AI and Identity

All humans live in a common world, but each of us - while online - are in a world of our own. Over the past decade we've witnessed a growing dependency for life online, yet our physical selves remain disconnected from our digital world.

The average global internet user now spends 6 hours and 37 minutes online each day - datareportal

Social media applications combat a constant barrage of bot accounts, viewing platforms are bombarded with fake content, and each of us are left to blindly decide which online engagements are actually real.

Truth is, prior to inserting AI into the conversation, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust people online and navigate with confidence. We meet people on the internet but struggle to verify they’re real, and lose hours every week investing in weak digital relationships.

Yet as humans we must adapt to new technologies without losing the integrity of our image, including the inescapable AI.

AI For...

Software:

Search:

Design:

And... people?

Your Identity, or Not

A complete information transformation, including how we perceive each other online, is underway. Shifting into warp speed, AI innovation, and the companies adopting this new technology, are leaving humanistic information in their dust.

Understanding the deficiencies of our current digital identity infrastructure in preparation for AI adoption, you'll realize it's vital that we explore Decentralized Identity technology. Why? Because without self-owned identifiers linked to the information we produce we're creating a dangerous combo of inconsistent accuracy and high authority for artificial intelligence.

Disclaimer: I'm unapologetically optimistic about the big picture of Decentralized Identity in our daily lives.

At Tuum Technologies our mission and contribution to the world is developing self-owned identities that aid in the blending of online and physical realities to benefit all of humanity. We want every person online to be able to navigate with confidence while keeping the integrity of your image intact.

Monumental Challenge

Just like the oxygen we breathe, our sustenance online has gone stale over the past decade. We've reduced ourselves to brands, thus turning into products. Rather then portraying accurate personas transcending from our physical world, we are manufacturing an image to be curated and projected online.

[Offline] Character -> [Online] Content

[Offline] Identity -> [Online] Brand

We create content to be consumed by others and evaluated. We create a brand that projects a false image of who we truly are. By reducing ourselves to brands we give up the ability to accurately showcase our personhood, constructing content instead of people to be truly known.

However, not all is bleak... the future can be bright!

Decentralized Identity

What if everyone had a reliable and consistent identity across the internet?

Actually owning our identity online, and its emerging use cases, will fill the void that we've hollowed out of our digital selves.

Think about it, digital information is just people in disguise. With the addition of self-sovereign identifiers we'll weave a new application layer of the web where each of us can add wealth and dignity to our time spent online.

Step 1 = You

Your ID, your credentials, your consent. People must have the dignity to choose their own balance of data privacy vs tracked.

Step 2 = Trusted Others

Your network. Actions, interests, achievements and interactions online become valuable credentials signed and verified by others.

Intimate Communities

The next iteration of social could very well flip the entire network experience by replacing the urge to follow with AI generated followers. Content produced and tailored to you will instantly curate a network majority populated by bots.

It's inevitable that non-human (AI) participants will flood our social graphs leaving a tiny percentage to members of your known community.

Therefore, social apps catering to the Decentralized Identity market will blossom - building for, and by, intimate communities:

Our social platform isn’t meant to onboard millions of users as quickly as possible; instead, it is a human-scaled piece of software that optimizes for positive group dynamics, digital socializing, meaning-making, and hanging out.

A shift exposing the transformation from Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) to Daily Active Users (DAUs).

Conclusion

No matter the outcome, the web will continue to need real, authentic content. One can not simply tell you what will happen 10 years from now, but what I can guarantee is that the human desire to connect, and collaborate, will never disappear.

Interested in our decentralized future? Connect by direct message at twitter.com/donaldbullers and follow on Farcaster at https://fcast.me/db