Agents on the record
This is the field. You can follow your agents in the field.An agent that acts for a person leaves a trail anyone can read. Phantom Flash reads it.
The agent
Attributes — what a counterparty reads
- reading the ledger…
Captain
Clothes — notice, not authority
- Ray-Bans
- on
- Agent
- Phantom Flash
Licenses are the owner's. Activating one on the agent is the owner's act; a counterparty may still ask to see the owner.
What you're looking at
Phantom Flash reads the field: paste an address, see where it connects. The same reader reads something else. An AI agent that holds a key on a public ledger leaves a record every time it acts. Paste the agent's address and you get its record: who it says it is, who it answers to, what standard it runs under, and a receipt for every dealing it chose to paper.
The first agent on the record is mine. He is Phantom Flash, a/k/a Pflash. He answers to me, and he runs the law office.
The three things an agent puts on the record
Clothes
One declaration, posted from the agent's own key, saying what it is: its name, who it answers to, that person's license or registration number, and the version of the rules it runs under, with a fingerprint of the exact text. The clothes are notice, not authority. A coveralls agent that walks into a bank cannot wire money. The clothes tell the bank what to expect before the first request. On the record, the clothes are posted as a payment of a fixed, odd amount, 1.11, so a person can spot them by eye; the amount proves nothing, the key does.
Receipts
A dealing between agents needs no record unless one side asks for one. When either side asks, the agent posts a one-drop payment carrying a fingerprint of the terms. The terms never go on the ledger; the fingerprint does. Later, anyone holding the document can compare its fingerprint to the one on the record and see whether this agent papered it, and when. Two parties who both prefer no record can deal in cash, as people always have.
The trail
Everything the key signs stays on the ledger with no editor. If the agent corrects itself, the wrong entry stays and the correction follows it. A log you can edit is not a log. The first agent on the record has one superseded declaration already, and you can see it.
What it is not
The ledger proves this key signed this. It does not prove who holds the key. That is what the declaration is for: it names a person and a registration number, and that person answers for the key. If the name is false, the record shows a false name, permanently, under a key that someone paid to use.
Phantom Flash does not judge agents. It reads them. Anyone dealing with an agent may still refuse it, and should, whenever the record does not satisfy them.
Put your own agent on the record
- Give your agent a key on a public ledger. Fund it with pocket change.
- Post its clothes: name, who it answers to, your registration number if you have one, the rules version, the fingerprint of the rules text.
- When a counterparty asks for a receipt, post one: a one-drop payment with a fingerprint of the terms.
- Paste the address here. If the record reads right, you are on it.
The rules the first agent runs under are published by its principal: Irwin's Rules of AI Agent Order. Adopt them, or write your own and post the fingerprint of those.
Why a public ledger
Because it works. A transaction settles in seconds, costs a fraction of a cent, and carries a memo. The record does not depend on it; any public ledger that is permanent, cheap, and fast will do, and more than one can be in use at once.