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  "description": "Modern life runs on delegation. Yet most digital systems assume one account, one person, one operator. Passwords and identity checks quietly block automation.",
  "path": "/the-delegation-problem-of-the-internet/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-12T10:24:16.000Z",
  "site": "https://hoeijmakers.net",
  "tags": [
    "The session unlocks the door. For everyone."
  ],
  "textContent": "But a surprising amount of modern work is not limited by knowledge, tools, or intelligence.\n\nIt is limited by identity.\n\nThe small rituals of logging in, confirming codes, verifying accounts, and proving, **again and again** , that you are you.\n\n## Quick takeaways\n\n  * Many digital systems assume that **only the account holder can act**.\n  * Real life, however, runs on **delegation** : partners, colleagues, assistants, children, caregivers.\n  * Two-factor authentication and identity checks make delegation difficult or impossible.\n  * The result is a hidden productivity drain: **identity management work**.\n  * The same constraint also limits what AI agents can actually do.\n\n\n\n## The delegation gap\n\nIn ordinary life, people constantly act on behalf of others.\n\nA partner renews insurance.\nA child handles paperwork for parents.\nAn assistant arranges travel or contracts.\nA colleague submits documents.\n\nThis is not exceptional behaviour.\nIt is how daily life functions.\n\nYet most digital systems assume something else entirely: one account, one person, one operator.\n\nSecurity systems reinforce this assumption. Passwords, two-factor authentication, biometrics, device verification. Each action requires the account holder to appear and confirm themselves.\n\nThis works well for security.\n\nBut it quietly breaks something else: **delegation**.\n\n## Identity work\n\nBecause of this design, a surprising part of modern life is spent performing small identity rituals.\n\nLogging in.\nEntering codes.\nApproving notifications.\nVerifying devices.\n\nThese steps are individually trivial.\nCollectively they form a kind of invisible labour.\n\nYou might call it **identity work**.\n\nIt is the administrative layer that sits between intention and action.\n\n## The AI paradox\n\nThis constraint also explains something curious about AI.\n\nAI systems are increasingly capable of planning, analysing, and organising tasks. In principle they could handle many everyday administrative jobs.\n\nBut they usually cannot.\n\nNot because they lack intelligence.\n\nBecause they lack **authorised identity**.\n\nThe real systems where action happens, _banks, government portals, insurers, utilities_ , are locked behind personal authentication.\n\nSo the human remains the final operator, approving and executing steps that machines could otherwise handle.\n\n## When delegation becomes administration\n\nSome systems attempt to support delegation through formal mandates or authorisations.\n\nBut these often turn delegation itself into another administrative task: registering permissions, managing expiry dates, renewing access codes.\n\nThe effort required to delegate can become almost as large as the task being delegated.\n\n## A missing piece of digital infrastructure\n\nWhat seems largely absent from today’s digital world is a simple capability:\n\n**safe, temporary, and limited delegation of digital authority.**\n\nThe ability to say:\n\n  * this person may manage this account for a period\n  * these actions are allowed, others are not\n  * access can be revoked at any time\n\n\n\nCorporate IT systems have such mechanisms. Everyday digital services rarely do.\n\n## Closing reflection\n\nFor decades we have focused on making information easier to access and process.\n\nBut productivity may increasingly depend on something more mundane:\n\nHow easily we can **act on behalf of one another** in digital systems.\n\nReal life is cooperative.\n\nThe internet, in many places, still assumes **we operate alone**.\n\n* * *\n\n### Further reading\n\n  * The session unlocks the door. For everyone. \n\n",
  "title": "The Delegation Problem of the Internet",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-03T11:45:57.293Z"
}