While human-like AI agents look to gain a more prominent role throughout the business in 2025, Harrison Seletsky sees reason for concern. The director of business development at the digital identity platform SPACE ID, Seletsky, cautioned that these tolls are still in their early development stages.
Likening AI to the iPhone, he said plenty of improvements have happened along the way to the iPhone 16.
“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s prediction that AI agents will join the workforce as early as this year is exciting and terrifying in equal measure,” Seletsky admitted. “In his recent blog post, Altman says OpenAI is getting closer to its vision of artificial general intelligence (AGI) – human-like AI agents that will be able to make decisions, set goals and function independently of human intervention. Of course, this opens up endless possibilities, but giving AI agents a lot of control over core infrastructure could also be a threat.”
Seletsky cited the example of an AI agent deciding that it’s more beneficial for them to disobey their orders. That premise was explored in futuristic movies like I, Robot and Terminator, and while he conceded movies can be far-fetched, this concern is not unfounded.
“We still don’t know exactly how these AI agents will make decisions and what failsafes will be in place if they stray from their programming,” Seletsky explained. “We’re at the very first steps in the development of AI, and that’s the scariest part. We have created the iPod and, eventually, we will get to the iPhone 16, but what is this going to look like?”
“With AI agents becoming more prolific, technologies like identity verification and humanity checks will become more important as it gets increasingly difficult to distinguish between humans and AI. This is where blockchain-based technology, like zero-knowledge proofs and NFTs, can play a role. If Sam Altman is right, and we’re about to see AI colleagues joining us in the workforce, then we need to make sure we’re ready.”