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Anonymity is an important principle online. However, malicious actors have long used misleading identities to conduct fraud, spread disinformation, and carry out other deceptive schemes. With the advent of increasingly capable AI, bad actors can amplify the potential scale and effectiveness of their operations, intensifying the challenge of balancing anonymity and trustworthiness online. In this paper, we analyze the value of a new tool to address this challenge: "personhood credentials" (PHCs), digital credentials that empower users to demonstrate that they are real people -- not AIs -- to online services, without disclosing any personal information. Such credentials can be issued by a range of trusted institutions -- governments or otherwise. A PHC system, according to our definition, could be local or global, and does not need to be biometrics-based. Two trends in AI contribute to the urgency of the challenge: AI's increasing indistinguishability from people online (i.e., lifelike content and avatars, agentic activity), and AI's increasing scalability (i.e., cost-effectiveness, accessibility). Drawing on a long history of research into anonymous credentials and "proof-of-personhood" systems, personhood credentials give people a way to signal their trustworthiness on online platforms, and offer service providers new tools for reducing misuse by bad actors. In contrast, existing countermeasures to automated deception -- such as CAPTCHAs -- are inadequate against sophisticated AI, while stringent identity verification solutions are insufficiently private for many use-cases. After surveying the benefits of personhood credentials, we also examine deployment risks and design challenges. We conclude with actionable next steps for policymakers, technologists, and standards bodies to consider in consultation with the public., Comment: 63 pages, 7 figures, 5 tables; minor additions to acknowledgments and wording changes for clarity; corrected typo

2023 was the year the world woke up to generative AI, and 2024 is the year policymakers are responding more firmly. Importantly, this policy momentum is taking place alongside real world creation and distribution of synthetic media. Social media platforms, news organizations, dating apps, image generation companies, and more are already navigating a world of AI-generated visuals and sounds, already changing hearts and minds, as policymakers try to catch up. How, then, can AI governance capture the complexity of the synthetic media landscape? How can it attend to synthetic media's myriad uses, ranging from storytelling to privacy preservation, to deception, fraud, and defamation, taking into account the many stakeholders involved in its development, creation, and distribution? And what might it mean to govern synthetic media in a manner that upholds the truth while bolstering freedom of expression? What follows is the first known collection of diverse examples of the implementation of synthetic media governance that responds to these questions, specifically through Partnership on AI's (PAI) Responsible Practices for Synthetic Media - a voluntary, normative Framework for creating, distributing, and building technology for synthetic media responsibly, launched in February 2023. In this paper, we present a case bank of real world examples that help operationalize the Framework - highlighting areas synthetic media governance can be applied, augmented, expanded, and refined for use, in practice. Read together, the cases emphasize distinct elements of AI policymaking and seven emergent best practices supporting transparency, safety, expression, and digital dignity online: consent, disclosure, and differentiation between harmful and creative use cases., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 1 table