Bear with me for a second, but I think I found a use case for NFTs… And it also happens to involve generative AI software such as GPT-4, DALL-E and Mid Journey.

The Rise of AI-Generated Software

Quick back story. I was browsing the web when a stumbled on a few images of Donald Trump, getting arrested and spending some time in jail playing basketball and working out.

Now while some of these images are comical and obviously AI-generated, it started to make the wheels in my head turn.

Generative AI, while it’s able to easily blow your mind today, still has a long way to go. And if the results are this good now, imagine what this software will be able to create GPT-10 or Mid Journey 12 is released.

It will become possible to determine the difference between what is real life and what has been generated by AI. And this is where bad actors will come in.

So how do NFTs fit into this?

Still Remember NFTs?

I don’t think there have ever been three letters that make me cringe as hard as N-F-T.

What started out to be a pretty cool concept, dissolved and become bastardised to feed into people’s fantasy of getting rich quick ‘n easy. From scams that ripped off Pokémon, to speculations of money laundering. The NFT bubble had it all.

What started out as “hey, let’s add a digital ID to content”, turned into a mania, that finally concluded with people basically writing off the concept.

But I, surprisingly, still have hope. Not much… But enough.

A Way to Use NFTs?

Now I’m not coming out as a Blockchain Evangelist and saying that it is a flawless technology that will bring the end to the banking system! It does do certain things really well.

One of those things is the verification of the authenticity of digital transactions and content.

Blockchain for dummies: it’s a write-once, read-only database that tracks things by chaining them into blocks.

NFTs for beginners: tokens that live on this blockchain, each with unique codes and metadata that cannot be replicated.

It doesn’t really make sense to me either, but the idea is simple. It’s a token that is unique, can’t be changed and it subsequently linked to a piece of content.

So how would this work within the context of digital content? Basically, a creator of content, let’s say the US Government, would publish all their content, linked to an NFT. This way we could verify whether the press release is real, or whether it’s a DeepFake that was generated by the KBG.

Other Considerations

While I’m very optimistic about generative AI, like all technologies there are lots of concerns. My biggest concern with generative AI content is that it will be used to deceive people into thinking that it is real.

After all, it takes one fake image to derail someone’s career and reputation.

This is why I believe that any content generated by AI, should have a type of watermark (digital signature) attached to it so that it can be detected to prevent people from using it with malice or copywriting it and profiting from it.

We are living in some incredibly interesting and exciting times that we’re sure to tell our grandchildren about (back in my day, we had to write code using documentation!).

I’m curious to hear your thoughts and hot takes on this topic.