galaxy.comarticleGalaxy Research essay arguing that as AI agents become the main way people use the web, the key question shifts from "is this a machine?" to "is a distinct real person behind it, counted once?". It traces CAPTCHA history (distorted text, image puzzles, reCAPTCHAv3 and Turnstile behavioral scoring) and notes ChatGPT Agent passing Cloudflare's checkbox. It reviews Web Bot Auth signatures and Google's AP2 payment mandates, showing both stop at the platform or key and never establish a person. It then covers harms (one-person-one-share abuse, no one to answer for an agent, distorted public counts, collapsing confidence, scaled deception, broken ad economics) and lists the properties a privacy-preserving proof-of-personhood credential needs: strong, private, portable, delegable, accessible.
Web Bot AuthAgent Payments Protocol (AP2)reCAPTCHA+5
Galaxy DigitalGoogleOpenAI+13
agents, ai-policy· Added 16 Oct 2026