WEBVTT
00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:01.439
Conclusion.
00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:10.720
Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once, and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you.
00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:16.079
Wrote American activist Susan Somtag in her final set of published essays.
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:25.440
But in the world of distributed identity, it can too often feel like the opposite is true, that everything is very much all happening at once and to you.
00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:40.640
The truth is that there is an awful lot going on in the fields of technology, society, governance, and science that will have an impact on our individual identities, as well as on our understanding of what identity is in the decades ahead.
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:56.880
It is tempting to feel that this impact will be negative, that we face some kind of dystopian scenario in which identity is subsumed by an authoritarian statist coup against the citizenry or by the relentless encroachments of platform corporations.
00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.640
Both are plausible scenarios and we should keep our wits about us to guard against their emergence.
00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:22.799
It would be all too easy to end up in such a techtopian world, and where naively signing up to some terms and conditions turns you into a subject rather than a user, where companies can do whatever they want with your personal data and where you have a digital footprint so large that you're at constant risk of being hacked.
00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:28.799
In such a world, some would argue that the very notion of personal identity will not survive.
00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:47.760
It is perhaps easier to envision these negative scenarios than it is to imagine the positive ones, in which technology might help us create, shape, and control our own identities, applying them in new media contexts and moulding them to a changing world that includes new frontiers such as virtual reality.
00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:55.280
To realize these possible benefits, we must guard the data rights and human rights that already protect us to some degree.
00:01:55.519 --> 00:02:07.359
But more importantly, we will have to trust our own intellect, intuition, and powers of analysis so that we can gauge where we are losing control and need to readjust the system to bring it back into balance.
00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:12.879
But to do so, we must learn to engage with the issues and we must start now.
00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:26.080
This means we should constantly think through the implications of new technologies and care enough about the consequences to find out more rather than mindlessly clicking agree on every digital form that comes our way.
00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:30.400
It means we should stop using media to compare ourselves and criticize others.
00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:45.199
We should keep up to date with alternative currencies, and we should elect to use decentralized systems of identity verification and digital credentials now, downloading the apps before other centralized systems are imposed upon us.
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:57.840
It means we should learn more about our own genetic codes and how they may influence our long-term health and start investing in a daily regime that builds on our own strengths and addresses any biological weaknesses.
00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:05.280
And it means we should think about our identity legacy, how we want to preserve it, and to whom it is entrusted.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:18.159
By engaging in this way and taking action, not only can we ensure that the notion of identity survives, we could also see it thrive as we progress through the 21st century and maybe even beyond.
00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:21.360
The challenge is that this takes effort.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:30.000
It takes time to research and understand digital currencies, it takes a certain amount of technical know-how to set up a digital ID and wallet.
00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:37.360
It takes money to do genetic testing, and it takes real wealth to greatly enhance your physical condition.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.840
But I believe we all need to do what we can now to avoid losing control in the future.
00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:51.439
For all the reasons I have set out in this book, I would argue that your identity should be the most important thing to you.
00:03:51.759 --> 00:04:02.800
It influences your healthcare, your relationships, your citizenship, your birth, your death, everything in your life comes back to who you are.
00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:09.439
There are those that argue that personal identity has always been little more than illusion.
00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:26.560
But I agree with philosopher Roger Scruton, who wrote that people live by negotiation, and that to do so, each party must be free, must understand and accept obligations, desire the other's consent, but also be self-sovereign.
00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:32.800
The idea of identity is what underpins all of this, as Scruton goes on to argue.
00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:43.519
If we are unable to identify a person as one and the same entity at different times, then it is impossible to accurately ascribe to them their rights, duties, and responsibilities.
00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:54.319
In fact, he goes further, arguing that without personal identity as an immovable fact, we would not even be able to ascribe an emotion to an individual.
00:04:55.199 --> 00:05:06.319
Emotions such as love, anger, admiration, envy, and remorse would vanish, he says, and with them would vanish the purpose of our life on earth.
00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:14.319
Our ability to identify ourselves and to authenticate that identity is what allows us to interact with other people as a community.
00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.160
Without that, what reason would we have to exist?
00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:24.800
This is not to say that we don't need to redefine what identity means or how it can be expressed.
00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:29.199
Traditionally, our notion of identity has been of something fairly coherent.
00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:35.839
Our professional, biological, legal, and personal identities existing more or less in one package.
00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:46.879
But thanks to the network effect of digital technologies, we've discovered the freedom to distribute ourselves further and explore multiple versions of self in alternative worlds.
00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:51.920
And we're not far off this trend becoming reality in other parts of our life.
00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.399
Sending an avatar to attend a meeting so that we can be in two places at once.
00:05:56.639 --> 00:06:02.879
Employing artificial intelligence as an extension of ourselves to carry out the more mundane tasks in our lives.
00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:08.879
Storing our mind files in a virtual state and so creating a digital double of ourselves.
00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:20.079
All of these actualities and possibilities point towards a very different view of identity than that which was held in the physical, fixed, monolithic world of the past.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:32.079
At a time where the world is fast changing, our identities must also be able to change and adapt so that we can be recognized as the same person or self in a variety of different contexts.
00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:43.600
Somehow, even when we shift and morph and mutate into other versions of ourselves, we need to hold on to some core character and credentials by which we can still be recognized and identified.
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:52.720
That is to say, we need to think of identity as neither unchanging nor permanent, neither singular nor diverse.
00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:55.199
It is something in between.
00:06:55.519 --> 00:06:59.120
Because in the 21st century, it will have to be.
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.079
So how should we define identity for the 21st century society?
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:16.160
I think there are four possible approaches: conformism, libertarianism, tribalism, and pluralism, which each correspond to four possible types of society that can be defined by two metrics.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:25.759
How far they value the collective over the individual, and how far they favour traditional cultural norms over the possibilities of new technology.
00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:33.040
First, let's imagine a society that favours the collective over the individual and technology over tradition.
00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:40.000
This is what I would call a conformist approach, one in which the society would act according to principles of the hive mind.
00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:44.800
This would mean abandoning the notion of identity altogether, no more you.
00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:51.839
Second, let's consider a society that values the individual while still embracing technology.
00:07:52.319 --> 00:08:03.360
This kind of society would necessitate a libertarian approach to identity where everyone is allowed to act exactly as they please and to take as much advantage of new technology as they like.
00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:13.199
You would be free to pursue morphological freedom, for example, and have total autonomy to create who you are, answering neither to any other individual nor to the state.
00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:24.560
To my mind, such a society would simply be too hard to govern, as people would even have the freedom not to classify their own self as the same person from year to year or day to day.
00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:32.879
Thirdly, we have a society that values the collective over the individual and favours tradition over technology.
00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:45.440
In such a society, people would have fixed identities, not dictated to them by a technologised state, but on the basis of behaviours, rituals, and social norms of whatever group they identify with.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:53.600
In fact, it would be a form of identity tribalism, quite close to the kind of identity politics that we see in society today.
00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:02.799
Finally, we come to a society that remains mindful of traditional and cultural norms but favors the rights of the individual over the collective.
00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:15.200
In this kind of pluralist society, identity would mean having the freedom to shape and choose your own identity as long as you remain respectful of cultural norms and the context in which you find yourself.
00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:23.919
In other words, individuals would be free to take advantage of modern technology, but society as a whole would retain its traditional structures.
00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:31.279
I believe that this pluralist approach to identity and to society is best suited to life in the 21st century.
00:09:31.679 --> 00:10:02.399
On the one hand, it allows us to embrace the positive possibilities of technology so that we can explore the benefits of being in more than one place at any given time, conversing with different people in different places, we can seek to evolve and extend our biological condition, we can create alternative worlds, lives, and new representations of the self in virtual reality, and we can form connections between our brains and machines and connect to other people, enabling us to detect their thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
00:10:03.039 --> 00:10:18.399
On the other hand, it will bring some measure of societal structure to the world we are living in now, where our shared, distributed, fragmented identities roam largely unchecked across the virtual realm in ways that we do not yet fully understand, direct or control.
00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:23.440
In the 21st century, our concept of identity can no longer be monolithic.
00:10:23.679 --> 00:10:33.759
It must be pluralistic, representing you in different ways, in different contexts with different capabilities, while still allowing you to remain you all the time.
00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:51.759
When I embarked on this book, I was working on the concept of a meta-identity, something to describe the way in which we bring all of these versions of our identities into one fold, manage them and control them, so that they are all related in the same way to our original core personal identity.
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:55.679
But this work has led me to revise my thinking.
00:10:55.919 --> 00:11:18.000
In the future, I believe that we will view the real world as no more real than the virtual worlds that we explore, and that in turn that means we must think of these versions of ourselves, not as second or third generation copies of some original personal identity with some lesser value, but as versions or rather extensions of who we are.
00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.759
Again, this comes down to network effects.
00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:41.919
In the same way that Hiroki Azuma talks of the database of characteristics and settings that describe fictional identities, we will build up a database of our own characteristics, locations, and relationships that we can combine in a myriad of different ways to fit whatever context we present ourselves in.
00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:50.240
It is time to start thinking of our identity as polymorphic code, which mutates while keeping its original algorithm intact.
00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:59.679
A sum, for example, could be expressed as 1 plus 3 or as 6 minus 2, with the end result being the same.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.320
Our identity would function in the same way.
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:10.399
I could use different data in different contexts to project different versions of myself, but we'll achieve the same end result.
00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:11.279
Me.
00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:19.840
I also happen to believe that our identities will only be personal in the sense that they emanate from us as a person.
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:23.440
They will not be personal in the sense that they are private.
00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:27.200
They will be shared through a variety of modes and expressions.
00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:32.000
In the future, you will have pseudonymous identities that express you.
00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:35.519
You will have avatars which in part create you.
00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:39.440
You will have a range of credentials that authenticate you.
00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:43.440
You will have intelligent assistance that expand you.
00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:47.440
And you will have a digital legacy to preserve you.
00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.720
All of this will still be you.
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:55.120
All of it will be congruent with the physical person that is also you.
00:12:55.279 --> 00:13:07.679
And all of it lies ahead in the 21st century as more and more of these possibilities come alive slowly and then very quickly to reveal the future of you.
00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:01.439
Conclusion.
00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:10.720
Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once, and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you.
00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:16.079
Wrote American activist Susan Somtag in her final set of published essays.
00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:25.440
But in the world of distributed identity, it can too often feel like the opposite is true, that everything is very much all happening at once and to you.
00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:40.640
The truth is that there is an awful lot going on in the fields of technology, society, governance, and science that will have an impact on our individual identities, as well as on our understanding of what identity is in the decades ahead.
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:56.880
It is tempting to feel that this impact will be negative, that we face some kind of dystopian scenario in which identity is subsumed by an authoritarian statist coup against the citizenry or by the relentless encroachments of platform corporations.
00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.640
Both are plausible scenarios and we should keep our wits about us to guard against their emergence.
00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:22.799
It would be all too easy to end up in such a techtopian world, and where naively signing up to some terms and conditions turns you into a subject rather than a user, where companies can do whatever they want with your personal data and where you have a digital footprint so large that you're at constant risk of being hacked.
00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:28.799
In such a world, some would argue that the very notion of personal identity will not survive.
00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:47.760
It is perhaps easier to envision these negative scenarios than it is to imagine the positive ones, in which technology might help us create, shape, and control our own identities, applying them in new media contexts and moulding them to a changing world that includes new frontiers such as virtual reality.
00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:55.280
To realize these possible benefits, we must guard the data rights and human rights that already protect us to some degree.
00:01:55.519 --> 00:02:07.359
But more importantly, we will have to trust our own intellect, intuition, and powers of analysis so that we can gauge where we are losing control and need to readjust the system to bring it back into balance.
00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:12.879
But to do so, we must learn to engage with the issues and we must start now.
00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:26.080
This means we should constantly think through the implications of new technologies and care enough about the consequences to find out more rather than mindlessly clicking agree on every digital form that comes our way.
00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:30.400
It means we should stop using media to compare ourselves and criticize others.
00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:45.199
We should keep up to date with alternative currencies, and we should elect to use decentralized systems of identity verification and digital credentials now, downloading the apps before other centralized systems are imposed upon us.
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:57.840
It means we should learn more about our own genetic codes and how they may influence our long-term health and start investing in a daily regime that builds on our own strengths and addresses any biological weaknesses.
00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:05.280
And it means we should think about our identity legacy, how we want to preserve it, and to whom it is entrusted.
00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:18.159
By engaging in this way and taking action, not only can we ensure that the notion of identity survives, we could also see it thrive as we progress through the 21st century and maybe even beyond.
00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:21.360
The challenge is that this takes effort.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:30.000
It takes time to research and understand digital currencies, it takes a certain amount of technical know-how to set up a digital ID and wallet.
00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:37.360
It takes money to do genetic testing, and it takes real wealth to greatly enhance your physical condition.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.840
But I believe we all need to do what we can now to avoid losing control in the future.
00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:51.439
For all the reasons I have set out in this book, I would argue that your identity should be the most important thing to you.
00:03:51.759 --> 00:04:02.800
It influences your healthcare, your relationships, your citizenship, your birth, your death, everything in your life comes back to who you are.
00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:09.439
There are those that argue that personal identity has always been little more than illusion.
00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:26.560
But I agree with philosopher Roger Scruton, who wrote that people live by negotiation, and that to do so, each party must be free, must understand and accept obligations, desire the other's consent, but also be self-sovereign.
00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:32.800
The idea of identity is what underpins all of this, as Scruton goes on to argue.
00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:43.519
If we are unable to identify a person as one and the same entity at different times, then it is impossible to accurately ascribe to them their rights, duties, and responsibilities.
00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:54.319
In fact, he goes further, arguing that without personal identity as an immovable fact, we would not even be able to ascribe an emotion to an individual.
00:04:55.199 --> 00:05:06.319
Emotions such as love, anger, admiration, envy, and remorse would vanish, he says, and with them would vanish the purpose of our life on earth.
00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:14.319
Our ability to identify ourselves and to authenticate that identity is what allows us to interact with other people as a community.
00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.160
Without that, what reason would we have to exist?
00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:24.800
This is not to say that we don't need to redefine what identity means or how it can be expressed.
00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:29.199
Traditionally, our notion of identity has been of something fairly coherent.
00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:35.839
Our professional, biological, legal, and personal identities existing more or less in one package.
00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:46.879
But thanks to the network effect of digital technologies, we've discovered the freedom to distribute ourselves further and explore multiple versions of self in alternative worlds.
00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:51.920
And we're not far off this trend becoming reality in other parts of our life.
00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.399
Sending an avatar to attend a meeting so that we can be in two places at once.
00:05:56.639 --> 00:06:02.879
Employing artificial intelligence as an extension of ourselves to carry out the more mundane tasks in our lives.
00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:08.879
Storing our mind files in a virtual state and so creating a digital double of ourselves.
00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:20.079
All of these actualities and possibilities point towards a very different view of identity than that which was held in the physical, fixed, monolithic world of the past.
00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:32.079
At a time where the world is fast changing, our identities must also be able to change and adapt so that we can be recognized as the same person or self in a variety of different contexts.
00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:43.600
Somehow, even when we shift and morph and mutate into other versions of ourselves, we need to hold on to some core character and credentials by which we can still be recognized and identified.
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:52.720
That is to say, we need to think of identity as neither unchanging nor permanent, neither singular nor diverse.
00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:55.199
It is something in between.
00:06:55.519 --> 00:06:59.120
Because in the 21st century, it will have to be.
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.079
So how should we define identity for the 21st century society?
00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:16.160
I think there are four possible approaches: conformism, libertarianism, tribalism, and pluralism, which each correspond to four possible types of society that can be defined by two metrics.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:25.759
How far they value the collective over the individual, and how far they favour traditional cultural norms over the possibilities of new technology.
00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:33.040
First, let's imagine a society that favours the collective over the individual and technology over tradition.
00:07:33.279 --> 00:07:40.000
This is what I would call a conformist approach, one in which the society would act according to principles of the hive mind.
00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:44.800
This would mean abandoning the notion of identity altogether, no more you.
00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:51.839
Second, let's consider a society that values the individual while still embracing technology.
00:07:52.319 --> 00:08:03.360
This kind of society would necessitate a libertarian approach to identity where everyone is allowed to act exactly as they please and to take as much advantage of new technology as they like.
00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:13.199
You would be free to pursue morphological freedom, for example, and have total autonomy to create who you are, answering neither to any other individual nor to the state.
00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:24.560
To my mind, such a society would simply be too hard to govern, as people would even have the freedom not to classify their own self as the same person from year to year or day to day.
00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:32.879
Thirdly, we have a society that values the collective over the individual and favours tradition over technology.
00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:45.440
In such a society, people would have fixed identities, not dictated to them by a technologised state, but on the basis of behaviours, rituals, and social norms of whatever group they identify with.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:53.600
In fact, it would be a form of identity tribalism, quite close to the kind of identity politics that we see in society today.
00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:02.799
Finally, we come to a society that remains mindful of traditional and cultural norms but favors the rights of the individual over the collective.
00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:15.200
In this kind of pluralist society, identity would mean having the freedom to shape and choose your own identity as long as you remain respectful of cultural norms and the context in which you find yourself.
00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:23.919
In other words, individuals would be free to take advantage of modern technology, but society as a whole would retain its traditional structures.
00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:31.279
I believe that this pluralist approach to identity and to society is best suited to life in the 21st century.
00:09:31.679 --> 00:10:02.399
On the one hand, it allows us to embrace the positive possibilities of technology so that we can explore the benefits of being in more than one place at any given time, conversing with different people in different places, we can seek to evolve and extend our biological condition, we can create alternative worlds, lives, and new representations of the self in virtual reality, and we can form connections between our brains and machines and connect to other people, enabling us to detect their thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
00:10:03.039 --> 00:10:18.399
On the other hand, it will bring some measure of societal structure to the world we are living in now, where our shared, distributed, fragmented identities roam largely unchecked across the virtual realm in ways that we do not yet fully understand, direct or control.
00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:23.440
In the 21st century, our concept of identity can no longer be monolithic.
00:10:23.679 --> 00:10:33.759
It must be pluralistic, representing you in different ways, in different contexts with different capabilities, while still allowing you to remain you all the time.
00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:51.759
When I embarked on this book, I was working on the concept of a meta-identity, something to describe the way in which we bring all of these versions of our identities into one fold, manage them and control them, so that they are all related in the same way to our original core personal identity.
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:55.679
But this work has led me to revise my thinking.
00:10:55.919 --> 00:11:18.000
In the future, I believe that we will view the real world as no more real than the virtual worlds that we explore, and that in turn that means we must think of these versions of ourselves, not as second or third generation copies of some original personal identity with some lesser value, but as versions or rather extensions of who we are.
00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.759
Again, this comes down to network effects.
00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:41.919
In the same way that Hiroki Azuma talks of the database of characteristics and settings that describe fictional identities, we will build up a database of our own characteristics, locations, and relationships that we can combine in a myriad of different ways to fit whatever context we present ourselves in.
00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:50.240
It is time to start thinking of our identity as polymorphic code, which mutates while keeping its original algorithm intact.
00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:59.679
A sum, for example, could be expressed as 1 plus 3 or as 6 minus 2, with the end result being the same.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.320
Our identity would function in the same way.
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:10.399
I could use different data in different contexts to project different versions of myself, but we'll achieve the same end result.
00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:11.279
Me.
00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:19.840
I also happen to believe that our identities will only be personal in the sense that they emanate from us as a person.
00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:23.440
They will not be personal in the sense that they are private.
00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:27.200
They will be shared through a variety of modes and expressions.
00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:32.000
In the future, you will have pseudonymous identities that express you.
00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:35.519
You will have avatars which in part create you.
00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:39.440
You will have a range of credentials that authenticate you.
00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:43.440
You will have intelligent assistance that expand you.
00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:47.440
And you will have a digital legacy to preserve you.
00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.720
All of this will still be you.
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:55.120
All of it will be congruent with the physical person that is also you.
00:12:55.279 --> 00:13:07.679
And all of it lies ahead in the 21st century as more and more of these possibilities come alive slowly and then very quickly to reveal the future of you.
