All the way to personal robots

As this journey has offered time to read and discuss the layers of the trust infrastructure, I feel a need to summarize and speculate on how high these ladders (each verifiable credential being a habit-forming rung) will ultimately reach.

1. The ground floor is the Internet.

2. The Internet’s design flaw — that actors cannot be reliably identified — was the starting gun for Self-Sovereign Identity, the Trust over IP architecture, and the Findynet consortium 

3. Since the EU lacked Nordic-style BankID-based identification credentials, eIDAS2 was launched on the premise that EUDI-wallets were needed to provide them.

4. After several rounds of discussion, it became clearer that an identification credential does not create identity. To form a true digital identity, you need verifiable proofs not only of who you are but also of what skills and permissions you have, whom you represent, and many others. It must therefore be emphasized that the EUDI-wallet is a general-purpose instrument and citizens’ universal interface in all directions -  a crucial, stress-reducing tool - at home and at work.

5. Fairly late in the process — after some pressure — it was realized that there would never be enough credentials in circulation without widely deployed organizational general-purpose wallet applications. These will serve as interoperable interfaces for all organizations. The EU is now driving this forward at a commendable pace. EUBWswill handle the issuance, receipt, forwarding, and verification of data. Most organizations will need to do all of these. Wallets will also serve as signing tools in every direction.

6. Then came broader understanding that artificial intelligence — starting with LLMs — would be safer and more effective if it used verifiable data whenever available. AI-agents cannot be deployed without identification and authorization credentials. EUBWs and EUDI-wallets will thus serve as control panels for AI-agents.

7. Wallets will also function as control panels for organizational and personal robots. They will learn by observing how people act — and since they can instantly watch every YouTube tutorial, they will also be able to teach humans all kinds of practical skills.

Whether wallet applications will technically onboard AI-agents, or the other way around, remains to be seen. What’s certain is that physical robots — like vehicles — will need their own general-purpose wallets. Humans will then be able to send them verifiable commands directly, whose authenticity the receiving robot can check. 

One can easily imagine an AI-agent being tasked with finding and paying for something, while a robot is assigned to physically pick up or receive the purchased goods.

In any case, everything connects to everything else — and verifiable credentials, unified interfaces, AI-agents, and robots together will change everything.