoned/disappeared, or
killed/executed. Tools of such regimes, to include filtering, censorship,
and repression - will be used to ensure only one narrative (authentic or
not, mostly likely the latter) is seen by a majority of their population.
Pluralistic societies will have it much harder, and the last ten years will
pale in comparison to the challenges of sensemaking in a world flooded by
both media and mediums of questionable authenticity.

Back in 2019-2020, I did my darnest to connect Pablo and an additional
People-Centered Internet expert with Salesforce that has a lot of CRM data
with the proposal that SF could provide a feature where, as part of the
CRM, “out of band” questions could be included to do some sort of
additional level of trust that the entity on the other end was who they
claimed to be. Unfortunately that pitch was overshadowed by larger concerns
that SF’s software, give some of its features, could be misused in ways not
intended by them (think about ways akin to Cambridge Analytica) and they
were trying to figure out how they could incorporate features to prevent
actors from misusing/abusing their software in ways not intended by them as
a company.

2024 is going to be hard. Manipulation of what people appear to see, hear,
sense - and thus know - is becoming sadly easier.

Meanwhile understanding of the importance of triangulation, triangulation,
triangulation from different perspective to discern authenticity vs.
inauthenticity remains time-consuming and hard. Perhaps we need to consider
standing up private sector Dun & Bradstreet-like entities for identity and
other important adjudicatory functions - however that doesn’t immediately
solve the issue of how to help the public in a would experiencing a flood
of questionable content, information, and identities? And who “watches” the
adjudicators?

*David Bray, PhD *Principal, LeadDoAdapt Ventures, Inc.
<https://www.leaddoadapt.com/>
Loomis Innovation Council Co-Chair
<https://napawash.org/fellow/305629> & Distinguished
Fellow
<https://www.cxotalk.com/bio/dr-david-bray-distinguished-fellow-stimson-center>Henry
S. Stimson Center <https://www.stimson.org/ppl/david-bray/>, Business
Executives for National Security <https://bens.org/people/dr-david-bray/>

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