Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
The Govt Wants Your ID To Browse Online
AI agents are rapidly becoming the next major way people interact with the internet. They can browse websites, research topics, compare prices, schedule reservations, respond to emails, shop and increasingly take actions on our behalf. But as your agent is going off and scanning websites, or gathering information from government services, should it have to reveal who you are? SUPPORT MY WORK: Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I speak with Shoshana Weissman, digital director and policy advisor at the Abundance Institute, about the growing fight over AI agents, online anonymity and identity verification. We discuss the proposed Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, why lawmakers are looking at AI agents and web scraping, how identity requirements could affect journalists, researchers, developers and ordinary internet users, and what happens if every AI agent eventually becomes tied to a person's real-world identity. We also talk about the difference between legitimate security requirements in areas like banking or healthcare and much broader systems that could create a new identity layer across the internet. As AI agents become more powerful and more common, the rules being written now could determine whether they remain private tools acting on behalf of users, or become another way to track what people research, buy, read and do online. Topics: AI agents, artificial intelligence, AI privacy, online anonymity, AI regulation, identity verification, web scraping, internet privacy, surveillance, government regulation, digital identity, the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, the future of the open internet.
