Departmental Seminar: “Proof of Human: Provenance, Identity, and Trust in the Age of Generative Systems” – Professor Andrew Melchior
| Dates: | 23 September 2026 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Department of Computer Science |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Professor Andrew Melchior |
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Professor Andrew Melchior, CTO of Massive Attack and Founder of Genotone Ltd, will present a seminar entitled "Proof of Human: Provenance, Identity, and Trust in the Age of Generative Systems."
Abstract:
Generative systems have made it cheap to produce convincing artefacts whose origin, authorship and history may be difficult to establish. This creates a problem deeper than synthetic media: much of our digital infrastructure was built to move and reproduce information, not to preserve trustworthy evidence about where it came from or who was responsible for it.
This talk explores provenance as a problem of computation, identity and trust. What does it mean for a person, device or institution to make a verifiable claim about a digital artefact? How should those claims survive copying, transformation and increasingly autonomous computational systems? And where does technical proof end, and social, institutional or legal judgement begin?
Using recorded sound as a demanding case study, I will examine cryptographic attestation, post-quantum identity, watermarking and emerging provenance standards, alongside the harder questions of governance, interoperability and institutional trust. Genotone provides one practical experiment in this territory, but the larger question is what a new computational social contract should look like: an architecture in which humans and machines can make claims whose origins can be examined, challenged and, where appropriate, trusted.
Speaker
Professor Andrew Melchior
Role: CTO of Massive Attack and Founder of Genotone Ltd
Organisation: Massive Attack & Genotone Ltd
Biography: Andrew Melchior is a composer, creative technologist, and Founder and Director of Genotone, a UK deep-tech company building open provenance infrastructure for creative work. His work includes BowieNet, EMI, The Guardian, Björk, Massive Attack and creative technology advisory work for Magic Leap/Google, Bowers & Wilkins, IBM and Apple. His spatial audio installation with MIT Kavli ‘The Logos’ premiered at Oulu Cathedral as part of Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture. His book Proof of Human, on provenance and creative authorship in the age of AI, is under contract with Manchester University Press.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Kilburn_TH 1.3
Kilburn Building
Manchester
