Real Photo vs AI-Generated Art: A New Standard (C2PA) Uses PKI to Show an Image’s History.

With the advent and enormous development of generative AI services this past year, it is becoming increasingly complex to distinguish an artificially generated image from a real photograph. In addition to terrorizing artists, writers, and creatives everywhere, the situation also threatens realities of potentially huge magnitude.

A recent technical standard by Adobe, Microsoft, Sony, DigiCert and dozens of other industry leaders aims to address this problem. The project bears the title "Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA)", and uses public key infrastructure (PKI), eliminating any processes for authentication and validation of digital files.

The goal is to help protect the integrity of digital media by providing a history of a file's origins and any changes made, all contained in a signed and digitally sealed C2PA manifest.