According to a 2022 study, human headshots created by artificial intelligence have now crossed the uncanny valley, meaning that we are now more likely to think a fake face is real than an authentic one. Synthetic media—photos and videos created by tech—are now so advanced and prevalent that deepfakes are no longer just the work of expert digital crafters. Thispersondoesnotexist.com, a “random face generator” website, shows that phenomenon, conjuring up images of real-looking people who don’t actually exist.
This worrying democratization of synthetic media is the motivation behind Truepic Lens, a software development kit (SDK) that can fully integrate with apps that rely on images for their operations, allowing them to verify media in real time, and provide assurances to customers where necessary. Truepic also envisions a deeper cultural importance: to restore trust in a world rife with disinformation. When anything could be fake, what can be trusted? “We’re now looking at this future of: How do we operate where synthetic media is available to anyone?” says Jeffrey McGregor, Truepic’s CEO.
Pre-SDK, Truepic Vision was authenticating images using controlled capture technology, for which it won a World Changing Ideas award in 2019. In that original iteration, they worked mainly with financial services companies, but also allowed for the virtual validation of PPP loans during the pandemic, and the verification of war crime footage from conflict zones like Syria and Yemen, among a handful of journalists.
Now, Lens creates a way to scale all those applications. “With Lens, we can take that same technology, and put it in the BBC app,” says Mounir Ibrahim, Truepic’s vice president of strategic initiatives. “Anyone in the world, if they’re taking a picture and sending it to a bank, or taking a picture and sending it to The Hague, will be trusted.”
Business aside, the company’s other ambitious aim is to recreate trust in a society teeming with polarization, much of which is due to rampant disinformation. “Truepic is not the arbiter of truth,” McGregor says. It can verify what’s truthful and what’s not, without weighing into contentious political debates. “This general distrust that has permeated society,” Ibrahim adds, “that’s where we hope to be very, very impactful long term.”