Personhood credentials: Artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real online
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2024
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| author | Adler, Steven Hitzig, Zoë Jain, Shrey Brewer, Catherine Chang, Wayne DiResta, Renée Lazzarin, Eddy McGregor, Sean Seltzer, Wendy Siddarth, Divya Soliman, Nouran South, Tobin Spelliscy, Connor Sporny, Manu Srivastava, Varya Bailey, John Christian, Brian Critch, Andrew Falcon, Ronnie Flanagan, Heather Duffy, Kim Hamilton Ho, Eric Leibowicz, Claire R. Nadhamuni, Srikanth Rozenshtein, Alan Z. Schnurr, David Shapiro, Evan Strahm, Lacey Trask, Andrew Weinberg, Zoe Whitney, Cedric Zick, Tom |
| author_facet | Adler, Steven Hitzig, Zoë Jain, Shrey Brewer, Catherine Chang, Wayne DiResta, Renée Lazzarin, Eddy McGregor, Sean Seltzer, Wendy Siddarth, Divya Soliman, Nouran South, Tobin Spelliscy, Connor Sporny, Manu Srivastava, Varya Bailey, John Christian, Brian Critch, Andrew Falcon, Ronnie Flanagan, Heather Duffy, Kim Hamilton Ho, Eric Leibowicz, Claire R. Nadhamuni, Srikanth Rozenshtein, Alan Z. Schnurr, David Shapiro, Evan Strahm, Lacey Trask, Andrew Weinberg, Zoe Whitney, Cedric Zick, Tom |
| contents | Anonymity is an important principle online. However, malicious actors have long used misleading identities to conduct fraud, spread disinformation, and carry out other deceptive schemes. With the advent of increasingly capable AI, bad actors can amplify the potential scale and effectiveness of their operations, intensifying the challenge of balancing anonymity and trustworthiness online. In this paper, we analyze the value of a new tool to address this challenge: "personhood credentials" (PHCs), digital credentials that empower users to demonstrate that they are real people -- not AIs -- to online services, without disclosing any personal information. Such credentials can be issued by a range of trusted institutions -- governments or otherwise. A PHC system, according to our definition, could be local or global, and does not need to be biometrics-based. Two trends in AI contribute to the urgency of the challenge: AI's increasing indistinguishability from people online (i.e., lifelike content and avatars, agentic activity), and AI's increasing scalability (i.e., cost-effectiveness, accessibility). Drawing on a long history of research into anonymous credentials and "proof-of-personhood" systems, personhood credentials give people a way to signal their trustworthiness on online platforms, and offer service providers new tools for reducing misuse by bad actors. In contrast, existing countermeasures to automated deception -- such as CAPTCHAs -- are inadequate against sophisticated AI, while stringent identity verification solutions are insufficiently private for many use-cases. After surveying the benefits of personhood credentials, we also examine deployment risks and design challenges. We conclude with actionable next steps for policymakers, technologists, and standards bodies to consider in consultation with the public. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_07892 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Personhood credentials: Artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real online Adler, Steven Hitzig, Zoë Jain, Shrey Brewer, Catherine Chang, Wayne DiResta, Renée Lazzarin, Eddy McGregor, Sean Seltzer, Wendy Siddarth, Divya Soliman, Nouran South, Tobin Spelliscy, Connor Sporny, Manu Srivastava, Varya Bailey, John Christian, Brian Critch, Andrew Falcon, Ronnie Flanagan, Heather Duffy, Kim Hamilton Ho, Eric Leibowicz, Claire R. Nadhamuni, Srikanth Rozenshtein, Alan Z. Schnurr, David Shapiro, Evan Strahm, Lacey Trask, Andrew Weinberg, Zoe Whitney, Cedric Zick, Tom Computers and Society Anonymity is an important principle online. However, malicious actors have long used misleading identities to conduct fraud, spread disinformation, and carry out other deceptive schemes. With the advent of increasingly capable AI, bad actors can amplify the potential scale and effectiveness of their operations, intensifying the challenge of balancing anonymity and trustworthiness online. In this paper, we analyze the value of a new tool to address this challenge: "personhood credentials" (PHCs), digital credentials that empower users to demonstrate that they are real people -- not AIs -- to online services, without disclosing any personal information. Such credentials can be issued by a range of trusted institutions -- governments or otherwise. A PHC system, according to our definition, could be local or global, and does not need to be biometrics-based. Two trends in AI contribute to the urgency of the challenge: AI's increasing indistinguishability from people online (i.e., lifelike content and avatars, agentic activity), and AI's increasing scalability (i.e., cost-effectiveness, accessibility). Drawing on a long history of research into anonymous credentials and "proof-of-personhood" systems, personhood credentials give people a way to signal their trustworthiness on online platforms, and offer service providers new tools for reducing misuse by bad actors. In contrast, existing countermeasures to automated deception -- such as CAPTCHAs -- are inadequate against sophisticated AI, while stringent identity verification solutions are insufficiently private for many use-cases. After surveying the benefits of personhood credentials, we also examine deployment risks and design challenges. We conclude with actionable next steps for policymakers, technologists, and standards bodies to consider in consultation with the public. |
| title | Personhood credentials: Artificial intelligence and the value of privacy-preserving tools to distinguish who is real online |
| topic | Computers and Society |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.07892 |