Experimenting with `human.json` - a protocol to declare your allegiance to the human race ;-)

https://www.paulwalk.net/2026/experimenting-with-human.json/

(hat tip to @cogdog )

Experimenting with `human.json`

Paul Walk's Website
@paulwalk @cogdog I had looked into this too but wondered what’s preventing AI agents from using the human.json protocol for web pages they create? Probably I’m missing something.

@paulwalk @cogdog @hvdsomp I think it’s a bit like the PGP web of trust, with publishing on some web site substituting for the key signing party. For an individual, I would expect a way to seed trust with “I believe that these X web sites are published by real and trustworthy people. I could imagine a rapid trust fall-off with increasing degrees of separation.

I wonder if its power might be improved by also supporting negative assertions?

@gklyne @cogdog @hvdsomp I don't think I'd like to see the negative equivalent - that would turn into social media all over again!

I agree with the likelihood of the impact declining sharply at each remove in the web of trust - but that feels like a feature to me. It keeps it "local".

@hvdsomp @cogdog @paulwalk Yes, that sounds plausible to me.

Coincidentally (?), this just drifted by in my feed: https://cloudisland.nz/@coderanger/116276210205575304

Noah K (@[email protected])

I don't mean to be a killjoy but "vouching for trusted people" is not a scalable way to build a software ecosystem. I was there, I ran signing parties, I was a CAcert assurer, I've got a strong-set GPG key in a hardware token, none of it worked beyond the most fringe of the fringe dorks. You get a few ossified relationships between major public figures and a small ring of friends around each, and then your permissions are effectively locked down forever. Do you want to live in the world where you need to have a million followers to launch a new framework? The ecosystem we've all been building in and on top of for decades is so deeply permeated by "assume good intent" at all levels that I'm not sure people are ready for the velocity reduction that is coming after the next few claw-based JiaTans. The first one will be an oddity, but eventually we're going to have to grapple with buying huge vertically integrated dev stacks from Trusted Vendors™ or we make everything from scratch again.

Cloud Island
@gklyne @hvdsomp @cogdog @coderanger that's interesting. I don't share the implicit assumption that this is supposed to scale, or be a general solution. I see it as "local" & personal

@paulwalk @hvdsomp @coderanger @cogdog

Yes, me too. I think that getting away from the need to scale everything to the hilt is a highly desirable goal.

FWIW, I’m working on a project with a friend that is attempting to do something like this for grassroots cultural events. In this case, it is the events themselves, and the people involved, that provide a basis for a locally “owned” online community. See: https://test.culturereverb.co.uk/

Culture Reverb

@gklyne @paulwalk @coderanger @cogdog I seem to remember @judell was recently mentioning an effort that sounded like it had similar goals
@paulwalk @cogdog @coderanger @judell @hvdsomp I think Blaine Cook had joined a group doing some community level web presence - https://newpublic.org/
New_ Public

We are researchers, engineers, designers, and community leaders working together to create digital public spaces where people can thrive and connect.

New_ Public
@gklyne @paulwalk @cogdog @coderanger @hvdsomp I'm aware of it via a talk @elipariser gave recently, would love to connect with him and @blaine to compare notes.