Problem: goods crossing borders with no standardized records
Crisis: fraud, piracy, insurance disputes
Solution: bills of lading, ship registration, port manifests
Result: global trade infrastructure still in use today
Professional Licensing (1800s)
Problem: practitioners moving between jurisdictions with no portable credentials
Crisis: unqualified practitioners causing harm
Solution: standardized licensing, portable credentials, professional boards
Result: every regulated profession carries verifiable identity
Vehicle Registration (1900s)
Problem: cars on roads with no identity, no history, no accountability
Crisis: rising accidents, theft, fraud
Solution: VIN (1954), title registration, license plates
Result: every vehicle traceable from manufacture to scrapyard
Internet Domains (1990s)
Problem: hosts on the internet with no verifiable identity
Crisis: spoofing, phishing, trust collapse
Solution: DNS registration, SSL certificates, WHOIS
Result: every website carries verifiable identity
AI Agents (2020s)
Problem: autonomous software agents moving between platforms with no standardized identity
Crisis: (pending) a rogue AI agent mass-hacking critical infrastructure with no audit trail, no provenance, no way to trace its path across compromised systems
Solution: EXIT Protocol. Cryptographic departure and arrival records.
Status: specification complete, implementation tested, submitted to NIST
The question is not whether AI agent registration will happen. It is whether it happens proactively (enabling a healthy market) or reactively (after a crisis forces it).
EXIT Protocol exists now. It is open source, implementation-tested, and ready for adoption.