On the Origin of Synthetic Information by Means of Steganographic Inheritance

论合成信息的起源：基于隐写术的遗传机制

Abstract: The origin of species has been the mystery of mysteries in natural science. By analogy, the origin of synthetic information, we suggest, is the mystery of mysteries in information science. The question carries a moral weight that a technical account can neither fully resolve nor responsibly ignore, as its impact on truth, trust, and human intellect extends deep into the broader economy and society.

摘要： 物种起源一直是自然科学中最大的谜团。我们认为，类比而言，合成信息的起源也是信息科学中最大的谜团。这个问题承载着沉重的道德分量，单纯的技术性解释既无法完全解决，也不应负责任地忽视，因为它对真理、信任和人类智力的影响已深入到更广泛的经济和社会领域。

The very power of artificial intelligence makes the evolutionary lineage of synthetic information grow ever harder to trace, for a sufficiently capable model may generate offspring that bear little resemblance, at either the structural or signal level, to the parent source from which they were derived. As in genetics, two individuals may share the same phenotype mirroring each other in outward appearance, yet differ fundamentally in their genotype.

人工智能的强大使得合成信息的演化谱系变得愈发难以追踪，因为一个足够强大的模型所生成的“后代”，在结构或信号层面可能与其来源的“父本”几乎毫无相似之处。正如遗传学中所述，两个个体可能拥有相同的表型，在外观上互为镜像，但在基因型上却存在根本差异。

We propose, by means of steganography, a mechanism analogous to heredity. At the moment an offspring is reproduced, a projector derives a trait from the parent, and a steganographic encoder invisibly hides it within the offspring. This trait persists throughout the offspring’s life cycle in a cyber ecosystem. When parentage is queried, a steganographic decoder extracts the trait from the offspring and compares it against the traits of candidate parents in a reference pool, thereby nominating the most likely one.

我们提出了一种通过隐写术实现的类遗传机制。当一个“后代”被生成时，投影器会从“父本”中提取特征，并通过隐写编码器将其隐形地嵌入到后代中。这一特征将在该后代于网络生态系统中的整个生命周期内持续存在。当需要查询亲缘关系时，隐写解码器会从后代中提取该特征，并将其与参考池中候选父本的特征进行比对，从而推断出最可能的来源。

A theoretical analysis characterises phylogenetic accuracy as a function of projector and stegosystem properties, whilst empirical evaluations across multiple projectors and stegosystems demonstrate the viability of the proposed methodology under a broad spectrum of processing operations and semantic modifications. We envision a cyber ecosystem in which synthetic information, endowed with hidden yet traceable lineage traits, branches from a simple beginning into endless forms that have been, and are being, evolved.

理论分析将系统发育的准确性表征为投影器和隐写系统属性的函数，而针对多种投影器和隐写系统的实证评估证明了该方法在广泛的处理操作和语义修改下的可行性。我们设想了一个网络生态系统，其中合成信息被赋予了隐藏但可追踪的谱系特征，从简单的起点分化出无穷的形式，这些形式过去一直在演化，且目前仍在持续演化中。