The year 2024 served as a stark warning about the dangers artificial intelligence (AI) may pose if no safeguards are put in place. Across the globe, from India’s massive democratic exercise to the tense political climate of Taiwan, AI-generated disinformation campaigns left their mark.
In Taiwan, deepfake news anchors blurred the lines between reality and fabrication, while in the United States, a fake audio of President Biden allegedly discouraging New Hampshire Democrats from voting underscored the ease with which AI can be weaponized for political manipulation. The sheer volume and sophistication of this synthetic media have left many feeling adrift in a sea of uncertainty, struggling to discern fact from fiction.
However, some experts, like Yannick Myson, founder and CEO of Swarm Network, argue that the problem runs deeper than electoral manipulation. He cites AI-induced psychosis, a disturbing phenomenon of people developing grandiose delusions, which some studies link to extended interactions with AI chatbots. The cost of this AI-induced psychosis has been immense; some have lost jobs while others have ended up in psychiatric treatment.
“Just as deepfakes exploit our visual processing shortcuts, AI psychosis exploits our psychological vulnerabilities, with chatbots serving as perfect echo chambers that validate and amplify delusional thinking,” Myson said.
Myson believes that the current reactive measures, such as patchwork fact-checking initiatives, are simply insufficient to combat this escalating problem. “What the industry is waking up to is that patchwork fact-checking can’t keep up with the speed of synthetic media or the psychological manipulation of AI systems,” he asserts.
His solution, embodied in Swarm Network, is a proactive one: embedding verification at scale. This involves establishing provenance at the very point of content creation, ensuring that the origin of digital information can be traced and authenticated. Furthermore, Myson advocates for decentralized verification systems, where information is cross-checked and validated as it spreads across the digital sphere.
This vision of a robust “infrastructure of truth” resonates with a growing concern within the AI industry. As the technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, the ethical and social implications of its misuse are becoming increasingly apparent. The erosion of trust in digital information, fueled by sophisticated AI-generated falsehoods, poses a significant threat to democratic processes, social cohesion, and even individual mental well-being.
To combat this, some have advocated for a regulatory response, citing past instances when this proved a vital tool in protecting users from potential risks associated with emerging technologies. However, critics warn this could have the unintended effect of stifling innovation, a contention that Myson appears to agree with.
“Regulation can help, but only if it avoids the trap of centralizing truth. We’ve seen governments weaponize ‘misinformation laws’ to silence debate,” the Swarm Network CEO stated.
To back this assertion, Myson pointed to how EU bureaucrats are reportedly using the European Union’s (EU) Digital Services Act (DSA), which mandates the removal of broadly defined “harmful” content, as “a tool to restrain open discourse around the world.” Myson argues the EU AI Act also creates similar problems.
Instead of enacting pieces like the DSA or AI Act, Myson instead advocates for mandating transparency, clear labeling of synthetic media, and open provenance standards like C2PA. “Rules should enforce proof, not opinion,” he argued.
According to the CEO, major social media platforms like Meta and TikTok recognize this and have since shifted toward more decentralized approaches to fact-checking.
“This shift represents a fundamental recognition that centralized fact-checking creates bottlenecks and single points of failure. The future of content verification isn’t about giving governments or corporations the power to decide what’s true,” the CEO stated.
Myson believes this shift makes solutions like the one offered by Swarm Network crucial. Rather than rely on a handful of centralized fact-checkers, Swarm uses “AI agents working alongside human reviewers to create an auditable, on-chain record of verified claims.”
Indeed, AI agents are rapidly moving from theoretical concepts to practical applications, fundamentally changing how various sectors operate. The primary benefit of these agents is their ability to automate and optimize. They can process vast amounts of data in a short period, identify patterns that humans might miss, and operate 24/7 without fatigue.
Still, the widespread adoption of AI agents also introduces complex challenges that need to be carefully addressed. To overcome some of these challenges, Myson said his company’s approach “is to turn agents into transparent collaborators, not unchecked oracles.” He added:
“In Swarm, agents decompose information into small, testable claims, they cross-check each other, and where nuance is needed, humans step in. Every step gets logged and anchored on-chain, so their reasoning is replayable. In short: no black boxes, just verifiable trails.”
Meanwhile, Myson believes that, in the next five years, fact-checking will evolve from a manual process to a built-in feature of digital life, and AI agents will be evaluated by their transparency, not just speed. The ultimate vision is to make truth a foundational layer of the internet.
“In the same way SSL became the default for web traffic, a truth protocol will become the default for information. And that’s how we keep AI from drowning the world in noise,” Myson concluded.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
