DUE DILIGENCE QUESTIONS TO ESTABLISH ARCHIVAL AUTHENTICITY
As AI-generated media becomes increasingly commonplace, it is more important than ever for archives to know and be assured of the provenance and authenticity of the records they take into their custody.* There are technological methods being developed to detect AI-generation or modification and to convey or disclose provenance information. However, these mechanisms may remain out of reach for many content producers and smaller archives– at least in the short-term– due to financial and personnel limitations. There is still a need for accessible approaches for examining provenance and verifying authenticity in the age of generative AI that do not require specialized tools. To this end, the Authenticity Working Group is developing a simple checklist of questions that archives can ask depositors as part of their due diligence in ascertaining the reliability of the records they accession. Archives can retain the answers to these questions for their records and develop their own systems to share this data with other institutions they work with.
Archival producers and media makers are similarly concerned about the authenticity of the media they obtain from archives for use in documentaries. The second section contains questions that producers can use when working with archives, or that archives can answer for themselves to attest to the authenticity of materials already in their collections.
