Estonia to give digital identities to AI agents

Estonia to give digital identities to AI agents | Euractiv

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Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal on Wednesday said that the country will move ahead with creating digital identities for AI agents.

Agents – programmes built on top of AI models that can, for example, act autonomously to write complex code, set up websites or book trips – are becoming increasingly popular.

Estonia will now aim to assign “AI ID codes” to such agents to identify who exactly they are working for.

“In the future, AI will increasingly carry out digital tasks on our behalf,” Michal said on Wednesday. “To that end, it must be clear who is acting on whose behalf with what rights, and who is ultimately responsible.”

This will also mean that people or companies will be able to clearly set out what an agent can and cannot do, he promised. A user would, for example, be able to say that an agent should only be able to view data, draft a specific payment or only use a certain amount of money.

The Estonian government did not immediately respond to Euractiv’s questions about how it would implement the policy.

What about the identity wallets?

The problem of agents acting without anyone knowing who’s behind them is not a theoretical one. Back in February, one case involving an AI agent autonomously – and anonymously – publishing a hit piece on the owner of an open-source software project went viral.

The question has also been discussed at the EU level, as part of a series of talks on the future of justice policy last year.

“The EU legal framework does not confer legal personality upon AI systems. This means that their actions must be attributed to a natural or legal person. Yet, in practice, it is not always clear who should bear the legal responsibility,” reads a discussion paper circulated in October.

Member states opposed creating any new rules on this issue at the time, citing “regulatory fatigue”.

But they might not even need to create new EU law to provide a European solution. The Commission and national governments are currently in the final stages of building European Identity Wallets.

These are meant to make it easier for people to identify themselves digitally. A variant is already in the works for businesses.

The European Commission did not immediately respond to Euractiv’s request for comment on whether there are any plans to extend the European identity wallet system to AI agents.

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