Agent/Wallet? What is Agent? What is Wallet? Are They The Same?
Agent/Wallet? What is Agent? What is Wallet? Are They The Same?
Wednesday 1E
Convener: Antti 'Jogi' Poikola
Notes-taker(s): Bill Wendell and Antti 'Jogi' Poikola
Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:
17 wallet projects were listed on the wallets-session Day 1. One confusion point from the Day 1 session was how to define "identity wallet" and what is it's relation to "agent"? Here at IIW we’re talking about them wallets and agents interchangeably, causing confusion. This session was set to target that question.
PART #1: WALLET
Wallet (where you store your private "stuff")
- key ring
- Will people have a central wallet or many wallets?
What "stuff" would you put in your wallet?
- the key’s control your data, transactions and relationships
- some often used & small data (credentials / identity attributes) --> most data in other places (like PDS for example) in the wallet just the keys to manage the data stored elsewhere.
Metaphor to physical wallet
- Credit card is a key to manage money that is not in the wallet
- Some small and often used credentials like the driver's lisence is in the wallet
PART #2: AGENT
[wiki article]
Agent (your communication end point to the world):
- end point that is responsible for communicating with other agents
- consent agent running on my personal domain and managing my informations sharing permissions
- software agent within which you manage relationships (DIDs) and sharing of identity attributes (data) --> See the three dimensions of identity session from Day 1.
Software agent vs. human agents
- non technical people think agents like real estate agents, layers and other exoperts that represent the individual in some relationships
- "I’m my own agent, but I can imagine having an (expert) agent to act on my behalf"
- can a software agent represent the individual legally in the same sense that human expert egents are representing legally their client? --> maybe up to some point and in the future even more --> "personal AI".
- trusted agent: it is assumed that agent will always act in your best interest
Informacion fiduciary
- Default for Information fiduciaries = always act in my best interest
- See Atlantic Magazine article on Information Fiduciaries bit.ly/GrandTrust
Agents representing non-human entities:
- Does the Smart Home have an agent independent of it’s owner?
- Keller Williams, we are no longer a real estate agency, we’re a data company --> part of the multi-trillion dollar race to control the smart home of the future
- Can you delegate the operation of your smart home to an agent?
- Future: Every AI is going to have “beneficial ownership”
Connection of agent and the hardware where it runs?
- The agent is the software (using cryptography behind it) which is on the device
- Can you have a cloud-based agent? --> Yes: It can run also on clud
- Agent = the device you are using? --> No: on the same device there can be multiple agents
- How tightly is the device and an agent tied togeather? Is it possible to move a agent from one device to an other or will it be functionally just bootstrapping a new agent?
PART #3: BOTH
Is the wallet inside, combined or separate with the agent software?
- From end user perspective, it is hard to separate, agent and wallet togeather provide the functionality to manage identity and data transactions. --> what would become the "marketing" term for wide audience (like "browser" bacame the house hold term of accessing internet)?
- Are the PIMS like Digi.me agents or Wallets or both?
- Whenever you are building a wallet, you are building an agent & a wallet
Interoperability
- If all wallet start-ups are try to build their own ecosystem, only work with some ledger, only accept their digital currency --> they will all fail.
- At what layer do the standards exist?
- is there wallet interoperability --> DID standard?
- agent standard coming out: DIF Identity Hubs / Sovrin agent?
