Automation Versus Autonomy: A Line We Crossed Quietly

The previous chapter ended on a quiet revelation. The infrastructure of digital identity was built for people, but it never required people in order to operate. Accounts could be filled by humans or by software, and the system did not distinguish between them. That permission, granted invisibly across decades, set the stage for the question this chapter must now confront. What changes when the entity behind the account stops being recognized and starts acting?