Reid Hoffman says NFTs may make a comeback as AI agents strain online identity
Key takeaways
- The Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder said agents transacting with other agents will require trustworthy digital identity systems that resemble what NFTs originally tried to solve.
- Hoffman said identity systems will exist inside companies, but the harder problem will be identity for agents operating across the open internet.
- “It’s going to be kind of free range on the internet, and how does that work?
The Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder said agents transacting with other agents will require trustworthy digital identity systems that resemble what NFTs originally tried to solve. Hoffman said he began revisiting NFTs as he considered a future in which AI agents outnumber humans online."When you begin to think we're going to have more agents than people, what does the identity layer look like? What is the notion of, hey, when your agent's talking to my agent, and we book this talk here, is it a trustable transaction?" Hoffman said. "And that got me back into thinking about NFTs."
Hoffman said identity systems will exist inside companies, but the harder problem will be identity for agents operating across the open internet.
“It’s going to be kind of free range on the internet, and how does that work? And crypto is the obvious answer,” he said.