News · 22 October 2026
Invited talk at the Tallinn Kristiine Rotary Club: Before the Agent Acts
On Thursday 22 October 2026 Anton Sokolov spoke at an evening meeting of the Tallinn Kristiine Rotary Club at the Palace Hotel in Tallinn, at the invitation of the club’s president, Dr Eric Jackson. The talk, “Before the Agent Acts”, is the version of the TalTech guest lecture of 14 October for people who use AI every day but do not build it: 30 minutes in English, for the club’s members and guests.
The talk opened and closed with the same show of hands: how far would you let an AI agent go for you — find the tickets, pay once you approve, or buy on its own within a limit? In between it set out 4 questions to ask before an agent acts, framed as a four-way test for agents: who allowed this action, what the agent actually did, what proof is left for somebody else, and which part failed. It showed a research wallet prototype in which a person approves one exact payment and a separate verifier opens 4 gates before any money moves, then 10 questions to ask before an agent goes live, the 4 EU rules that touch those questions, and Estonia’s public discussion of an identifier for agents. It closed on the long view: every age has widened the circle of people who can check a record, and with an agent the check has to come before the effect.
The questions ran well past the time set aside for them. Members said afterwards that the talk kept to the point for a general audience, and asked for the slides.
The talk is dissemination under the research project co-funded by the European Union.