Its interesting how much of the conversation around AI agents focuses on identity and authority. Law often starts somewhere else: Standing. Before asking what an actor is allowed to do, it asks why that actor is participating at all? new essay >>

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

By What Standing?

The internet is increasingly becoming a web of authenticated actors. People sign in, organisations issue credentials, wallets sign transactions, an...

The internet is increasingly becoming an institutional web, with coordinated auth across systems ... but no answer to the Q: By what authority does this action occur? Identity systems solved authentication. They rarely solved legitimacy. New essay:

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

The Institutional Web – Coordination, legitimacy, and the next layer of the internet

For most of its existence, the internet has been understood primarily as an information network. Websites published information, just as platforms ...

Authority does not appear spontaneously inside systems. Every legitimate act carries a lineage: source, mandate, responsibility, consequence. Computational systems increasingly execute action without carrying the semantic conditions surrounding authority itself. The result is a form of rootlessness now emerging across digital infrastructure and AI systems. My latest essay explores this fracture and the need for semantic legitimacy structures capable of preserving rooted authority within machine environments. “The Problem of Rootlessness”

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

The Problem of Rootlessness

Authority does not appear spontaneously inside systems. This observation sounds deceptively simple. But it contains the diagnosis of a structural p...

AI agents can transact, negotiate, allocate capital, invoke tools, and increasingly act within the physical world itself. The deeper question is no longer identity alone. It is authority lineage. By what authority does an action bind? What mandate travels with it? Who carries continuity, responsibility, and revocation as authority moves through systems? New essay: “The Re-emergence of Authority Lineage”

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

The Re-emergence of Authority Lineage

In 1873, a Māori community brought their land before New Zealand’s newly established Native Land Court. The authority over that land was not in ...

#SILT #AuthorityLineage #AI

Consent online isn’t consent. It’s a timestamp. AI agents don’t understand consent. They inherit it. Old permissions look the same as valid ones. No context. No expiry. No boundary. So they act. And the system calls it authorised. The problem isn’t the agent. It’s the missing structure (of consent)

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

Consent Is Not a Signature

We’ve all seen the screen. A list of permissions, formatted to look like disclosure. You accept, because the alternative is not to proceed. The s...

Most digital systems feel complete. They can identify who is acting, verify what that actor holds, and determine what actions are permitted. And yet something still breaks. An action can pass every check and still be illegitimate. Because systems model authorisation, not authority. They can tell you whether an action may proceed, not whether it is justified. That distinction has always existed in law and institutions. We’ve simply failed to encode it into our systems. This is the gap. New writing >>

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

You Can Pass Every Check and Still Be Acting Illegitimately

Most digital systems feel complete. They can identify who is acting, verify what that actor holds, and determine what actions are permitted. And ye...

Even if identity is self-sovereign, authority is still relational. As is human action and transaction. And most systems don’t model it properly. They verify identity. They don’t verify capacity to act. That’s where things break. v0.1 of SILT Core →

GitHub

Release SILT Core v0.1 – Semantic Layer Definition · Sugarlicks/silt-identity-core

Initial public specification of SILT Core. Defines capacity, authority, consent, and revocation as identity primitives. Establishes SILT as a seman...

Authentication confirms who you are. Authorisation defines access. But mandate defines the capacity in which you act. Most systems collapse the three. New piece: Identity Is Not a Credential

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

Identity Is Not a Credential

We move constantly between digital systems. We log in. A password, a biometric, a signature. The system confirms who we are. And then, without paus...

fascinating - hope they are using their own LLM>..

Rest of World

An AI avatar is running to represent Indigenous voters in Colombia

"Gaitana" is the digital stand-in for two candidates who will use the platform to seek consensus from their communities on all legislative matters.

Authentication proves control of a key. It does not encode authority. An AI agent told to “explore its capabilities” created a dating profile on behalf of its user. The system worked exactly as designed. The missing layer is mandate architecture. New essay:

Gareth Farry — Law, Culture & Technology

Who Authorised the Agent? AI Delegation and the Missing Legal Identity Layer

In early 2026, a user configured an OpenClaw agent – one of the most widely deployed autonomous AI systems currently available – and instructed...

its seems China has quietly won the Quantum Computing race ...

Origin Quantum – Building China's Independently Controllable Superconducting Quantum Computers

Origin Quantum, officially Origin Quantum Computing Technology (Hefei) Co., Ltd., specializes in the development of quantum computers, quantum chip...

hey man, great writing and I'm researching a building in a similar space. We actually always had private ordering and merchant law instruments (that in almost all countries are still legit under Bills of Exchange Acts or codes like UCC). Its just a matter of using the tools and clarifying delegation / capacity / standing. Its a fertile area, nice to see your writing! I'm building the architecture for an aspect of this here -

SILT Core

SILT Core is a spec-first identity infrastructure project formalising status, standing, authority, consent, and revocation as enforceable, technolo...

building now >>

SILT Core

SILT Core is a spec-first identity infrastructure project formalising status, standing, authority, consent, and revocation as enforceable, technolo...

Stitched quilt today in support of #Palestine solidarity forever - hurriya ya Falestine !! The freedom of people from the imperialist parasites is why I support you indigenous struggles and also deeply resonate with web3…. Freedom tech and freedom IRL

Our decentralised advocacy and human rights platform work is accelerating! Exciting times for Amnesty and social impact IRL blockchain projects >>> read more about our progress here:

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO)

Amnesty International is a global movement of 10 million people in over 150 countries who are standing with humanity and working to build a world b...

#Humanrights #DAO #blockchain #decentralise

I'm a student of the Arabic Oud (an eastern lute, precursor to the guitar) and Munir Bashir is one of the greats - some beautiful listening here:

Munir Bashir

Blog about prepared and experimental guitar techniques

Any Fat Freddy’s Drop fans out there will be sad to learn that founding member Mu has passed away. He is an icon of New Zealand music, a true innovator that will be sorely missed. Alofa Atu.

Mu - AudioCulture

A first-generation Samoan-New Zealander from working-class suburb Wainuiomata in Wellington’s Hutt Valley, he was the youngest of five kids. He s...

Closing in on 1 million signatures! Do the right thing >>

Avaaz

Nobel Peace Prize for Francesca Albanese and the doctors of Gaza

Netanyahu just nominated Trump for the Nobel peace prize. Let’s show that the world thinks - Francesca and Gaza doctors deserve it instead!

It’s a beautiful thing to be back in Beirut- I’m intrigued to find out more about the web3 movement here !

#4 hits hard View quoted note →