Fox Corp’s Verify tool to combat AI ‘deep fakes’ and misinformation

The rapid adoption of generative AI platforms has made it easier than ever to generate fake news and information, prompting Fox Corp to unleash a new verification tool.

A deep fake AI-generated Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a supposedly "live" debate on Twitch.

Fox Corporation has launched a new tool aimed at combating the rise of AI-generated deep fakes and misinformation.

The media titan unveiled a platform, which uses blockchain technology to not only verify the authenticity of news content, but can also be used to negotiate deals with companies developing AI models.

The platform, called Verify, was developed by the Fox Technology team and Polygon Labs.

It is an open source protocol that can establish the history and origin of registered media.

It comes as the proliferation of generative AI – the ability to create a raft of content via simple verbal prompts – has made it easier to produce photorealistic fake images and videos, which are touted as one of the biggest threats to the 2024 US presidential race.

“Though advances in AI have developed at a breathtaking pace, one downside of these platforms has been the rise of AI-generated media, from articles to audio to images,” Polygon said.

“There is broad agreement this problem needs to be met head on, but there haven’t been many real-world solutions that prove the provenance of any given piece of content. Researchers at Polygon Labs have been building the core blockchain infrastructure that can transparently prove authenticity.”

On Verify, publishers can register content in order to prove origination, Polygon said.

“Individual pieces of content are cryptographically signed on chain, allowing consumers to identify content from trusted sources using the Verify Tool.

“With this technology, readers will know for sure that an article or image that purportedly comes from a publisher in fact originated at the source.

This photo illustration taken on December 22, 2023, shows a user on an AI video generator website on a laptop computer in Taipei. A wave of misinformation hit Taiwan's voters ahead of the presidential election late last year, aimed overwhelmingly at candidates who favour the island's independence from China. Picture: I-Hwa Cheng/AFP

“Additionally, Verify establishes a technical bridge between media companies and AI platforms. With its Verified Access Point, Verify creates new commercial opportunities for content owners by utilising smart contracts to set programmatic conditions for access to content.”

Fox Corp launched a closed beta version of Verify last August.

“To date, 89,000 pieces of content, spanning text and images, have been signed to Verify, from Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Sports, and Fox TV affiliates,” Polygon said.

Governments across the world are scrambling to regulate the use of generative AI as the technology sparks the biggest workplace transformation in decades, touting productivity gains while slashing employee burnout.

In the absence of clear new AI laws, the world’s biggest technology companies are advocating self-regulation to ensure the technology is not misused to create mass misinformation, deep fakes and potentially AI-designed weapons.

Last year, Adobe introduced its AI platform, Firefly, across its suite of products, including Photoshop, allowing people to generate media, after beta trials produced more than two billion images.

But Adobe chief technology officer for digital media Ely Greenfield said it has made Firefly “commercially safe” following the six-month trial.

“We verify the contributor details about how and where the image was captured from (and) what they have the rights to licence, and just about the content to make sure that they meet our community standards or human bias standards,” Mr Greenfield said when Firefly was launched in September.

Research group Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said the European Union is likely to become the leader in AI regulation, in a similar way its laws around device charging cables led to USB-C, becoming the new standard.

The EIU said the US has taken a different approach, favouring innovation over regulation, preferring the market to introduce its own self-regulatory principles.

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has also issued repeated warnings via her Hancock Prospecting website about an investment scam using AI-generated fake social media posts – including videos, and associated news stories - alleging her investment into a crypto platform. Credit Hancock Prospecting

“This approach has been strengthened by its tech rivalry with China, which has increased the pressure to innovate and led the US to impose strict trade controls, such as those on semiconductors,” EIU said in its report titled Why AI matters, released late last year.

“The US political system also makes it hard to pass regulations. The legislative branch has looked at AI, with the Senate introducing its SAFE innovation framework, and the House of Representatives introducing the Algorithmic Accountability Act, but neither is likely to pass before Congress’s term ends in 2024, considering no substantial tech legislation was passed in the previous term with the Democrats in control.”

At the same time, copyright is emerging as a main battleground amid the rapid deployment of AI.

The New York Times is suing Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker Open AI, alleging that the companies’ powerful AI models used millions of articles for training without permission.

In the UK, stock picture company Getty Images is suing Stability AI over photos used to power the technology company’s Stable Diffusion image generator.

Artists, musicians and publishers say the tech giants must compensate creators for using their work to train AI engines.

Fox Corporation is controlled by the Murdoch family, which also controls News Corporation, publisher of The Australian.