Tag Archives: npe

Agentic AI NPEs, Ephemeral and Non-Individual

People are people, and why should it be that non-person entities (NPEs) are treated the same? The girl is NOT the robot.

Imagen 4.

Non-static

In a June 30 LinkedIn post, Eric Olden of Strata caused me to realize that my approach to NPEs is too uniform and needs to be more nuanced.

“Agentic identity isn’t just a new type of NHI. AI agents might functionally fall under the “non-human identity” umbrella—but that label doesn’t really cut it since we’re not talking about static service accounts or API keys.”

In a table published in the original post, Olden semantically defines NHIs as the persistent entities with unchanging privileges. Agentic identities, in Olden’s cosmos, are ephemeral.

But Olden identifies one additional distinction that has nothing to do with lifespan.

“AI agents are digital actors that can reason and make decisions across systems.”

Olden notes that the characteristics of agentic AI offer both power and risk.

Impermanent

From ConductorOne.

ConductorOne shares Olden’s observations on agentic AI:

“Often ephemeral, existing for just seconds or minutes depending on the task.

“Requires role-based or task-specific access, rather than broad or persistent permissions.

“Capable of autonomous decision-making and executing actions in real-time.

“Built to integrate with existing systems and interact securely with other agents.

“Expands the potential for AI solutions by enabling action—not just insight or content.”

Unaccountable

Imagen 4.

So how do you set up individual accounts for these extremely powerful non-person entities that appear and disappear?

According to Juan Ignacio Torres Durán, you don’t.

“Modern architectures — cloud-native, ephemeral workloads, APIs, containers, robotic processes — don’t fit neatly into the account model. They’re fast, dynamic, and short-lived. They need access right now, based on who or what they are, where they run, and what they do.

“And here’s the shift: We don’t need to create an account for each of them. We just need to recognize the entity, validate it, and project a governed identity that can be used for access decisions.”

So no distinct individuality for NPEs. That’s an interesting…um…world.

Bredemarket Needs an Influencer…So I Created My Own

Remember last month when I created the Meta AI character N. P. E. Bredemarket? “He” identifies as “wisdom in technology, at your service.” Although I need to train him more, he is fairly good at illuminating technology topics.

N. P. E. Bredemarket.

But he doesn’t make me money.

To make money, I need an influencer to promote Bredemarket.

  • But not a macro-influencer like a Kardashian or Jenner.
  • And not a micro-influencer.

I created a second Meta AI non-person entity. This one, named JaneCPAInfluencer.

JaneCPAInfluencer, created by Instagram.

“She” is still in anti-hallucination training; at one point she said that I was the past president of the International Biometric Association (whatever that is). But she’s getting better.

Will she drum up business for Bredemarket? Probably not, since my Instagram influence pales in comparison to my Facebook and LinkedIn influence. But I’m curious to try it.

I Guess I’m Also the Non-Person Entity Product Marketing Expert

I was recently updating my “biometric product marketing expert” page. Because if you haven’t heard, I am the biometric product marketing expert. There’s even a video and stuff.

Make an impact.

In addition to becoming the biometric product marketing expert by studying the biometric modalities and non-biometric factors associated with a person…I’ve also studied the identification of non-person entities.

Bredemarket and Non-Person Entities

I started this study back on August 20, 2024, when I originally wrote about attribute-based access control.

From NIST.

Since then I’ve continued to write about NPEs.

A lot.

9 times during the second quarter of 2025 alone. I don’t know what got into me on April 9.

And I’ve planned at least one more NPE post before the end of the month, possibly on Thursday.

Because as I previously said (on April 9, of course), if your identity system only manages people, it is flawed.

Now I’ll grant that I’m in the minority when I use the phrase “non-person entity.” The phrase “non-human identity” is much more popular.

But all your people and refrigerators know what I’m talking about.

So do I have to remake the 32 second video…again? This was the third go at it, after my second and first versions.

But you don’t want an NPE writing your content

Trust me. You don’t.

You want me.

Because I’m the…you know.

Schedule a free meeting with me to discuss your content needs.

CPA
Bredemarket’s “CPA.”

HP Instant Ink Users and Identity: 1:1 Person-to-NPE Binding Isn’t Always Enough

How many people should use a SaaS service? If your answer is “only one,” you don’t need to read this post.

Last month I discussed a particular use case in which AI-based non-person entities (NPEs) were bound to the identities of carbon-based life forms. My post “Identity-Bound Non-Person Entities” reviewed the partnership between Anonybit and SmartUp. 

This binding doesn’t need artificial intelligence to work. The NPE may be something as simple as a service.

But how many people can be bound to an NPE?

A company and its service

There is a very large technology company; I won’t reveal the company name, but its initials are HP. And this very large company provides a service; I won’t reveal the service name, but it instantly provides ink for the company’s printers…

Never mind. It turns out that I already discussed HP Instant Ink (Ink as a Service) in the Bredemarket blog before. Plus, the company providing IaaS is no longer known as “the Hewlett-Packard Company,” but as “HP Inc.” So much for my attempts at obfuscation.

The 1:1 binding between me and Instant Ink

Anyway, we did sign up for Instant Ink when we purchased a new printer. Specifically, my HP account was registered as the owner of our Instant Ink account.

(Those of you with a keen eye can already see where this is going.)

As part of the Instant Ink service that we purchased, I can obtain two things:

1. The status of Instant Ink shipments to us

Not that these shipments are all that fast. 

So far we have encountered two instances in which we ran out of ink before the new Instant Ink shipment arrived. 

And when you put a regular ink cartridge into the printer while waiting for the Instant Ink shipment, HP sends a nasty gram stating that I put the wrong ink in the printer, and to put Instant Ink in the printer right now. 

Um, my Instant Ink is in Pennsylvania, and it will take 10 days to reach California. What am I supposed to do, fly to Pennsylvania and get it?

2. HP support

For our printer, I can obtain support from HP. I will have more to say about HP support later.

First person…or people

Do all of you see the issue now? If not, let me spell it out.

I am married, and my wife and I bought the printer together. But she has no access to shipment tracking or support; only I do.

Actually, I must confess that I gave her my HP login and password. So she has access to the shipment tracking information. But since her name is not John, we assumed that HP would never talk to her about the Instant Ink service that we purchased.

There is something in the (so-called) HP Smart App that allows me to “invite” someone to the printer. But when I tried to “invite” my wife, HP briefly flashed a message saying that I could not invite my wife because she already had an HP personal account.

I need support

By this time I had piled up 3 support requests for HP:

  1. How can I get new Instant Ink before my old Instant Ink runs out?
  2. How can my wife see information on our Instant Ink service?
  3. Plus there’s a third one regarding multiple HP accounts that I won’t get into here.

I decided to tackle the second support request first. So I found the support page, started a gust, and got a ticket number.

The first support chat

I was routed to a printer specialist, who informed me that they couldn’t help me and routed me to an Instant Ink specialist.

The Instant Ink person asked for the error code that appeared when I tried to “invite” my wife. I explained that I didn’t know because it disappeared so quickly.

So I tried to invite my wife again, pointing my smartphone camera at the laptop screen so that I could take a picture of the error code the…um…instant that it appeared.

I successfully took the picture, and there was no error code. Just a message saying that I couldn’t invite my wife because she already had an HP personal account. And to contact support.

The Instant Ink specialist instructed me to click on a link, then closed the support ticket.

I clicked on the link…and was asked to create a new support ticket.

The second support chat

I was routed to a printer specialist, who informed me that they couldn’t help me and routed me to an Instant Ink specialist.

(Yes, there’s a lot of repetition in this post.)

By this time I tried to boil my request down to a simple question: how can my wife see Instant Ink shipment status and request support on her own?

The Instant Ink specialist went quiet for a while, and finally—over an hour after I started the initial support chat—provided the solution to my problem.

Give my wife my HP login and password. And sure, she’ll have no problem contacting support, even though I’m the named user.

Suffice it to say that I was not pleased.

A systemic problem

But to be fair, none of the 4 support people I talked to could have solved my problem.

Because HP has made the underlying assumption that its Instant Ink service can only be managed by one person, not two.

And HP is not alone in this. There are multiple services that assume single person management. This affects married couples often, where one spouse is the named user for a service but knows nothing about it because spouse 2 handles it.

This results in a number of conversations like this:

SERVICE: John?

WIFE: No, this is his wife.

SERVICE: I need John’s authorization to continue.

WIFE: (carries phone to me in the Bredemarket world headquarters) Amazing and wonderful husband, could you authorize me to discuss our account?

(Some portions of this conversation may have been fictionalized.)

ME: Hello, this is John.

SERVICE: John, what is your date of birth?

This is not a technology issue, but an organizational issue. Except where laws (such as HIPAA) regulate this, an organization should allow multiple people to be assigned to a service or other NPE.

It would make my—I mean our lives easier.

Xona Space Systems and 3 Inch Geolocation Accuracy

Our existing GPS is good enough (when not jammed) for a person to drop a bomb, but not good enough for a non-person entity (NPE) to be behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”

“The satellite is the first of a planned constellation called Pulsar, which is being developed by California-based Xona Space Systems. The company ultimately plans to have a constellation of 258 satellites in low Earth orbit. Although these satellites will operate much like those used to create GPS, they will orbit about 12,000 miles closer to Earth’s surface, beaming down a much stronger signal that’s more accurate—and harder to jam. 

“Reid and Manning began to think about how to build a space-based PNT [positioning, navigation, and timing] system that would do what GPS does but better, with accuracy of three inches (10 centimeters) or less and ironclad reliability in all sorts of challenging conditions.”

Quote from https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/06/1117978/inside-the-race-to-find-gps-alternatives/

Xona Space Systems website: https://www.xonaspace.com/

Don’t Learn to Code 2

(Imagen 4)

As a follow-up to my first post on this topic, look at the Guardian’s summary article, “Will AI wipe out the first rung of the career ladder?”

The Guardian cites several sources:

  • Anthropic states (possibly in self-interest) that unemployment could hit 20% in five years.
  • One quarter of all programming jobs already vanished in the last two years.
  • A LinkedIn executive echoed the pessimism about the future (while LinkedIn hypes its own AI capabilities to secure the dwindling number of jobs remaining).
  • The Federal Reserve cited high college graduate rates of unemployment (5.8%) and underemployment (41.2%).

Read the entire article here.

Don’t Learn to Code

(Imagen 4)

Some of you may remember the 2010s, when learning to code would solve all your problems forever and ever. 

There was even an “Hour of Code” in 2014:

“The White House also announced Monday that seven of the nation’s largest school districts are joining more than 50 others to start offering introductory computer science courses.”

But people on the other side of the aisle endorsed the advice:

“On its own, telling a laid-off journalist to “learn to code” is a profoundly annoying bit of “advice,” a nugget of condescension and antipathy. It’s also a line many of us may have already heard from relatives who pretend to be well-meaning, and who question an idealistic, unstable, and impecunious career choice.”

But the sentiment was the same: get out of dying industries and do something meaningful that will set you up for life.

Well, that’s what they thought in the 2010s.

Where are the “learn to code” advocates in 2025?

They’re talking to non-person entities, not people:

“Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott expects the next half-decade to see more AI-generated code than ever — but that doesn’t mean human beings will be cut out of the programming process.

“”95% is going to be AI-generated,” Scott said when asked about code within the next five years on an episode of the 20VC podcast. “Very little is going to be — line by line — is going to be human-written code.””

So the 2010s “learn to code” movement has been replaced by the 2020s “let AI code” movement. While there are valid questions about whether AI can actually code, it’s clear that companies would prefer not to hire human coders, who they perceive to be as useless as human journalists.

Simeio: Identity is the Perimeter of Cybersecurity

Simeio opened its monthly newsletter with a statement. Here is an excerpt:

“May spotlighted how even the most advanced enterprises are vulnerable when identity systems are fragmented, machine identities go unmanaged, and workflows rely too heavily on manual intervention—creating conditions ripe for risk. Enterprises need to get the message: identity is the perimeter of cybersecurity, and orchestration is the force multiplier. It’s time to learn how to effectively leverage it.”

Read the rest of Simeio’s newsletter on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/identity-matters-may-2025-identitywithsimeio-iby0e

Of course, there’s that interesting wrinkle of the identities of non-person entities, which may or may not be bound to human identities. Simeio, with its application onboarding solution, plays in the NPE space.

As for me, I need to start thinking about MY Bredemarket monthly LinkedIn newsletter (The Wildebeest Speaks) soon. June approaches. (Here’s the May edition if you missed it.)

Identity-Bound Non-Person Entities

In my writings on non-person entities (NPEs), I have mentally assumed that NPEs go their own way and do their own thing, separate from people. So while I (John Bredehoft) have one set of permissions, the bot N. P. E. Bredemarket has “his” own set of permissions.

Not necessarily.

Anonybit and SmartUp have challenged my assumption, saying that AI agents could be bound to human identities.

“Anonybit…announced the first-ever live implementation of agentic commerce secured by decentralized biometrics, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of enterprise AI.

“Through a strategic partnership with SmartUp, a no-code platform for deploying enterprise AI agents, Anonybit is powering authenticated, identity-bound agents in real-world order, payment, and supply chain workflows….

“Anonybit’s identity token management system enables agents to operate on behalf of users with precise, auditable authorization across any workflow—online, in-person, or automated.”

So—if you want to—all your bot buddies can be linked to you, and you bear the responsibility for their actions. Are you ready?

(Imagen 4)

Evading State Taxes: Non-Person Automotive Entities and Geolocation

When a person is born in the United States, they obtain identifiers such as a name and a Social Security Number.

When a non-person entity is “born,” it gets identifiers also. For automobiles, the two most common ones are a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and a license plate number. (There is also title, which I’ve discussed before, but that’s not really an identifier.)

In my country license plates and the associated vehicle registrations, like driver’s licenses, are issued at the state level. Montana, for example, has 2.3 million registered vehicles…which is odd, because the state only has 879,000 licensed drivers.

How can this be? Jalopnik explains:

“All that wealthy car owners have to do is spend around $1,000 to open an LLC in Montana, then use the LLC to purchase a car with no sales tax — and said car is not subject to vehicle inspections or emissions testing.”

That explains things. The Montana LLCs need multiple cars for all their LLC-related travel between Billings, Bozeman, and Butte. That’s a ton of miles on the Montana highways.

Um…no.

“According to Bloomberg, former Montana revenue director Dan Bucks said there are likely more than 600,000 vehicles registered in Montana but operated in other states.”

Like California. Where people don’t want to pay the fees associated with vehicle registration here, so they say their vehicles are Montana vehicles. Only problem is, license plate readers on California freeways can identify the movements of a car with Montana plates. And if that “Montana” car is moving in California, expect a visit from the tax authority.

But it’s not just the money hungry loony liberal Commies in California. Jalopnik reports that the money hungry loony liberal Commies in…um…Utah are mad also.

“This is really an abuse of our tax system,” said Utah tax commissioner John Valentine. “They pay nothing to support our state, just a small fee to Montana for the opportunity to evade taxes in Utah.”

Because in the end it doesn’t matter if you’re blue or red. What matters is the green. And the geolocation.

(2002 Ford Excursion image public domain)