How Clara Tsao and Filecoin Are Fighting AI Fakes Like Digital Sherlocks 🔍🤖

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Did AI pen the sentence you just read? Snap the pic you just admired? Or conjure the scandalous, election-tipping story that made your Uncle Bob scream at his phone? Welcome to the wild west of the internet, where fact and fiction have trust issues.

Enter Clara Tsao — basically the internet’s digital bouncer with a superhero cape. She’s been battling AI misinformation like a pro, juggling roles all over the place: CTO fighting homegrown extremism (think cyber ninja-level stuff), co-founding the Trust & Safety Professional Association, and even moonlighting as the President of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows. Oh, and senior advising for Tech Against Terrorism because why not save the world before breakfast?

“My vibe? Make the web more democratic, because hey, it’s supposed to be an open playground for everyone — not just a data vampire’s buffet,” she says, slaying as a Founding Officer at the Filecoin Foundation. Catch her dropping truth bombs onstage at the AI Summit, Consensus 2025.

Tsao knows AI is a double-edged katana: making everything faster, wilder, better… but also messier. That’s why Filecoin wields blockchain magic to keep it real and call out the fakes. As she puts it, “AI’s going to supercharge everything — the good, the bad, and the ‘Wait, is that real or did my phone just lie to me?’”

(Interview trimmed, tidied, and sprinkled with a little sparkle.)

Q: How has AI turned the mission for an honest internet into a Rubik’s Cube?

Clara Tsao: Biggest headache? Figuring out how to spot when something’s cooked up by AI or bots versus a real human poking at a keyboard. Back in my counter-foreign-influence days, the real trick was proving the source of sneaky operations — like, “Hey, this propaganda? Yup, that’s definitely from that shady group across the pond.”

Q: Any examples?

Picture 2016: Facebook is scrubbing a whole mess of Russian-linked media because it was pushing propaganda. It’s the digital version of swatting flies — you gotta proof-tag the culprits or misinformation gets a free pass.

Q: And AI-driven fakes just keep getting craftier, I assume?

Bingo. AI can whip up fake images and bogus news like it’s baking cookies. Which means the bad guys have a new trick to spread trouble. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Q: So… blockchain to the rescue?

Absolutely. Decentralized storage is like the digital fingerprint that says, “This data hasn’t been tampered with, promise.” Instead of storing info by location — which can be shady — it stores by a unique hash. So if someone edits the story, the blockchain buzzes louder than a cat near a cucumber.

Let’s say the government gets ideas about tweaking info for political gain — we can catch them red-handed. Preservation is the new black.

Q: Who’s on the Filecoin guest list?

All-star nonprofits, like MuckRock, to safeguard journalism’s sacred texts. We archive info so it’s tamper-proof and spread worldwide like your favorite viral meme. Photographers also use this tech to prove: “Yes, I snapped this photo at this exact time,” which is huge when misinformation tries to throw shade on real events.

This tech even holds up in courtrooms, especially in places like Ukraine, where war photos need to stand up to “fake news” attacks. It’s like having Batman’s Bat-Signal for truth.

Q: What’s Filecoin aiming for now?

We want to help you figure out if you’re chatting with an AI or a human (because honestly, same). We store data cheap, baby, making sure AI models don’t just learn from the elite “data rich” libraries — everyone gets a shot at the data buffet. No more info gatekeeping or digital walled gardens where your data is the hostage.

Q: Clara, you rock. Catch you in Toronto at Consensus!

Jeff Wilser here, your AI Summit hype guy and host of The People’s AI: The Decentralized AI Podcast. Stay curious, stay sassy.

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2025-04-28 18:20