[Cryptography] People vs AI

[Jerry Leichter]

Focusing on just one issue:
> ...Proof of Human is the cornerstone of the networks security.
I don't see any hope of being able to prove that an entity on the network is human, given even the current state of AI (and it only gets harder from here).  That train left the station.

We need to step back and ask what the exact problem is that we're trying to solve.  In fact, it has little to do with the humanity or lack thereof of someone we correspond with.  It has to do with whether we can trust them for particular purposes.  We're attempting to use the human/not-human dichotomy as a shortcut for this purpose, but it's a bad shortcut.  For any particular purpose, some humans are trustworthy and some are not, and some AI's are trustworth or not.  Think about conversing with an advisor at your bank.  You are willing to trust the entity you are connected to - human or chatbot - when you are willing to trust that they are legitimately associated with the bank.  My bank's chatbot actually provides some useful advice, which I trust.  It doesn't try to appear to be human, but even if it did, that would change nothing.

Suppose we established humanity by requiring that anyone wanting to access the Internet get a "driver's license" from the state, which would provide unforgeable certification of humanity.  What does that "unforgeable certificate of humanity" actually mean?  Whether it says anything about whether the identity it certifies is human depends _entirely_ on how trustworthy the state is in issuing such certificates to humans, only to humans, and only one per human.  Well ... good luck with that.  Even with the most trusted of states, exceptions will certainly be made for "legitimate law enforcement practices."

If you don't dig down and understand the problem at a deep level, you're not going to find useful solutions.
                                                        -- Jerry