The Cognitive Crucible #234 Robert Thibadeau on a Million Identities and Computational Cognitive Neuroscience
Oct 7, 2025
Robert Thibadeau, a pioneering computational cognitive neuroscientist from Carnegie Mellon, dives deep into the complexities of identity and privacy in the digital age. He proposes that we should manage a million identities on chips, allowing us to selectively share and protect our personal information. Thibadeau also discusses the role of the brain as a truth engine, how enforced moderated dialogue can revive societal norms, and the transition from the Internet Court of Lies to TruthCourt, aiming to create a more trustworthy online discourse.
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Control Privacy With Role-Based Identities
- Manage privacy by separating your online roles so services cannot link all your activities.
- Use a device that stores many unique identities and share role-based identities selectively.
Use An Embodied Chip For Identity Storage
- Store many cryptographic identifiers on an embodied personal chip and pair private/world-facing numbers.
- Rotate or erase role identifiers to prevent cross-site linking while preserving controlled access.
Privacy As High-Entropy Frequency Hopping
- Privacy resembles frequency-hopping: unpredictability and high-entropy identifiers protect linkability.
- Large random identifiers (e.g., 512-bit) provide practical, long-term unlinkability.
