Cool, thanks for the notes, alternatives, and ideas. Critical thinking on full display here.
Guess we’ll just have to keep dealing with the weaponization of misinformation in the rise of LLMs all on our own.
I’m sure the undereducated will be just fine and utopia is just around the corner.
I don’t think it needs to be government based, I don’t see why it can’t be Independent.
I don’t see why the independent entity can’t work through the local DMV systems for verification.
You can cry “Oh, but then you’re trusting a corporation with your data” and like, first off, it can be a non-profit. Also, what are you doing with your ISP? The browser you use? The websites you visit? Every step of the way you’re trusting some corporation with your data - there’s no getting away from that.
I do think each Nation does need some form of online verification.
It’s pretty clear what kind of damage malicious actors can do by posing as a Nations citizens online, especially en masse and orchestrated. This problem is going to continue to get worse with the rise of LLMs.
The solution is better media literacy, better education, yatta yatta but that straight up ain’t happen, and certainly not at the scale needed to circumvent that kind of damage.
What other solutions do we have other than Nation wide online verification systems?
I don’t think nonessential sites should have some kind of ID verification, but I do think there needs to be some spaces where IDs are verified.
If we can’t trust the government, and we can’t trust independent entities, and there are actual government entities around the world are pouring resources into both misinformation campaigns and LLMs to use against the populace, what options do we have?
Why can’t we trust The Linux Foundation (for example) with tie ins to government verification systems to socialize on closed box social websites where we know the individuals we’re socializing with are actual people of the Nation?
My point is that we as a society, and each Nation for it’s own security and health, needs to form some kind of plan to fight both non-citizens posing as legitimate citizens and the rise of LLMs doing the same. For the U.S. I’d argue it’s National Security; there’s pretty clear interference from external sources influencing the populace that don’t make it obvious. How do we do that in a non-intrusive way?
I think the line of thinking that the internet needs to stay private, anonymous, and open is old and narrow-minded. It’s no longer the 90s. We don’t live in a utopia. And corporations aren’t the only entities online trying to influence readers/users. If we can’t feasibly educate a Nations populace on media literacy then there needs to be other protections in place.
Marketing used to be able to target a specific area of populace that would be most likely to fall for their ads or influence, but now it’s being compiled into LLMs which are much faster. This is a threat that is just going to continue to grow until it’s a complete shitshow. We all already have very little privacy out the gate (assuming average level of tech knowledge or whatever).
I’m hoping in the next ~10 years this problem gets solved. I don’t know how, I don’t care how, but the easiest solution is to have some sites use a trustable verification system. I don’t think we can feasibly trust any government with this kind of solution, so the next best thing is an independent entity that chooses not to work with said government since ya know, they’re independent. Obviously I’m not suggesting trusting Planitir or whatever because they do have strong ties to government entities.