Emerging startups aiming to combat the scourge of deepfakes and evidence spoofing in the age of AI are showing off their products on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week. ForceField is building a set of “patent pending” APIs called MARQ. Its first API is designed to authenticate content.
As background, a 2022 report from European law enforcement agency Europol predicts that by 2026, 90% of all online content will be generated by AI. The internet is already full of manipulated content, either completely machine-generated or created with the help of AI. — Big technology companies are being forced to develop new tools to address the problem. Google announced last month that it would soon start flagging AI-generated images in its search engine, following in the footsteps of Meta, which Facebook and Instagram have already done, but questions remain about its accuracy.
Meanwhile, YouTube now allows users to request the removal of content that imitates their face or voice.
The problem of “fake” content is not going away, and the problem has given rise to a number of startups tackling the problem through various means, including Clarity, Reality Defender, and Truepic, all of which have raised significant sums of money. We are making a profit. It has attracted significant funding from prominent supporters in recent years.
ForceField focuses on the device level rather than the content. This means any data stream on any device where ForceField's technology resides. This could be a mobile app integrated with ForceField's API, or hardware in a surveillance camera video management system or drone that can “sign and hash for verification” in real time.
“Chain of storage”
ForceField's first product, called HashMarq, validates content submissions, labels them as genuine, and gives them badges of authenticity. Rather than using adversarial AI (i.e., fighting AI with AI) or tangential techniques such as watermarking, Forcefield's technology establishes provenance by knowing whether a particular piece of content has been modified. Establish a chain of custody. Metadata from data streams and connected devices. Although we're talking blockchain technology here, ForceField founder and CEO MC Spano (pictured above) stresses that this is not a “Web3” startup.
“We leverage blockchain, we don't use coins or cryptocurrencies. We're not a Web3 company,” Spano told TechCrunch. “We use blockchain in the most essential and purposeful way: in smart contracts. We authenticate, but we also secure and authenticate multimedia collected by everything from a BlackBerry to a robot. But every time streaming data is collected, we sign it, hash it, and lead it. We use technology.”
These “smart contracts” exist on the blockchain to ensure security, transparency, and immutability (although ForceField does not reveal which smart contracts they are). It cannot be changed. Enterprise customers (which include everyone from chief information officers to trust and safety teams) can access the technology through APIs or SDKs that they integrate into their applications. So HashMarq essentially acts as a digital certificate for content that passes an attestation check.
“We build technology for good people. Markets – governments, businesses, small businesses, and even individuals – need to prove that what they are putting out into the world is real. We expect there to be,” Spano said. “This compares to what Meta and other companies are doing. Basically, they're labeling things that are generated by AI.”
So what exactly does ForceField’s technology look at when assessing the reliability of a particular asset?
“We are considering about 90 points of evidence, but we cannot share them all,” Spano said. “The idea is, are we looking at geospatial intelligence around that device, what was going on at the time, what signals, what other devices, and time? This device, When exactly did you collect this video? And how long did it take from interview to submission? These points alone give journalists, news outlets, and law enforcement far more information than they should have. It can also tell you where you are and pinpoint your geographic location.”
ForceField was officially born in 2021, but Spano said the product's origins can be traced back to a 2018 assault in New York City that led to significant hurdles in both gathering and producing evidence requested by law enforcement. It is said that he was born when he faced this.
“We knew there were cameras and we knew evidence could be collected,” Spano said. “But when I went to the NYPD to get the evidence, they wouldn't give me a subpoena, so I had to go to the owner of the camera myself and request the footage.” When I submitted the recording to the NYPD, they told me they wouldn't allow it. And that's when I realized that the justice system starts much earlier than the courtroom.”
And this gets to the heart of the problem that Spano and ForceField are trying to solve. This problem has become even more acute in the age of generative AI, where anyone with a laptop can create plausible, but completely fake, “evidence.” ”
proof of concept
Although still in the early stages, Forcefield is developing a proof of concept (PoC) with insurance giant Ellie, while Spano said the company has signed letters of intent with three additional customers to complete the PoC. The company plans to start commercially in 2020. First quarter of 2025.
Insurance will initially be a big market for ForceField, but with the advent of AI and the ability for just about anyone to create assets that look real, there are no real limits to the industries it can be applied to, Spano said. says. For example, a citizen journalist who captures video on a mobile device can send it to a news station, which then integrates with ForceField's API to determine the authenticity of the source data. Law enforcement agencies could also use the technology to verify witness and victim submissions.
In terms of financing, the company has so far used its own financing (Spano sold his previous company), actor Debra Messing and company X government affairs director and scout Wilfredo Fernandez. The company is funded through a combination of angel funding, including: VC company Lightspeed. Forcefield also received funding through its participation in Techstars last year, and just received its first institutional funding through a strategic investment from client Erie Insurance.
Spano also said she hopes to close a seed round by the end of the year and believes one of the most important aspects of the company is that it is a completely female-led company in a very male-dominated field. he added.
“Here in the U.S., there's a huge problem with funding solo women's teams,” Spano said. “Currently, I am the only woman developing this kind of technology. All of our other competitors are led by men, so having a female voice, transparency, honesty, and truth is very important.” It’s important.”