In this episode of IdentiTea, Nick Holland steeps into the increasingly tangled question of identity in a world where humans aren’t the only entities logging in. With guest Heather Flanagan, a top identity thought leader and head of Spherical Cow Consulting, we unravel what it means to grant non-human agents an identity and why it’s not just a technical edge case, but a looming crisis.
From cute panda mugs to cockroach-level proliferation metaphors, Heather walks us through:
The rise of non-human identity: From cron jobs to agentic AI, there are now more bots with identities than people in most systems, and they’re not going anywhere.
Why traditional identity thinking fails: Human identity lifecycles don’t apply to agents that spawn, scale, and self-replicate in milliseconds. Assigning them standing privileges is a ticking time bomb.
Delegation is broken: Today’s systems still require humans to hand over credentials (often in plaintext) to AI agents. We’ve learned nothing from decades of bad delegation design.
The privacy paradox: Even if AI acts as your surrogate, it’s also a sensor. These agents gather behavioral data that, thanks to dodgy terms and conditions, could be monetized, reverse-engineered, or reidentified. Think adtech meets AGI.
Big takeaway? Non-human identity isn’t just a security issue. It’s a cultural, philosophical, and legal minefield that will reshape how we think about agency, delegation, and trust.
Heather, ever the “cheerful voice of fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” leaves us with a sobering reminder: AI agents aren't just doing your bidding… they're watching, learning, and very possibly leaking.
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