psemme

“Witness” is a powerful word.  “Martyr”, derived from the Greek translation, “martus”, underscores the gravity of its meaning.  To bear witness is a sacred act, legally, religiously, morally.  An eyewitness has always been a key to discovering and verifying truth. In our increasingly digital world, discerning the truth will be a critical, and increasingly complicated, task as AI-powered interfaces, interactions, and environments become a reality. Human witnesses, I believe, will be more critical than ever.

Notarists are a type of witness. Their role is to bear witness not to the signing of documents (though they are capable of this type of acknowledgment if they are a licensed notary public), but to the occurrence of events.  They are human observers of specific, pre-planned or required acts, in space-time, by other humans. The outcome of this observation is a certification, of some kind, perhaps an affidavit, that the prescribed act was, in fact, witnessed at a precise time, location (and any other desired measurement – e.g. altitude, acceleration, etc. – the Notarist chooses to include).

Note : While it’s not impossible to potentially construct situations whereby today’s notaries public could serve in this capacity, it is not an official service offered (though I hope that changes).  My belief is we are on the cusp of earnestly needing them again.

Notarists are useful where it is necessary to authenticate:

• The precise space-time of a human during a specific event.
• Human participation in digital environments.
• 100% original human production, authorship, composition or any form of creation.

Below are some examples of how this type of service could be useful in today’s emerging fake everything world. I am intentionally not addressing the issue of scalability here, which I will address in a future post.

Testing – deter cheating:

• Witness the taking of an online exam

Art/Creative – deter counterfeits:

• Witness the creation of a work of art

Online presence – deter imposters:

• Witness the attendance of person in an online forum

Evidentiary – deter spoofing:

• Witness the presence of a human at a specific location during a specific time (duration).

This is not an exhaustive list. Is it foolproof? No, and it never has been. Are human witnesses easily deceived, corrupted and swayed? Yes – always have been. The Notarist process is analog, which I believe is the right counterweight for digital (super?) powers. Taken to the AGI extreme, isn’t it logical to assume everything digital will be suspect? There is plenty more to discuss and debate.

Photo by Robby McCullough on Unsplash