The Philosophy of Identity

And what even is your true identity? Because I don't think that we have a single identity. If you just take the simple example of all the different logins and passwords we have, these are all identities, right? And we speak of them that way, identity theft, right? The split identity, the multiple identity, the schizophrenia, even multiple personality disorder, I think has become the norm. So what does this mean when we don't have a single identity anymore, but we have a collection of identities? And who I am on Twitter is a little bit different than who I am on Facebook, than who I am on Instagram, than who I am here, than who I am when I go home and when my kids get off the bus. You know, this is, is a very, very new thing, I think. It's not necessarily new that we have different facets of identity, but I think the variety of identities we carry is remarkable. And this isn't even to bring up, you know, manufactured identities that people hide behind, internet trolls, and, you know, nobody ever thinks they're a troll, but, or on dating sites when you put maybe your best foot forward, but it's not necessarily really your foot? There, there are a lot of questions here. And what's the effect of this over time on your, on your sense of self?

It's a true story. I had this kind of existential crisis, I think, as many teenagers have around the age of 16 or so, when I noticed— because it was still very much in the age of authenticity, and so growing up was basically the task. You have to be, become an and very soon an authentic person. And only in this way you can basically exist in your peer group as a teenager. So becoming authentic and knowing and also being able to demonstrating this is very important. Now, I still remember this, that I had this crisis that I found out, oh, I'm acting different with everyone, right? With these friends and with the girls, I'm acting different with the boys. These friends, I'm acting different than those when I'm playing soccer, different than when I'm at school. And then I thought, I'm just like, I'm a total cheat or anything, right? I'm just who I am. And was a real existential, my first existential crisis. And I had no way of resolving this. And then later on, I started Chinese philosophy. And then I learned that from a traditional Chinese perspective, that's actually a good thing. And then I remember this because according to Chinese philosophy, which is traditional sincerity thing, it's an art. Whenever you're with a different person, it's a different relationship and you have to have, you know, develop different personality in order to make this relationship function very well, right? You can't act in the same way as a parent, then you act as a kid, right? And you're both a parent and a kid most of the time of your life, right? So you have to act, interact with your children and your parents, and you just can't do it the same authentic way. It's always a relational thing, right? So again, it's not— we're not in control of these. It's just like a national relations we're in. And in each of them, we have to learn to act in a different way. And so I found out then after studying this, like 10 years later, that my experience, I experienced as an experience of my own fakeness, But that was just because I was applying the age of authenticity paradigm. Right? If I would have lived in a sincerity context, I would have not experienced this as an existential crisis at all. I would have experienced as a good way of growing up and my relationship network becomes richer. I become like more, how to say, more nuanced, right? I develop different personas as it should be with different people. Again, that violates the ethics of authenticity. But again, this goes directly to your point, Tracey, that I think in profilicity, we can learn to, to get away from this paradigm of authenticity. In the book, I refer to an article by a colleague of mine, a sociologist, about electronic music, how electronic musicians in the same gig in the same night, like play under like 3, 4 different names, and they play different kinds of music. And not only this, in this music, they relate differently to the audience and relate differently to the persona they are. And it's like a whole different thing. And again, I'm just saying this in order to support your point, Tracey, that through profilicity, we kind of rediscover this ability that we once had in sincerity, We have to assume different identities in different relationships, which is a good thing.

You've made me think to ask you actually about Facebook. Do you have any insight into what they're planning? Because obviously they've come out and said they are hoping to bring in verification, as they call it. Do you have any insights into what they're planning to do or how they might be going about it?

Well, I do. I have many thoughts here, you know. The first is, and this ties back to Twitter as well, you know, what has been leaked from Facebook or Meta, I should say, across, you know, Instagram and Facebook is they want to make identity a premium product, which I think in many ways I fundamentally disagree with. And I think it's a, well, both from my personal perspective as well from a business perspective, I think that's a fundamental mistake. This notion that you know, you have to pay in order to get trust and safety out of the platform is ridiculous. You know, imagine if— and well, I believe Uber did do this by tacking on like a rider safety fee. But imagine if when you got into an Uber, it said, hey, do you want to pay an extra $5 to make sure that your Uber driver isn't a criminal or drunk driver? You know, that would be absurd. And I think people would rightfully object to that. I hope that Facebook's announcement and Twitter's announcements that they're going to have these premium products that mean you pay a monthly fee and only in exchange for paying that monthly fee can you tie your account to your real identity. I really hope that's the, the world that, that we don't end up living in. But, you know, let's see how, let's see how the market responds. I hope that, that people are going to push back against that and say this is something that we think should be done for free. Now, obviously, You have a business to run and, and do you need to make people pay for access to new and exciting features? Certainly there's an argument to be made there. I would argue that at the fundamental level, you know, are you a real person and are you the identity you're claiming to be should kind of be table stakes for operating one of these accounts. And I do think with the major, major global push around age verification for social media applications in particular, it's going to make it a lot more challenging to monetize identity as directly because these platforms are, are really struggling hard right now with how they're going to meet these age verification mandates at scale. I don't think anybody's really cracked that nut, proverbially speaking. And obviously that's a fundamental identity question in and of itself, right? In order to answer is this user above 18 or not? You need to answer, are you a real person? And then get at some semblance of, and who is the person behind this device? And are they who they are claiming to be? You know, are you an actual 13-year-old or are you a 13-year-old who's trying to claim you're your dad sitting at your dad's computer?

Dave Birch's thoughts on social media verification have been pretty clear for a while.

A long time ago, I think I quite accurately predicted that the most valuable credential would just be that you're a person, not that you're Tracey Follows or English or living on Earth at the moment, right? But the fact that you're a person and in a, you know, I think ChatGPT has accelerated this into the the mainstream. So, I mean, Mr. Musk was getting very exercised about this last year about not knowing who, who were bots and who weren't. Um, so the possession of this is a person credential becomes absolutely vital.

I was going to ask you what you think Twitter and Facebook should do in terms of— well, Facebook's talking about verification. I think Musk talked about authentication.

I personally think they should decouple it. I mean, like, I don't care what Twitter thinks about you. You know, what I want Twitter to do is to maintain the social network, you know, run the tweet system. Essentially, it shouldn't be up to Twitter to say whether you're a person or not. So what should happen is I go to create a Twitter account or I go to log into Twitter the next time Twitter bounces me to my bank. I do my, you know, strong customer authentication, two-factor login to the bank., and the bank sends Twitter a credential which says this is a person. End of. That's it. Doesn't say which person it is. Not relevant. Now Twitter can put a tick next to my name that says this is a person.

As we draw to a close, I've got a bit of a mad futurist question. You're a futurist as well, so I'm sure you've thought about this. Say we've uploaded our brains. We've done some mind uploading or downloading, however you want to think of it. And say, and I know we have to suspend our disbelief a little bit here, say that we can put our brain in some sort of, you know, digital substrate. Will that digital brain or mind have the same rights, the same cognitive liberty as our human meatspace version?

It's such a good question, right? I mean, it's almost, I mean, it's basically the AI question too, right? Which is, you know, like, is the digital representation of self you know, the something that is self. Is there something uniquely human about our cognition and our processes? I hope there is something uniquely human about what it means to be human and that is different from machines. But, and I also think that the idea that we could fully upload our brains ignores that a lot of our cognition and our affective experiences are extended beyond just our brains, right? And so we would have to upload so much more than just literally our brains to make—

Have to clone ourselves really, wouldn't we?

Essentially, yeah. And you know, and it's not just your brain and your nervous system and, you know, how you have this extended personality throughout your body and what you interact with, but it is your interaction with the environment that gives rise to a lot of the different experiences and mental processes that you have. And so in that world where all of that could be captured, right, and we're not just talking about brain uploading, we are talking about the full human experience being uploaded, then yeah, I think that we would have the same rights and, you know, we would have the right to cognitive liberty in that form as well. But you can see that as a futurist, I have some disbelief about being able to reduce the entirety of the human experience into digital bits and bytes that can then be uploaded.

Yeah, it is different, isn't it? The analog brain and the digital substrate. So, Nita, then what's your final message for people in terms of getting more involved in this subject matter, understanding more, you know, initiating more conversations around it so that we can push this agenda of cognitive liberty?

I mean, I hope to make many, many more cognitive liberty advocates out there in the world to be part of the conversation. And I think the very first step is to get educated. I think You know, my, my purpose in reading this book is, is ideally to spark a global conversation and to make it accessible to everybody for people to understand what's happening and to be familiar with and understand what the issues are that are at stake. Like what rights are at stake? What does it mean to connect your brain to corporations and governments? Like what is it that you really are putting at stake in, in the debate? So first is to get educated. And I think a good way to do that is of course to read my book. So I hope people will, uh, which is to read The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. To. But I will say I am far from the only person in this debate. There are so many thoughtful, you know, scholars, advocates, you know, big thinkers.

Where else would you recommend people look? Are there journals? Are there good websites?

So, I mean, you know, there was a wonderful Nature Electronics journal that just came out that declared BCI, the brain-computer interface, the technology of the year there. Are, you know, the OECD has recommendations for regulation of neurotechnology. The UN has, you know, dug into this issue. There are thoughtful scholars across the globe who are coming to the table and are offering different perspectives on these issues. And I think that diversity of thought is so important to push this issue forward and have helped push my thinking forward as well. But I'd say it's so important for people to get educated, become part of the debate, And then realize that they have choices to make, right? It isn't just like at a societal level, like, oh, let's hope somebody passes cognitive liberty. People have to start exercising their own right to cognitive liberty and they have to treat it differently. They cannot unwittingly give up their brain data just as easily as they've given up all of the rest of their data. They need to make deliberate choices as they buy AirPods and headphones and watches that have neural interface and not just think like, oh, this is the next cool technology, but figure out what the terms of service are under which that technology is being offered to you. If their employer is mandating it, demand that it be put into writing about exactly what they plan to do with that data, what they're collecting, and demand a transparent policy about that and push back, right? If the employer says, I'm going to track your brain activity, push back and join with others to push back against that and say, no, you know what? This actually violates the fundamental dignity of what it means to be human. And so I want people to be much more active in this debate and in this conversation. And, you know, you start by becoming aware and you then transition into using that awareness as a tool of empowerment.

So really cognitive liberty is as much a responsibility as it is a right.