(MIT Technology Review) – As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems imitating them.

That’s a real problem when those systems are deployed for nefarious ends like spreading misinformation or conducting fraud, and it makes it a lot harder to trust what you encounter online.

A group of 32 researchers from institutions including OpenAI, Microsoft, MIT and Harvard have developed a potential solution— a verification concept called ‘personhood credentials’ that proves its holder is a real person, without revealing any further information about their identity. The team explored the idea in a non peer-reviewed paper posted to the Arxiv preprint server earlier this month. (Read More)