Rooly Eliezerov - How the Upcoming Wave of Identity Innovation Will Impact Society and You

Okay. All the, so, hi, my name is Ru Yaro. I'm co-founder giga. I like most, or all people here I'm in the identity space. And one thing that was interesting for me being involved within way for you guys just began Take it away. Yes. It's also to, to look into how the changes that we're, we're talking about the fact that our identity goes more and more into the digital space and it, it has some, some effect on, on our, on ourselves as people as society.

And this is an area that is interesting for me, as much as, you know, all the, the, the business opportunities and the general idealism behind protecting identities, et cetera. There's also an interesting area here to, to explore.

So I'm, I'm now finishing, writing a book, which is about the future of identity will be released within two months or so. And, and I want to begin by talking a little bit about futurism or about people that try to, to guess how things will shape, cuz mostly it fails. I think the, the reason that mainly that people miss in future future prediction has to do with the fact that mostly people see, I mean, I agree that technology is the main trigger for things to change, but I think that many times people end their thought process there.

So as I said, when, when there is progression in technology, the, the next phase is the business opportunities that evolve around this and then let's take, you know, Facebook. So first there was the internet, then people got connected. Then someone found an opportunity to, to offer a service around it and to make money out of it. And then people began consuming it. And then people also changed because suddenly we realized that we want to be entertained every, every second, when we go down the elevator, we take out the phone and consume some kind of entertainment being, not being bored.

It's not that we are getting any productivity out at that time. And this is a need or kind of a behavior that we didn't even we weren't aware of 20 years ago. Another example is just the idea more, less recent is around consumption. So before there was the technology that enabled the mass production, we didn't know that the human being is so anxious about consuming things, buying all the time, look a few hundred years ago, people didn't buy almost, and it wasn't something that they wanted and they just didn't have. They just didn't care about it too much.

So I think that when we look into the future, we need to consider the changes both of course, in technology then the business. And then in the behavior, if we look at movies that try to reflect how people think about the future Jurassic park, for example, that's a story that is based on the business opportunity that evolved out of the technology advancement.

And we, we see, we, we usually see movies that, or read books about changes in technology or changes. They come as the result of that on the business side, but it's very rare that we see how people change. And that was kind of an introduction to, to what, what, what are we going to face as, as a result of the change, the technological change that relates to identity. So we are all aware that as people spend more time on the internet, the more of who they are is being reflected in a digital way.

So it's not only my information, raw information that I can explicitly tell about myself my age and all those very simplistic types of information. It's also more about who I am in terms of the, according to the activity that that is being tracked. We spoke before there was a presentation of the lady that spoke about the questionnaire or the behavioral analysis or this personality analysis as an investor. So this is something that the computers reflect about who we are, which is beyond very simplistic set of information that we report.

There are some things we are, we are, but the question is how, how much of who we really are, is being recorded and also in a digital way. And I think that the fact that who we are is being recorded digitally is also interesting because when we say digitally, it's very, very clear, it's not abstract. Like people have all kind of descriptions around who they are when it's digital, it's, you know, it's binary or it's, it's much more accurate and defined and okay, so what, what does it mean?

I think one of the things and the interesting thing write about in my book, we can learn from the quantified self movement. So probably some or many of you heard about all the people that measure a lot about, about everything they, they do.

Of course, when it relates to, to health, that's an obvious one to what, what they eat, how they, how they work their workouts, but even much more than this. There are people that record every hour there, the level of, you know, how they feel good or bad, they record the electromagnetic fields around them. And they try to see a lot of things, even the pollution, and they try to find correlations and many of them actually improve their tens of thousands. Currently there are events around quantified itself and books, and I think it's not just a, a trend indeed.

It's, it's still a small amount of people because it's still hard to, to, to measure yourself. But as technology evolves with all kind of devices that can measure you in a passive way, when you don't need to invest any effort in that, I think will become more wide. And the reason widely used and adopted because they do see great results out of it. They do get less sick. They feel better. They're happier. And the question that comes from this is okay. So if we can, I mean, first to go back to what I said before, it means that they record more of with are in a digital way.

And then they can take decisions that are based on much more analytical process. And I want to reflect on something else that was mentioned here before, which is Daniel Kaman, the Nobel prize winner in economics. And he is very much excited because, because of he's talking about the fact that the more there, there are two types of thinking, slow thing, call it slow thinking and fast thinking where slow thinking is much more calculated. And the fast thinking is more animal type of intuitive response. So if you touch something hot and you pull your hand immediately, that's fast thinking.

That's the more intuitive decision that we take. And he writes a lot about how the more analytical we are, the more successful will be our decisions. There are many examples of bad investment decisions, and it's all moved by psychological biases like the people or prefer to not to lose than to win. For example, all kind of biases that if we can ignore, we can make much smarter decisions going back to the quantified itself, people, the more they, they, they are taking much more calculated decisions.

So for example, if they find out that they sleep better, if they didn't eat before they go to sleep, then they take a decision. They see this in front of their eyes and therefore they stop eating at night, which is a calculated decision versus, you know, we, even if we know, but we don't have this information in front of our eyes, we might ignore this information and do what we feel like. And then comes the question of the more, if we get to do much more calculated decisions than intuitive decisions, how does it affect who we are?

Because I think that if people learn that they become happier and even take, make even big choices, like the place they work or the people they hang out with, make them happier, then they will more and more trust these calculated decisions. And I think that this is a, a change that is very interesting to looking into, because I think that as we do more and more calculated decisions, unless intuitive decisions it'll on one hand, make us happier and live longer and everything is better.

On the other hand, I think it'll make us more similar to each other because I think that the intuition is maybe sometimes takes us to the wrong places, but it's like this, the fact that we want to be very effective and therefore, and, and be more efficient. And therefore we're losing opportunities that could arrive to us in a random way.

Take, for example, the radio stations that, you know, when the radio was invented, you would turn the dial to find the stations. And once the buttons that are set to certain, certain stations, are there, you much more efficient in finding the, the stations that you like on the other hand, you will miss all those stations that you could randomly stumble upon. So the same thing happens, you know, to take it to the extreme, and this is what is going to happen.

I think, and we will, we will lose those, ran this randomness that is inside of us. That takes us to places that make us where we are this unique individual. So this is one thing thing that I think is interesting to, to think about. And now when we look into artificial intelligence and this, and it's part in the part that it takes in, in our decisions. So we already see the most obvious example is the navigation apps where I think that nobody today trusts themselves more than they trust the navigation app. Certainly when there is traffic to get them where, where they want to.

And when we try to envision other solutions that take decisions for us, and, you know, on the one hand, we will feel that we're in control because you know, the navigation app doesn't drive the car, or even if it does, then it's completely under my command. So it's not that I think that people will lose control, but on the other hand, I think they will lose control because they will proactively and take the decisions that the computers give them.

And, and here, there is another interesting aspect to think about, which is what Dr. What drives these decisions that the AI take. So let's assume that the companies like let's say Google or any other large company, are very try to be as much as ethical as possible and not to, not to involve, not to try to take, to give you the wrong decisions.

Still, there are two things that they're basing their decisions on. One is the set of values that the programmers or whoever is working on these algorithms is, is used to. And I think for example, you know, I spoke before about our need to be very efficient. So I think that those decisions will be driven by values like that, which are not necessarily a right for, for everybody.

Especially if you look at the Western world values, it's very different from what you found in Latin America, where, you know, time is much less, you know, making most of that of my time is much less important than for the Western people and so forth. Other other, so I think that we will find some kind of globalization that comes from, from the values of those that will set up the algorithms that take the, these decisions. The other thing that, that we need to consider is that those, whenever there is a decision to take, there are sometimes alternatives that are all legitimate.

For example, let's say I want to, to let my agent, the AI to fill in my refrigerator to make sure it has certain products all the time, or no much AI need for that. But, but the, the factor is that there are multiple choices that are all equal. For example, for the milk, there is, there are different vendors that provide the same milk at the same price.

So we just need to consider that those, again, those companies are not only basing their decision on, on those values on the values, but there will be some, some kind of bias that they will, that will be even in the most ethical way they will need to, to consider. And it's interesting to think what, what does it mean? And meaning even as long as we're looking at the most ethical way to do, to implement external agents that take decisions for us, I think that these questions come into play.

So getting back to what I spoke before about our, you know, giving up our intuition for the sake of better decision making, that's actually a question that I'm not working on the conclusion of the book. And, and that's something that I'm very curious about to hear other opinions. So I think I have three minutes instead of I can, you know, answer questions, but I'm also curious to hear if anyone here has any opinion about, about that subject.

I, I have an observation, the worst things have ever happened in my life have turned out to be the biggest opportunities. And so to you, it's very interesting to think if I had optimized for things to go well, that serendipity is, you know, often where the magic is.

And so it's an interesting thing to think of the future without that, you know, if everything goes, goes to plan, So how will you react to such an offering if there is a company that if you were, let's say, even heard of a recommendation from a good friend that told you that she followed the recommendation of that company, and she's much happier now, however, she takes the decisions, according to a very calculated type of process. Would you give up the serendipity for, for that? No. Any anyone else?

Yeah, probably what I think about the future of the aspect is if let's say I'll say a simple scenario, and let's say, I want to pay to the internet website some money. Okay. So lot of the identity us these days, this time, or looking at me, and they're just looking at the straightforward password and biometrics and all of that. And then the future is probably about the artificial intelligence, knows about me and context about me. So let's say I'm drunk and I'm trying to play a betting company, something. Okay. So that's your identity, your identity is transformed.

So the artificial intelligence comes in and says, you probably shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be playing betting at this time, but this date. Okay. And then also it'll tell me the guy on the other side, because this is the identity we are talking. So the other side of the party is an identity and it should be telling based on my analysis, I think that guy is a fraud and guy. Okay. So we have these ecosystem and an artificial intelligence coming to play to drive. The whole thing. What we have today is just a simple static, put your password, selfie or things. These are all very static.

That's where it's going to change. And a lot of the corporate for the big companies are using the static identity to drive it and the cost. And then the return on investment will take longer. Probably someone will come with an artificial influence like Google or their Facebook or people, and then they will change the identity game all over. And then people will say, I trust that rather than the static rules, because static rule is implicit and they will do it anyway. Are you talking about the digital I reputation services?

Something like, you know, if I use my digital ID to get with a, with a token provider and the more that I use it for, for different scenarios, the more is it enriched because it's always proven that it's me. And over time, the, the token provider adds more trust into this token. So my reputation goes off. There is this something about talking? It's not token, I don't really have a name for that, but I'm just generally saying what would be the feature it's, It's not something static. It will be a dynamic thing.

So like her case, what she said, if, if, if the, if artificial intelligence knows my behavior and my psychology, and I'm a person who looks for challenges and serendipity kind of a moments, and then it'll gimme that option. Okay. Try and play this betting game. You probably will win it.

So that's that's, But I'm looking this for, I think this is like really far into the future, because I, I'm talking about simple, like in the navigation system there, you know, analyzing data, give you a recommendation it's cause I think there is a big gap until we will really get, so the machine will be, Yeah. I would tend to agree with the, the fact that, like, it's more of a now problem than a Sunday problem. And you know, in my mind, this is broadly speaking is a authorization challenge. Right?

So if you think about it in the context of authorization, then it's just a big, a, a bunch of branching, logic, and a bunch of rule sets. So that, that seems pretty straightforward. I think the interesting dynamic that you mentioned sort of brings up some paradox of choice kind of ideas, some of the cast een nudge, you know, like how do we encourage people to, to do things that are important to them and to, you know, sort of move along the path.

And, and that's what I don't hear. And that's maybe an area for further expansion is like the classes or the categories of these decisions or these actions, you know, there's not really a good framework for that like big life choices. Who am I gonna marry? What college am I going to? Those things like, you know, the serendipity, you never want to give up, but like what kind of peanut butter do I buy? Or like what kind of volume shampoos that's like, we don't need to make that decision ourselves, like somebody with more, more and better information here.

So like the taxonomy of classification around these decisions, I think is a really important sort of unanswered question, But then even can I withdraw 200 bucks after midnight is a good decision point as well. And maybe in that scenario, my wife should authorize that it's a use case for, Okay, are we done or do we want, No, I guess we're well started with the conversation and Katrina you are next, but I think you're actually answering to some of the context. There are more questions. Is there any question you wanted to ask me? Okay. Thank You.