Digital Integration

Abstract

The present invention relates to the representation, exchange, verification and use of information. The embodiments of the present invention enable a fully digitalized shared information reality, i.e. an information fabric where an unlimited number of participants can all access (with access control) permanently, and where all participants have access to trusted and verifiable information objects. This information fabric is logically complete, follows a universal set of protocols that address all stages of information exchange and enable a compelling user experience. This specification discloses basic embodiments including how to properly record, store, transmit and display information in digital form, computational verification and validation of information, and fundamental concepts in human-information interaction. The present invention teaches that the use of unique digital objects overcomes many of the difficulties and inefficiencies of state-of-the-art information exchange, enabling the next stage of digital transformation. Examples covered include next-generation digital documents, universal user and application programming interfaces for physical objects and devices, and user-friendly digital signatures.

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to the title and application number of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63 / 266,659, filed January 11, 2022, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

[0002] Technical Field FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to the representation, exchange, presentation, verification and use of information. Various disclosed embodiments relate to digital integration. [Background technology]

[0003] Digital transformation is the process of digitizing society, the economy, and all aspects of human interaction and experience. There is a widespread view that the fully digital transformation of modern global civilization—one based on digital information exchange—is inevitable and already well underway. The blockchain “gold rush,” for example, was essentially fueled by this general yet vague sentiment. Another recent example, the accelerated shift to online life and work anywhere during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, vividly demonstrated the breakneck pace of digital transformation. Yet, adequate abstractions—not just the necessary technological abstractions, but also concepts related to digital information technologies and human interaction—that enable human cooperation based purely on digital information exchange are largely absent.

[0004] The world is still searching for the right ideas to enable and realize digital transformation. For example, a decade after the emergence of blockchain technology, all evidence suggests that blockchain and related shared ledger technologies are well-known brands that clearly communicate the vision of a digitally transformed society and economy. However, they are not as effective as broad-based enablers of digital transformation. Digital transformation remains based on a vague narrative. Its rapid, uncoordinated global progress is still fueled by a certain sense that something big is on the horizon or has already happened. Yet, a broad, compelling, and coherent narrative about digital transformation—and the enabling technologies—has yet to emerge in the public sphere. Summary of the Invention

[0005] Embodiments of the invention taught herein teach a coherent and unified vision that realizes and delivers the full potential of digital transformation, including persistent human multi-party collaboration based on purely digital information exchange. Embodiments of the invention solve the key problems of creating a fully digital shared information reality and provide the key elements required to implement it. This includes the technical and conceptual elements required for reliable, fully digital information exchange that is widespread enough to enable fully digitally transformed social, economic, financial, and legal processes.

[0006] Embodiments of the present invention teach a fundamentally new method for creating a shared information reality that is fundamentally different from anything else that has come before. This method can be implemented using currently available information technology, i.e., computer networks, hardware, and software. It offers a wide range of benefits and improvements over current practices, and provides very substantial value and benefits. This method is the logical next stage of the digital revolution, and indeed, there are subtle signs all around us that we are already well on our way to that next stage.

[0007] Embodiments of the present invention address, from first principles, the problem of reliable and trustworthy information exchange that enables persistent multi-party collaboration. This problem is complex because it has different, but partially overlapping, aspects: (i) Algorithmic and software aspects - how information is properly recorded, stored and transmitted in digital form. (ii) Formal / mathematical aspects - the verification and validation of information, for example in accounting or bureaucratic processes, follows a formal structure. (iii) Human-interface and human-computer interaction aspects - Even when all formal and information technology aspects are taken into account, trust in information remains a human decision, and the primary factor determining the value of information exchange remains the interaction between humans and machines and humans and information.

[0008] Basic embodiments of the invention taught herein address each of these problems individually, and additional embodiments of the invention teach how to combine these basic embodiments of the invention to create an information fabric in which information that can be trusted and verifiable by any unlimited number of participants, all permanently (with access controls), is accessible to all participants according to a universal set of logically complete and corroborated, yet humanly plausible and coherent protocols. This fabric enables radically more efficient collaboration and radically deeper insight extraction from the world's nearly infinite stores of digitized information. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] Figure 1 shows examples of various information objects. [Figure 2] Figure 2 shows how objects, states, events and their relationships in reality are reflected by information objects and their relationships in information reality. [Figure 3]Figure 3 shows two axes of information flow: information flow between stakeholders ("horizontal") and information flow from sources to users ("vertical"). [Figure 4] Figure 4 shows an example of the human-readable result. [Figure 5] Figure 5 shows the irreversible trajectory of digital integration. [Figure 6] FIG. 6 illustrates horizontal and vertical information flows using different shared information realities. [Figure 7] Figure 7 shows the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Figure 8] Figure 8 shows the characteristics of the data in the current state of the art. [Figure 9] FIG. 9 shows the horizontal digital fragmentation in a two-axis diagram. [Figure 10] Figure 10 shows an early double-entry accounting ledger side by side with the user interface of modern accounting software. [Figure 11] Figure 11 shows industries along vertical information flows. The aim of many services is to reconstruct vertical information flows that have been lost due to digital fragmentation. [Figure 12] Figure 12 shows information from Enron's 2000 annual report. [Figure 13] Figure 13 shows an account statement for Madoff Securities. [Figure 14] Figure 14 compares the World Wide Web, document-shared reality, digital fragments, and unique digital realities. [Figure 15] Figure 15 compares digital information transfer through digital fragmentation with digital information transfer through UDR, which allows for digital integration. [Figure 16] Figure 16 compares vertical (source to user) information flow using digital files with vertical information flow using UDRs. [Figure 17] FIG. 17 illustrates various unique digital objects created during verifiable execution of a procedural program. [Figure 18] Figure 18 is a conceptual diagram showing how the verifiable computational results methodology creates a persistent, digitally explicit and unambiguous connection between the machine program code used to generate the significant result, the execution event where the result was created, and the publication where the result was presented, thereby integrating the vertical information flow from data through processing to the presentation of the result. [Figure 19] Figure 19 shows the explicit and permanent digital connection between the published results, the underlying data and the underlying code created using the verifiable computational results method. [Figure 20] Figure 20 is a diagram of the current state-of-the-art computational science workflow, where data is read from a local file and results are exported to a local file. [Figure 21] Figure 21 shows a schematic diagram of the stages of vertical information flow in the field of scientific research and publication in the state of the art. [Figure 22] Figure 22 shows a schematic diagram of the stages of vertical information flow in the field of scientific research and publishing under the discipline of file-based reproducibility, where data files and code files are stored for the results of publishing. [Figure 23] Figure 23 illustrates a computational science workflow that uses verifiable computational results. [Figure 24] Figure 24 shows a schematic diagram of the stages of vertical information flow in the field of scientific research and publishing by way of verifiable computational results. [Figure 25] FIG. 25 is a schematic example of a typed citation constraint that can be defined in SICCL. [Figure 26] Figure 26 is a schematic diagram of the execution of a SICCL script on a collection of six information objects, with the goal of automatically verifying a specific ICC condition with that collection. [Figure 27] FIG. 27 illustrates a method of presenting information on a user interface that is separate from the preceding steps of the vertical information flow. [Figure 28]Figure 28 illustrates how machine-readable and human-readable universal identifiers on various user interfaces link representations of digital objects to actual digital objects within a unique digital reality. [Figure 29] FIG. 29 is an illustration of visual credibility and the collection of unique digital objects that create visual credibility in a document such as a financial report. [Figure 30] Figure 30 shows a comparison of academic papers with and without visually recognizable "verification result" symbols and machine-readable codes. [Figure 31] FIG. 31 compares the intertwined information and visualization of the current state of the art with the separated information and visualization of an embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 32] Figure 32 shows a schematic diagram of the outlet concept. [Figure 33] FIG. 33 illustrates an example of the process of ad-hoc information presentation on a user interface. [Figure 34] FIG. 34 shows a jacket presenting an amalgamated publication of several different information objects. [Figure 35] Figure 35 illustrates the concept that the visually recognizable machine-readable and human-readable code of a publication and user interface transforms the publication into an entry point into a larger collection of machine-accessible information objects, i.e., a collection of unique digital objects representing the data, processing, and results underlying the presented results. [Figure 36] FIG. 36 illustrates interaction between a user and a document using an augmented reality (AR) device. [Figure 37] FIG. 37 shows examples of verifiable interactions between personal identification devices and other digital devices. [Figure 38] FIG. 38 illustrates a possible use of a personal identification device in conjunction with a unique digital reality. [Figure 39]FIG. 39 illustrates various possible ways to establish verifiable consent using a user interface and / or personal identification device. [Figure 40] Figure 40 shows an example of the process of creating a verifiable interaction digital object, illustrated through an example of an interaction that achieves verifiable consent. [Figure 41] Figure 41 illustrates a process in which two individuals each use a device (such as a smartphone, smartwatch, screen or personal identification device) to interact with the same information object (such as a document displayed in hard copy or on a screen). [Figure 42] FIG. 42 shows the protocol for verifiable interactions in the preferred embodiment. [Figure 43] Figure 43 shows an example of co-signing an information object using an outlet, a verifiable interaction and a personal identification device, where a contract is signed (executed) using an on-screen outlet and a personal identification device. [Figure 44] Figure 44 shows an example of co-signing an information object using an outlet, a verifiable interaction, and a personal identification device, where a contract presented using a hard copy (physical document) outlet is signed (executed) using a personal identification device with a user interface. [Figure 45] Figure 45 shows the different objects represented as documents (contract and attachments) in a UDR and the associated interaction (agreement) objects that can be used to verify that both parties have agreed to both the contract and attachments. [Figure 46] Figure 46 illustrates some of the possible parties to whom an individual may choose to grant access to the personal information they have stored as a unique digital object in a UDR. [Figure 47] Figure 47 shows an example of a data asset created by an individual. [Figure 48]FIG. 48 shows geographic location certification using cell tower triangulation. [Figure 49] FIG. 49 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary method for determining the location of a stationary or mobile user and, for example, the location of an agent of a UDR device at one or more points in time based on GPS satellite data. [Figure 50] FIG. 50 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary method for determining the location of a fixed or mobile user and, for example, the location of an agent of a UDR device based on continuous monitoring of the location and subsequent continuity of the location over time. [Figure 51] FIG. 51 illustrates the potential uses of Omnicode in a variety of objects in physical, augmented and virtual reality. [Figure 52] Figure 52 illustrates an example of using UDR to inject artificial friction in digital transformation and automated processes. [Figure 53] Figure 53 illustrates the artificial friction in cybersecurity using air-gapped devices. [Figure 54] FIG. 54 illustrates how a Standard Query Language (SQL) request can be verified using the SQL witness service. [Figure 55] FIG. 55 is an illustration of a spreadsheet software plug-in that converts specific cells in a spreadsheet into unique, verifiable digital objects that can be embedded in other documents while maintaining an audit trail. [Figure 56] Figure 56 shows a financial report containing a machine-readable and human-readable unique identifier for a digital object, the payload of which is a verifiable spreadsheet on which the numbers in the report have been calculated. [Figure 57] FIG. 57 illustrates an implementation of the method for verifiable HTTP queries using a UDR-enabled HTTP proxy. [Figure 58] Figure 58 shows an HTTP request that can be verified using the HTTP Witness service. [Figure 59]FIG. 59 illustrates a method for UDR-based ownership of media items. [Figure 60] FIG. 60 illustrates a timeline of a UDR-enabled media asset, which allows easy access to the creation, modification, ownership, sale or transfer of a UDR-enabled media asset. [Figure 61] Figure 61 shows examples of physical objects and devices in a UDR and their reflected unique digital objects. [Figure 62] Figure 62 shows a physical object and its user interface available through the twin of a unique digital object. [Figure 63] Figure 63 shows the connection between two related physical objects and their reflected unique digital objects. [Figure 64] FIG. 64 shows physical devices and their user interfaces accessed via various AR-enabled devices. [Figure 65] Figure 65 shows a schematic diagram of bulk processing and data mining of all measurements and user interactions associated with a unique reflected digital object. [Figure 66] Figure 66 shows a unique digital object that reflects a physical object and an image of the physical object showing its unique identifier. [Figure 67] Figure 67 illustrates the connection between physical objects (documents, objects, and devices), their reflected unique digital objects in the UDR, the data measured by them, and user interactions with them, made possible by one embodiment of the present invention. [Figure 68] FIG. 68 illustrates the advantages of the described embodiments for devices, objects and documents. [Figure 69] Figure 69 shows a typical document exchange using the current state of the art, including PDF documents, email, instant messaging, cloud sharing services, and electronic signature services. [Figure 70]Figure 70 shows the results of the process described in the previous figures, including the applications and platforms used and copies left on various systems. [Figure 71] Figure 71 shows a schematic diagram of a possible appearance of the NGD, illustrating its various functions and characteristics. [Figure 72] Figure 72 shows the main elements of the next generation document. [Figure 73] Figure 73 shows another view of the structure of the Next Generation Document, emphasizing the concept that different elements complement each other. [Figure 74] Figure 74 is an artist's illustration of one of the fundamental advantages of NGD over the state of the art: the fact that NGD is a new document medium that combines traditional document formats with advanced digital capabilities. [Figure 75] Figure 75 shows a metaphorical illustration of the creation of next generation documents using concepts commonly used today. [Figure 76] FIG. 76 shows an example of a possible user interface for creating a contract next generation document based on the print dialog user interface. [Figure 77] FIG. 77 shows an example of a possible user interface for creating an invoice next generation document based on the print dialog user interface. [Figure 78] Figure 78 shows a design example for controlling access to next generation documents from within the user interface. [Figure 79] Figure 79 shows a schematic diagram of the different twins of a Next Generation Document, showing that all twins refer to the same unique digital object within the UDR. [Figure 80] Figure 80 shows the Next Generation Document Outlet displayed on a laptop screen. [Figure 81] Figure 81 shows what a next generation document looks like when opened in a document viewing interface with no access rights. [Figure 82]Figure 82 shows a possible design for an augmented reality (AR) user interface for next-generation documents. [Figure 83] Figure 83 illustrates the concept of unified document interaction surfaces and unified document experience. [Figure 84] Figure 84 shows another example of the concept of a unified document interaction surface. The user interface displayed on augmented reality glasses, a tablet device, and a desktop screen is the same. [Figure 84A] Figure 84A shows a user interface design for a next generation document form, where a form user authorized to fill out the form is guided through the specific fields they are asked to complete. [Figure 84B] FIG. 84B shows an alternative user interface design for the Next Generation Document Form, which displays a questionnaire to form users who are authorized to fill out the form to collect the information required for the form. [Figure 84C] Figure 84C shows the user interface design for the Next Generation Document, summarizing the document's validity and trustworthiness status in one symbol (bottom left corner) and listing various high-level (or overall) concepts of validity, verifiability, and trustworthiness implemented by the Next Generation Document. [Figure 84D] Figure 84D shows the user interface design of the Next Generation Document, which provides detailed itemized visual status of the specific concepts of validity, verifiability, and trustworthiness that the Next Generation Document implements. [Figure 84E] Figure 84E shows the user interface design of the Next Generation Document, which shows low-level (or maximum detail) full reports on specific aspects of specific concepts related to validity, verifiability and reliability, as well as detailed visual state reliability information of specific concepts related to validity, verifiability and reliability implemented by the Next Generation Document. [Figure 85] Figure 85 shows the difference between state-of-the-art digital documents (e.g., PDF files) and next-generation documents in terms of their availability to information technology systems. [Figure 86]Figure 86 shows a possible interface design for setting up and monitoring a simple automated document workflow from within the Next Generation Document user interface. [Figure 87] Figure 87 illustrates the automated document workflow enabled by Next Generation Documents. [Figure 88] Figure 88 shows an example of the use of next generation documents in real-time compliance verification. [Figure 89] Figure 89 shows an interconnected graph of unique digital objects in next-generation documents that cite or reference each other. [Figure 90] Figure 90 shows a possible user interface design for next generation documents that reference unique digital objects with geographic location information. [Figure 91] Figure 91 shows a possible user interface design for a next generation document that references a unique digital object of an audio recording. [Figure 92] FIG. 92 shows a possible user interface design for a next generation document that references the unique digital object of a spreadsheet, and in particular cites the cells of the spreadsheet within the document. [Figure 93] Figure 93 shows a possible user interface design for the signing operation when signing next generation documents on any medium, such as a desktop document reader, a smartphone application, or an augmented reality interface overlaid on a hard copy document. [Figure 94] Figure 94 shows some futuristic movie sets, such as Star Trek, that do not feature a single piece of paper, a pen, or even a pocket. [Figure 95] Figures 95-102 illustrate "A Day in the Hospital," an exemplary story used to explain the benefits of embodiments of the present invention, and the products and services that may result from possible embodiments. [Figure 96]Figures 95-102 illustrate "A Day in the Hospital," an exemplary story used to explain the benefits of embodiments of the present invention, and the products and services that may result from possible embodiments. [Figure 97] Figures 95-102 illustrate "A Day in the Hospital," an exemplary story used to explain the benefits of embodiments of the present invention, and the products and services that may result from possible embodiments. [Figure 98] Figures 95 to 102 explain "A Day at the Hospital." [Figure 99] Figures 95 to 102 explain "A Day at the Hospital." [Figure 100] Figures 95 to 102 explain "A Day at the Hospital." [Figure 101] Figures 95 to 102 explain "A Day at the Hospital." [Figure 102] Figures 95 to 102 explain "A Day at the Hospital." [Figure 103] Figure 103 shows some uses of digitally transformed identities. [Figure 104] Figure 104 shows several types of personal information that, once digitally converted, are controlled by the individuals who generated them. [Figure 105] Figure 105 shows a medical information domain, which after transformation becomes an object in a digital shared reality. [Figure 106] Figure 106 shows digitally transformed insurance. [Figure 107] FIG. 107 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a processing system capable of performing at least some of the operations described herein. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0010] Overview of Core Concepts We are witnessing the digital transformation, a historic process in which all human information exchange will be fully digital. In our collective imagination, the end state of the digital transformation is already known: the cinematic imagination of Star Trek and similar deep futures: a silky-smooth information technology without files, formats, folders, pens, pockets, or IDs. In this vision, the flow of information between computer systems is as smooth as electricity flowing through a power grid, validation is automated like internet routing, and the level of trust in information is transparent.

[0011] The digital transformation timeline to date essentially consists of three major milestones: · Invention of digital information storage and digital information processing. ·Invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). -Invention of mobile internet, smartphones and cloud computing.

[0012] Who is profiting from the digital transformation? Internet company revenues far exceed those of personal computing and enterprise software companies. By today's standards, enterprise software might be considered an old-fashioned business, even though the marginal cost of software, unlike physical products, is near zero. The non-traditional, astronomical valuations of failed companies (e.g., WhatsApp and other social media startups) are characteristic of Internet companies, not information technology companies in general. Some argue that it was only with the advent of the Internet that digital information technology became a disruptive force in the global economy: while information technology (IT) for businesses makes things more efficient, the Internet enabled the greatest economic revolution since the Industrial Revolution.

[0013] Digital Convergence. Much of the value in the digital transformation has been and will continue to be created only if there is a unified way of exchanging digital information. This has happened twice since the beginning of the digital transformation: first with the Internet and the World Wide Web, and then with the mobile Internet, smartphones, and smartphone apps. We call the process of moving toward a unified interface and representation for digital information exchange digital convergence. It is a gradual process and is part of the digital transformation.

[0014] Over the next 20 to 30 years, digital integration will make decisive progress and drive the digital transformation process towards its final stage.

[0015] Shared Information Reality. Why do most benefits come only from breakthroughs in digital integration and not from general advances in information technology? The uniformity of interface and presentation in digital information exchange creates a digital shared information reality: the simultaneous existence of widespread information availability and consensus based on digital information exchange, which enables entirely new products and services. Only a shared information reality can enable software to continue to "eat the world." Indeed, consider the markets, products, and services made possible by the Internet, the World Wide Web, the mobile Internet, and smartphone apps.

[0016] Horizontal and Vertical Information Flows. To understand digital integration, identify our current position in the evolution of digital transformation, and identify the opportunities that are currently open, it is useful to study information exchange from first principles. The goal of information exchange is collaboration and insight. We define horizontal information flow as the flow of information between different stakeholders. Horizontal information flow enables insight. We also define vertical information flow as the flow from objects, states, and events (including physical, financial, legal, and IT realities) to the information objects that represent them, the processing of those information objects, the results, and the presentation of human-readable results. Vertical flows enable collaboration because by tracing vertical flows, specific information objects can (potentially) be verified and acquire factual status, thereby bringing those objects, states, events, or the processing results they reference into consensus. In most social processes, this flow occurs simultaneously on both axes. For example, processing is applied to information objects originating from different stakeholders.

[0017] Reflecting Reality in Shared Information. The first link in the vertical information flow chain is the representation of objects, states, and events in information objects. To achieve collaboration, symbols within an information object (a piece of parchment, a paper document, a PDF, or a unique digital object) encode meaning that reflects objects, states, and events. This includes not only physical reality, but also legal reality, such as a contract or a property deed, and financial reality, such as a fund balance or transfer. Relationships between information objects, such as a contract citing a property deed, reflect the relationships between the objects, states, and events they reflect. The more objects, states, and events an information object can reflect, the more likely it is that they can be used to achieve collaboration.

[0018] Information Processing: Computation and Information Consistency and Compliance (ICC): The second link in the vertical information flow is the processing of information objects into results. There are two types of processing: A computation takes inputs (represented by information objects) and calculates an output. This is the process performed in spreadsheets, statistical analysis, machine learning, and even the simple arithmetic operations required to arrive at a final number in a financial report or tax return. For example, a scientific report provides a final number that is the result of calculations (usually statistical analysis) applied to measurements recorded in information objects. Information Consistency and Compliance (ICC) applies a list of predefined requirements to information objects. For example, in a real estate transaction, the lawyer overseeing the transaction must verify that the collection of documents adheres to a long list of consistency and compliance requirements.

[0019] Both computation and ICC are algorithmic tasks, but computation has been digitized, while ICC has not been digitized and is still a human task. This is similar to human computers performing numerical and arithmetic calculations before digitization. While computation has been digitized, it has not yet reached the same level as data, nor is it represented by an information object. For example, the events of code execution are still vague concepts, not formal objects that can be addressed or exchanged. ICC is even further behind. This is why, for example, the end of accounting has not yet come true, despite prophecies.

[0020] Vertically integrated digitization results in a fully digitized shared information reality in which the vertical flows, i.e., from monitored information objects to the information objects that inferred them and the processes used to infer them, and the links from the inferred information objects to human-readable visual representations, are clearly exposed in digital form.

[0021] Vertically integrated digitization fundamentally changes the consensus, cooperation, and trust enabled by digital information exchange. In effect, cooperation and consensus are achieved by traversing vertical flows to verify human-visible results. The integration of steps along the vertical information flow, from capturing events to representing them as digital information objects, processing collections of information objects, and displaying them in a user interface, enables efficient and comprehensive verification of information exchanged by human users. This will enable many aspects of medical billing, tax, business accounting, auditing, and legal services to be replaced by software.

[0022] Horizontal digital integration leads to a fully digital shared information reality, where information objects (both monitored and inferred) are permanently accessible through a unified interface to stakeholders with access permissions.

[0023] Horizontal digital integration will revolutionize artificial intelligence, business intelligence (BI) processes, data mining, and data science. Indeed, insights are achieved by traversing horizontal layers across stakeholder and information source boundaries. Horizontal layer integration, even at the horizontal layer of information objects alone, brings astronomical value to training AI models and deriving insights from digital information.

[0024] Simultaneous horizontal and vertical digital integration. Digital integration across both axes of information exchange brings about a world in which all stakeholder distances—measurements, user interface interactions, digital representations of objects, states, and events, computations used to process digital information, and the results of these computations and the display of information on user interfaces—are unified under a single, coherent information technology discipline. Thus, digital integration across both axes of information exchange creates and enables markets, products, and services that transcend the limits of our current imagination. This last claim is not an exaggeration but is based on fact. Indeed, the overall impact of the Google search engine, and of the "digital integration of the Internet and the World Wide Web" more generally, is today's everyday reality, but it far exceeds the limits of our everyday imagination in the 1980s.

[0025] Horizontal integration allows us to leverage all the digital information in the world to gain insights, while vertical integration allows for automated validation and radically efficient collaboration. The mathematical product of horizontal and vertical integration means that: for every process that populates a digital information object with objects, states, and events, for every process that is applied to a digital information object and its interdependencies and interconnections, and for every representation of an information object on a user interface, there exists a systematic, software-accessible digital footprint.

[0026] This makes it possible to search for all publications that directly or indirectly use a dataset and get answers to questions such as: · What would happen if I applied my algorithm to their data? · What would happen if I applied their algorithms to my data? How would changing the tuning parameters change the results presented in the scientific paper? · What would be the results if the method reported in paper A were applied to the data used in paper B? ·What are the bootstrap confidence intervals for the results presented in this report?

[0027] The next leap in digital integration. Another leap in digital integration is inevitable. The only question is when and how it will happen. There is reason to believe that a third leap in digital integration is on the horizon. A sign of this is the remarkable, yet irrational, popularity of blockchain.

[0028] Blockchain and the Digital Shared Information Reality. Blockchain and shared ledger technologies cannot support large-scale digital integration, such as all financial transactions, all continuous geolocation, all server queries, and all code execution. Arguably, it would be patently absurd for every stakeholder in an information exchange community (e.g., every individual connected to the internet) to store a local copy of everyone's information and maintain a permanent consensus on everyone's information throughout recorded history. Blockchains were not designed for this purpose. Importantly, blockchain's popularity cannot be explained by the concept of decentralization; centralization has served us well throughout history and during the digital transformation. The real reason behind the blockchain craze and the popular notion that blockchain is a revolution is that Bitcoin is the first widely adopted, fully digital shared information reality in history. Blockchains enable stakeholders to maintain consensus on facts through purely digital means, providing the first glimpse into a world beyond document-based consensus. The World Wide Web provided uniformity of interface, but not a purely digital way of agreeing on facts. Blockchain can support small-scale horizontal integration between a few stakeholders exchanging limited amounts of information, but it cannot support large-scale digital integration. Importantly, blockchain has nothing to do with concepts such as vertical integration or the integration of information flow from reality to presentation; blockchain focuses on horizontal slicing of information objects.

[0029] One piece of evidence that blockchain enthusiasm is fueled by a vague sense that "something big is happening"—and that this vague sense actually points to a digital shared reality (and not decentralization)—is the recent buzz surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs are assigned clear ownership and can be traded and sold. Indeed, NFTs can be auctioned like paintings or the original Declaration of Independence. This status of digital objects—that of tangible objects—has not previously been widely accepted. It's no wonder that the first uses of NFTs were to associate them with artwork (in the imagination) that epitomizes tangible, unique physical objects. NFTs can also be associated with days of the week, and for the same reason, auctions can be held on Wednesdays. In other words, the fact that the first examples of NFTs that gained widespread acceptance were objects that existed in a digital shared reality, even if only in a limited and rudimentary way, is what is driving interest in NFTs.

[0030] Unique Digital Objects. Some embodiments of the inventions taught herein are based on the concept of unique digital objects, which are disclosed in detail below. The next leap in digital integration, suggested by but not realized by blockchain, is a unified standard for digital information exchange centered around the concept of unique digital objects, rather than the concept of digital files. While digital files are a fundamental concept in all operating systems, web protocols, and user interfaces, and have been a fundamental concept in the design of computer information systems since the dawn of the digital age, in reality, digital files are the paper legacy left by our ancestors, a historical relic that underlies digital fragmentation (see below). Digital files are the "original sin" of the information revolution, resulting in information fragmentation, siloing, obfuscation, and the impossibility of ownership. Because files are inherently local and can be copied and deleted at zero cost, they are simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, free from concepts of identity, ownership, usage tracking, audit trails, or provenance tracking. In contrast, a unique digital object is a universally unique, permanently accessible, immutable, committed, universally uniquely addressable, and machine-readable digital object. A key observation is that unique digital objects enable both horizontal and vertical digital integration, which is a key driver of digital transformation. As information objects, unique digital objects provide the uniformity of interface and representation, access control, and clear ownership of digital objects required for horizontal integration, and the uniformity of interface and representation in the digital representation of processing (computation and ICC), and a clear and complete history from observation through processing to presentation, required for vertical integration.

[0031] Unique Digital Reality (UDR) is a system for unifying the interface and representation of unique digital objects. Several embodiments of the present invention are based on the UDR concept, which is described in detail below. As we will show in detail, unique digital reality enables digital integration and realizes the end state of digital transformation. It maximizes the value of digital information and creates numerous new markets, products, and services, as described above. For example, unique digital reality enables individuals to rent out their entire digital history, makes corporate accounting a software matter, merges the physical world with digital footprints, makes software execution a tangible object that can be sold, and much more. Unique digital reality is uniformly software-accessible, enabling the smooth flow of digital information, automatic verification and validation, the undeniable trust that software provides, and even new levels of insight extraction and artificial intelligence.

[0032] Implementing UDRs Using Persistent Network Interfaces. As mentioned above, shared ledger technology is unable to support large-scale unique digital realities (all the digital information created by everyone). However, there is one mature technology that can support large-scale support: the same technology that supports all Internet traffic today: Internet servers. Below, we describe how to implement unique digital realities primarily using server interactions and currently available information technology. In our implementation, unique digital objects are implemented as persistent network interfaces: Internet services that are permanently available on the network using universally unique identifiers and offer APIs. We show how these objects are created, committed, validated, graphically rendered, and used at scale.

[0033] UDR Reflection Capabilities. Unique digital realities can effectively reflect complex processes across legal, financial, and IT (information technology) domains. For example, software execution, a critical IT event that has historically been unreflected, can now be reflected as a collection of unique digital objects. As a result, software execution events can be owned and traded, enabling proof that a software test was performed at a specific time, for example, for intellectual property ownership, scientific reporting, regulatory compliance, or liability protection purposes. Using the accompanying embodiments described herein, significant events in physical reality, such as accessing a door or granting consent on a user interface, are digitized into unique digital objects.

[0034] Verifiable Code Execution. Code execution events are crucial events in the real world of information technology. Current state-of-the-art technologies do not allow code execution events to be reflected in information objects, thereby preventing the vertical flow of information from being integrated. This is because the results of a computation (code execution) cannot be linked to the information objects to which it is applied (on the one hand) or to the results displayed and presented to a human user (on the other hand). UDRs enable verifiable code execution, which reflects code execution events as a collection of unique digital objects within the UDR. To achieve this, unique information objects that record the progress of the computation, including the execution of the code, input and output data structures, intermediate variables, and key results for the human user, are created by the same machine, virtual machine, or interpreter that executes the code. Verifiable code execution maintains the vertical flow intact, from the information objects to the processing of the code to the presentation of the results.

[0035] Standard Information Consistency and Compliance Language (SICCL). As described above, the processing stage of a vertical information flow consists of either calculation or ICC (or a combination of both). Verifiable execution reflects calculation within the UDR, enabling the integration of vertical information flows that include calculation. However, vertical information flows that include ICC are not currently digitized even at the state of the art and are instead processed by manual human intervention. Therefore, we present a machine-readable language, the Standard Information Consistency and Compliance Language (SICCL), that electronically expresses ICC requirements in machine-readable instructions and enables them to be automatically verified by computer programs. As a result, verifiable execution of a SICCL script reflects ICC requirement verification events in the UDR, thereby enabling the requirements verification process (currently performed only by humans inspecting documents) to be reflected in the UDR. This enables the integration of vertical information flows that include ICC.

[0036] A human-readable representation of a unique digital object. To complete the integration of vertical information flows, processing results must be connected to the user interface where they are presented and communicated to a human user, and to the computational flow from which they were created. When all elements of the vertical flow, from objects, states, and events to processing events and results, are reflected as UDR objects, it becomes possible to systematically connect the visual rendering of the results to the underlying elements of the information flow. This is achieved by establishing a discipline for displaying on the user interface only information that exists as a unique digital object in the UDR; displaying information without the context of the UDR is simply not possible.

[0037] Horizontal Digital Fragmentation. To more clearly understand the benefits of UDR and its recommended implementation, it is useful to consider the current state of the art. Digital transformation also includes the reverse process, which we call digital fragmentation. Horizontal fragmentation is the process of dividing the digital world into an ever-increasing number of isolated, fragmented (or disconnected) information systems, each with its own unique storage format and protocols, each user-facing, and each not designed for software interoperability across time or space. Horizontal fragmentation lines lie between organizations and between different information systems within individual organizations. Digital information that remains isolated from the rest of the world—in the private databases and unique storage formats of corporations, banks, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and government agencies—cannot become part of a shared reality or form the basis for new products and services.

[0038] Friction; documents. Shared reality is essential for any social process, including business, law, and finance. When two digitally fragmented and isolated organizations, despite their internal use of advanced information technology, need to exchange information—for example, in a legal proceeding or financial transaction—they must rely on pre-digital means: documents, PDFs, or emails that directly mimic the paper-based exchange of information using envelopes, mail, and physical paper. Horizontal digital fragmentation has made it impossible to achieve consensus through purely digital means, and to this day, documents are the only means used to establish consensus and shared reality. This means that stakeholders, even those with advanced IT capabilities, still communicate using paper (we call this the "physical messenger" phenomenon). The reversion from digital information to documents and emails creates significant friction in the economy.

[0039] Vertical friction is friction along the flow of information processing from observation to human-readable results. It is evident in trillion-dollar industries such as corporate back office, receipt processing, insurance claims processing, medical billing, corporate accounting and auditing, and tax accounting. The functions performed by human employees in these industries are inherently linear and algorithmic, and could easily be automated with software—if it weren't for the fact that digital fragmentation requires all information to be exchanged on paper or its digital equivalent, and that it is strictly accessible only to humans. Occasionally, systems break down, resulting in devastating financial and accounting scandals, such as the 2008 housing market collapse. Furthermore, documents and PDFs have very limited reflective capabilities; for example, they cannot explicitly cite other documents, and they cannot reflect the state and events of objects in so-called virtual or cyberspace, such as logins, server interactions, and data transactions. Vertical friction also manifests itself in the failure of important institutions such as scientific writing, where peer review is no longer a viable institution, and the complete lack of provenance of calculations creates uncertainty about the validity of published papers.

[0040] Horizontal Friction and "Dark Information." Moore's Law exponentially reduced the price of computation and therefore the value of data, but this created local incentives for each entity to hoard its own data, rapidly accelerating digital fragmentation. Currently, as digitalization advances and the world becomes more digital, much of the digital information created is fragmented and invisible—a kind of dark digital information (an analogy for dark matter in the universe). The amount of information sequestered as dark digital information is enormous compared to the amount of digital information available through unified interfaces like the web. Correspondingly, the economic value of this sequestered information far exceeds the trillions of dollars generated by internet and mobile app companies. For example, consider the value that Google and Amazon currently computationally extract from information available on the web and from users. Imagine the markets, products, services, and real insights that could be gained if software could access all of the world's digital information (e.g., medical, scientific, financial, geographic / traffic, and sales data) through a unified digital interface.

[0041] Files. Like PDF documents, the use of digital files as digital information objects is a historical relic, an imitation of an older medium (paper). Files foster horizontal friction because each stakeholder protects their copy of the file and is encouraged to fence the file. Files also foster vertical friction because they are inherently incompatible with computational provenance and digital audit trails. Once a file is created by a computation, its provenance is quickly lost.

[0042] The trajectory of digital transformation. Increasing digital fragmentation does not coincide with the end state of digital transformation, which requires complete integration of all digital information exchanges. In fact, complete digital integration is the end state of digital transformation. We conclude that further leaps in digital integration are inevitable; the only question is when and how they will occur. There is reason to believe that a third leap in digital integration is on the horizon, and a sign of this is emerging from the remarkable (and unreasonable) popularity of blockchain.

[0043] The path to the end state of digital transformation: information flow. Information exchange based on a unique digital reality is fundamentally different from information exchange based on documents, PDFs, or files. Apart from the decentralized nature of blockchain, some of its benefits have already been discussed in the context of blockchain applications. A unique digital reality makes all digital information accessible by software, has clear ownership, and allows for cross-platform uniformity of interfaces and representations. Its potential benefits far exceed those of the World Wide Web.

[0044] This embodiment of the present invention enables the end state of digital transformation, where validation occurs, trust is evident, and knowledge is generated. We teach that complete digital transformation is possible based on this implementation of a unique digital reality (or other implementations that may arise in the future). Because the entire network of information objects needed to validate complex facts is accessible in digital form, along with their cross-references, fact validation and compliance become software automation problems. Application plugins ensure that audit trails are stored in the unique digital reality as relationships between objects. Visual representations of facts and computational results are associated with visual renderings of unique information objects displayed on a user interface, associated with their sources in the unique digital reality. Knowledge mining systems can traverse the unique digital reality to discover new insights or train artificial intelligence systems based on legitimately owned datasets unavailable under digital fragmentation. As discussed below, these are key elements in the end state of digital transformation.

[0045] Detailed background on digital transformation All human cooperation is predicated on the exchange of information. Humans have the ability to share a coherent worldview through information exchange and to derive new understandings and insights from information collected across time and space. These fundamental capacities underpin all aspects of civilization: social, political, economic, and cultural. Revolutions in how we exchange information, use it to maintain a coherent, shared worldview, and process it to gain insights inevitably imply social, political, and economic revolutions. Indeed, the emergence of language made humans the dominant species on Earth. The invention of writing led to the establishment of large-scale economies, trade, monetary systems, religions, and empires. The invention of printing and mass media led to the rapid spread of education and ideology. The invention of digital computers, computer networks, and the Internet led to rapid globalization and the emergence of a unified world society, bringing about numerous rapid changes in politics, finance, business, commerce, and social interaction. We are currently in the midst of yet another transformation that is once again threatening to change how we exchange and use information. People living in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are witnesses and promoters of the gradual and irreversible transition of all human activity, communication, transactions, interactions, and memories to digital systems based on software and modern information technology.

[0046] Human activity is being digitized worldwide, from social interactions to healthcare, finance to science, news and journalism to children's games, agriculture to art, advertising to driving, education to entertainment. In some parts of the Third World, societies that have not yet progressed through industrialization appear to have leapfrogged from agrarian to digital agrarian societies in a single step. Digital transformation is profoundly impacting every aspect of Western civilization and developed society. Digitalization affects employment, privacy, bureaucracy, individual autonomy, democracy, finance, healthcare, law, the economy, community, childhood, and relationships—in other words, every aspect of daily life for both society as a whole and individuals. This is a process of great historical importance. Evidence of the extent to which digitalization has progressed became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Even as much of the world was locked down, Western economies continued to function, leveraging information technology (particularly websites, smartphone apps, and VoIP teleconferencing technology). This would have been considered completely impossible 10 or 20 years ago.

[0047] The digital transformation is the ongoing process of migrating all human activities, memories, communications, transactions, social processes, and business processes to software, computer-based processes, computer interactions, and digital media. No aspect of human existence in a digitized world has been untouched by the digital transformation, including societies and countries with a high penetration rate of internet-connected personal computing devices. Indeed, it is a profoundly transformative revolution in Western civilization, with a more dramatic impact than the Industrial Revolution on human societies, economies, governments, and many aspects of community, family, and personal life.

[0048] The process of digital transformation involves new ways of exchanging information and a new social contract for human processes and interactions that are based on the information exchanged in these new ways. Here we briefly explain the key terms information and information exchange. See below for a detailed explanation of these terms.

[0049] Information exchange refers to the means and protocols (explicitly agreed upon or implicitly universally adopted) of creating, storing, transmitting, copying, distributing, accessing, exchanging, presenting, inspecting, verifying, citing, possessing, and archiving all kinds of information—from contracts to medical test results, from personal geolocation data to internet server logs, from paychecks to entertainment content. More importantly, it refers to the fundamental ideas and core concepts that shape how we think about information, how we use information, and the vital role it plays in society, business, the economy, and the human condition.

[0050] In this paper, we use the term information broadly to include, for example, all kinds of physical and digital documents, photographs, contracts, books, videos, virtual reality (VR) entities, digital files, etc. A more comprehensive list of examples is provided below. Importantly, we are dealing with information that affects our lives and society, among other types of information: who owns what, who consented to what, who has been where, who has what identities, who has done what, who has paid how much to whom, who owes how much to whom, who has undergone which medical procedures, which financial reports can be trusted, which scientific results can be trusted, etc.

[0051] Detailed background on shared information reality Why are most gains coming only from breakthroughs in digital integration and not from general advances in information technology? The answer is that the uniformity of interface and representation in digital information exchange creates a digital shared information reality. That is, the state of widespread information availability and the consensus based on digital information exchange enable entirely new products and services, and ultimately new markets and industries. Only through a shared information reality can software continue to conquer the world. Indeed, consider the markets, products, and services made possible by the Internet, the World Wide Web, the mobile Internet, and smartphone apps.

[0052] The Purpose of Information Exchange. Information exchange is the beating heart of any civilization. Society, economy, government, politics, finance, law, business, taxation, etc. are all fundamentally premised on the exchange and processing of information. The function of information is collaboration and insight. Collaboration is achieved through the exchange and exploration of information flowing from source to user. Insight is achieved through the merging and processing of information collected across time and space.

[0053] Symbols. Information is represented by systems of symbols. Knots in a rope, coal inscriptions on cave walls, letters carved in clay or stone, sounds produced by the vocal cords, rhythmic drumming, movies recorded on Super 8 film, Morse code over radio waves, binary bits stored on magnetic digital media, and binary light flashes on fiber optic cables are all examples of symbols. As these various examples show, different symbol systems enable different methods of storing and exchanging information. Some symbol systems, such as spoken language, cannot store information, while others, such as letters carved in clay or knots in a rope, can. Drumming can be transmitted only relatively short distances, while Morse code via radio frequency signals can be transmitted over very long distances. Some (binary bits) can be easily processed and manipulated as software instructions in a digital computer, while others cannot.

[0054] Information Objects: To enable cooperation between spatially and temporally separated individuals and social institutions and to ensure the sustainable use of information across time, individuals must agree on the meanings and interpretations of information symbols and share protocols for creating, storing, exchanging, and interpreting these symbols. Such shared protocols are the foundation of human society. First, these protocols define information objects—objects that contain or carry information symbols—and their meanings. For example, a paper page printed in a specific language may be considered a contract transferring ownership of a house. A plastic card (credit card) with a binary string encoded on its magnetic stripe may be considered an identification document capable of authorizing a payment. A collection of bits in a Portable Document Format (PDF) may be considered a health questionnaire. Protocols define the meaning of specific actions associated with information objects. Consider, for example, an individual's act of consent. A protocol might specify that a person must sign a contract printed on a page with a blue pen to agree to it, that a credit card must be handed over to a seller and swiped to authorize a payment, or that a specific box in a PDF displayed in a PDF viewer must be clicked and saved to declare good health.

[0055] To more clearly understand the meaning of information objects, here is a list of information objects exchanged in our society: between individuals, businesses, and government agencies: official letters, financial statements (including bank account and credit card statements), contracts, purchase orders, agreements, forms, bonds, diplomas, licenses, identification cards, membership cards, permits, checks, insurance policies, invoices, receipts, reports (including financial statements), academic research papers, accountings, tax reports, government forms, visas, tickets, passes, notes, medical and health records, medical billing records, charts, certificates, deeds, technical specifications, publications, transcripts, manuals, photographs, videos, fact sheets, virtual reality entities and objects, digital and virtual coins, etc. Figure 1 shows some examples of information objects.

[0056] Systems of Information Objects. To understand information use, we must consider the complete system of information: the symbols used, how they are collected into information objects, and the protocols that give meaning to the objects and actions based on them. As a first step, we note that systems of information exchange specify how certain actions are performed on information objects. We call these actions verbs. ·Create and edit ·Store ·Transfer / Exchange ·access ·copy ·distribution Ownership / Copyright Assertion ·signature ·Quote ·verification

[0057] The symbolic system used—the medium in which information is encoded—determines the physical limitations of these verbs. For example, compare the verbs "create" and "copy"—that is, the creation of new information objects using symbols such as letters carved into clay versus computer software. In one symbolic system, performing a particular verb is a difficult task, while in another it is very easy. As another example, consider the verb "access," which means to access and examine an existing information object. If the information object is a sales contract stored at city hall, an individual may have to travel a long distance to access the information. However, if the contract is a digital document hosted by a web server, it can be accessed and examined instantly via an Internet connection.

[0058] Shared reality. One of two reasons for exchanging information is to maintain a consistent view of the world that people share across time and space. For example, my bank shares my bank statement with me so we can have a consistent view of the transactions in our account. Years later, I can share the same bank statement with my government so that both I and the government can have a consistent view of the same things.

[0059] A coherent, shared view of the world, comprised of what we might call facts, is the fundamental basis for cooperation in society. Every institution in modern society relies heavily on this view. For society to function, it is essential that stakeholders can agree on the current state of the world—political systems, governments, economies, legal systems, property ownership, monetary and financial systems, health care systems, education systems, and so on. We must agree on broad areas about what happened, who owns what, the identities of people and organizations, the existence and content of laws, and so on. For example, when I seek treatment at a hospital, I, the hospital, and my health insurance company must agree on many things. We must agree on the details of the treatment I received, the identities and formal verification of the person who provided the treatment, the medical tests and diagnoses I underwent, the results of those tests, and the medical diagnoses on which the treatment was based. As another example, when I enter into a contract with another person, it is crucial that we both have a coherent, shared view of who agreed and when.

[0060] In other words, the exchange of facts is the fundamental basis of transactions and interactions in all human societies. Most social processes, and all governmental processes, are based on the exchange of facts—specifically, the creation, presentation, communication, verification, and recording of facts, and the creation of new composite facts based on multiple existing facts.

[0061] Let us call this situation, in which everyone agrees (or strives to agree) on a coherent worldview, a shared reality. Here, "reality" is used in a broader sense than just physical reality. Human society is built on shared reality. From religious myths to nations, governmental institutions, corporations, money, and human rights, the fact that everyone in society collectively imagines and collectively believes something to be real makes it real. According to this view, the human ability to collectively imagine something and make it exist as real—known in the literature as "intersubjective reality"—is the primary reason why humans are able to collaborate on a large scale across space, time, and individual differences, and therefore why humanity has been so successful.

[0062] It is useful to think of our collectively imagined shared reality in layers: political shared reality, monetary / financial shared reality, legal shared reality, and so on. None of these layers have physical substance; they all exist in our heads—imagined intersubjective realities. The important thing is that they all exist in our heads, meaning that most individuals in society agree almost completely about the elements that make up the layers of reality, their relationships to each other, and their meanings.

[0063] Physical reality. The exchange of information involves objects, states, and events in different layers of reality. We live in physical reality. There are objects such as people, devices, and vehicles. These objects have states or properties ("this person is in that location," "this vehicle is red"). Events that occur in physical reality can change the state of objects ("this person entered that room," "this vehicle parked").

[0064] Shared intersubjective reality. Abstractly, reality is a collection of objects, their states, and the events that affect those states. The defining feature of reality is that it is shared between individuals: people present in the same place at the same time agree on the objects, states, and events they witness.

[0065] In addition to physical reality (objects, states, and events in physical space), we also live in other layers of shared reality: in particular, legal reality, consisting of objects such as businesses, states such as solvency, and events such as asset sales; bank accounts, states such as account balances, transfers between accounts, and states and events such as logged-in accounts, server availability, code execution, logins, server queries, etc. Let's take a few examples of each.

[0066] Physical reality. Objects: individuals, property, places, objects, machines, doors, musical instruments, cars. States: e.g., an open door, a parked car, an unplugged musical instrument. Events: e.g., an individual pressing a button, a car entering a garage, a light turning on, a turnstile spinning.

[0067] Legal reality. Human beings also share realities that do not have tangible existence, particularly financial and legal realities. These are imaginary realities ("intersubjective realities") that have no concrete substance but exist in the imaginations of all individuals involved by consensus.

[0068] Objects are laws, judgments, legal entities (organizations, governments, businesses), and legal representations of physical objects (such as a person's legal identity or a registered real estate parcel). States in legal reality are contracts, agreements, legal status of legal entities, etc. Events in legal reality are laws, court judgments, consents, transfer of ownership, performance of a contract or contractual clause, taxable events, etc. Legal reality has objects (businesses, corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, contracts, laws), states (ownership, going concern, valid contracts), and events (consent grant, bankruptcy, takeover, adjudication).

[0069] Financial reality. There are objects (securities, bonds, bank accounts, investment accounts), states (accounts being active), and events (bond defaults, securities transactions). Events: bond defaults, securities transactions

[0070] Information Technology (IT) reality. Objects in IT reality are pieces of digital data stored on digital storage devices. Events in computational reality are computations (executing code) and network communications. Both code execution and network communications create and modify digital data. IT reality is not physical, but it certainly has tangible existence. All individuals with access to a particular storage device agree on its contents. In IT reality, there are objects (servers, user accounts, databases, files), states (server online, account active), and events (user login, server started, code execution, network communications).

[0071] The fundamental function of a system of reflective information objects is to represent, or reflect, objects, states, and events in various layers of reality, such as physical, legal, financial, and IT, along with protocols that govern their use and meaning.

[0072] For example, a particular system of information objects—writing on clay bricks—is capable of reflecting certain objects, states, and events in various layers of reality, but nothing else. The details of an information system (including its symbols, information objects, and protocols) define the limits of what is possible in terms of exchange (the actionable limits of verbs) and the limits of what is possible in terms of reflection. Some information systems have a broader range of representations—that is, they can reflect a wider range of things, states, and events in a wider range of reality. Importantly, the information system determines the costs (in terms of time, effort, and resources) of information exchange and consensus building, and the fundamental limits of trust, consensus, and cooperation enabled by a particular information system.

[0073] For example, an information system made up of documents can reflect events such as a person's identity (using an ID card) or purchasing an item at a store (using a receipt). However, it cannot reflect information technology events such as logging into a server. Prosecuting cybercrimes is extremely challenging because the legal system remains entirely dependent on documents, where the criminal act actually involves a digital event such as logging in. There are many events and states that documents cannot reflect, such as using an ID card to open an electronically locked door, or code being executed, or even that a tax return is in full compliance with current state tax laws.

[0074] Reflection of relationships. Relationships between symbols refer to relationships between their underlying objects. Often it is the relationships that matter most. For example, the fact that two payments are two parts of the same transaction. Or the fact that one payment is a refund for another. Connections are where the intersection between different realities begins. For example, a VAT liability (legal object) on a payment (financial object) on the sale of tomatoes (physical object). Three objects in three different realities are all part of the same interaction or cycle.

[0075] Like other languages, information reality has a certain expressive power. It can (or cannot) express underlying real-world objects and the relationships between those objects. Figure 2 shows a schematic of how objects, states, events, and their relationships in reality are reflected in information reality. A real-world object 201 (e.g., an agreement between parties) is reflected by information object 204 (a contract). A real-world person 203 is reflected by identity document 203 (e.g., a driver's license). A relationship 202 between contract 201 and person 203 (e.g., the fact that person 203 is involved in contract 201) is reflected by relationship 206 in information reality. For example, contract 204 can refer to person 203 using their legal name, address, and driver's license number, as shown in license 205.

[0076] It is interesting to consider how different information systems handle cross-referencing, i.e., how they describe relationships between information objects. Examples include legal precedents (e.g., United States v. Nixon, 418 US 683 (1974)), academic articles (e.g., Annals of Botanics 17(8):67-90, 1965), legal code references (e.g., 42 USC §1983), and digital object identifiers (DOI: 10.1016 / j.procs.2011.04.067). These are well-defined notational systems for cross-referencing. More generally, the current state of the art lacks a good way for information objects to uniquely and unambiguously reference other information objects. In fact, most interrelationships between objects at various layers of reality are not reflected at all (or very poorly) in the shared information reality currently in use. Consider, for example, the relationship between a product or service sold and the payment for that product or service. Reconciling product and payment is a necessary step in corporate audits, but current accounting requires manual cross-referencing and reconciliation of product receipts, financial statement payments (bank transfers or credit card payments), and product identification. As another example, consider an addendum or schedule to a contract. Contracts and addenda are implicitly related (see Appendix A), but documents as information objects cannot explicitly relate to each other; that is, the relationship is not reflected in the document's reality.

[0077] Dodge and Kitchin, in their book "Codes of life: identification codes and the machine-readable world," quote from [Solzhenitsyn A., 1968 Cancer Ward Part I]: "As we go through life, we fill out several forms for record keeping. Each form contains a number of questions. The answer to one question on a form becomes a tiny thread that permanently links us to a regional center for personnel records management. Thus, hundreds of tiny threads radiate from each individual, and millions of threads in total. If all these threads were suddenly visible, the entire sky would look like a spider's web...Threads are invisible, they are immaterial, yet humans are constantly aware of their existence...Because each individual is constantly aware of their own invisible thread, they naturally develop a respect for those who manipulate it..."

[0078] These invisible threads are real, but currently they are only implicit in documents. As we will see, documents have limited ability to express interrelationships, and as a result, most of the work of reconstructing the network of objects referenced by symbols must be done manually—that is, by humans who must infer that X is a receipt for Y.

[0079] Returning to information objects, cooperation is based on consensus. For individuals to cooperate successfully, it is essential that they share a common perception of reality, both physical reality and a shared (intersubjective) reality such as legal, financial, or computational. Indeed, the very existence of a shared reality depends on consensus through the exchange of information. By exchanging information objects, each of which reflects a thing, state, or event, the individuals participating in the exchange attempt to reach consensus about the reflected thing, state, or event. This consensus enables them to cooperate.

[0080] To understand this more clearly, note that social processes often involve objects, states, and events in multiple layers of reality. Consider a billing cycle: An entity (a business) creates a purchase order, obtains a quote, makes a payment, places an order, uses a delivery service to receive the order, and receives an invoice and receipt. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) require a business to store records of every step in this complex, multi-step process. This includes objects in the legal reality (the business placing the order and the business providing the goods), objects in the financial reality (bank accounts), events in the financial reality (funds transfer, invoice issuance), objects in the physical reality (goods delivered), and events in the physical reality (delivery). GAAP requirements mandate that a business store records of every step in this process, which equates to storing records reflecting the various objects, states, and events in all layers of reality involved.

[0081] Shared Information Reality. It is useful to think of systems of information objects—such as a system of clay tablets, a system of paper documents, or a system of PDF documents—as layers of their own shared reality. There are clear rules, social agreements, and conventions that govern the use of information systems. These agreements define the meanings attached to information objects, the proper ways of creating, exchanging, and verifying them, and the requirements for an information object to be considered authentic. These "mirror realities" consist of information objects that reflect objects, states, and events in other realities. We call this a "shared information reality." For example, a title document (an object in the "Document Shared Information Reality" described below) represents a person's legal title to a property. This is not ownership itself, which is a state of legal reality.

[0082] Just as there are agreements and structures associated with shared reality, there are also agreements and structures associated with the exchange of information in a shared information reality. And just as multiple layers of shared reality can exist and be useful simultaneously, multiple layers of shared information reality can exist simultaneously. While a collection of physical objects (clay tablets, paper documents, digital PDF files, and the methods for creating and communicating them) is called an "information system," the ensemble of social norms, practices, meanings, and agreements that govern the use of information objects in each information system and the meanings given to them is called a "shared information reality."

[0083] Document-Sharing Information Reality How can human societies share a consistent worldview based on information exchange? In prehistoric times, spoken language was the only way to share information. This required the use of stories and rumors, and the belief in them. In other words, "what is passed down orally is true." Belief was far more beneficial, since without it, cooperative relationships would be impossible.

[0084] Symbolic systems for information exchange can be traced back to systems that did not use the written language we know today: for example, the pre-literate Inca Empire used a knot system called quipu to collect census data, store official records, and monitor tax payments.

[0085] The invention of writing brought an entirely new way of exchanging information and sharing worldviews. The new thinking was, "If it's written, it's true." As more people learned to write, signatures were added to ensure authenticity and identity: "If it's written and signed, it's true." We still use this very old way of consuming information today. If I'm presented with a signed letter today, I participate in a shared worldview. By believing the contents of the letter, I participate in the shared reality of others and collaborate with them. I'm free to doubt or disbelieve every letter or contract I'm shown, whether it's from my bank or my employer. However, this would prevent me from collaborating with anyone. So it's much more convenient to accept the system and agree that "If it's written and signed, it's true." With the invention of the typewriter, the thinking shifted slightly to "If it's printed and signed, it's true." The key here is that the method of recording information must have some inherent difficulty that provides proof of work. This increases reliability. We'll discuss this in more detail later.

[0086] Let's call a system that uses physical documents to establish a shared information reality a "document-shared information reality" (or simply document-shared reality). A document-shared reality is centered around the exchange of documents, such as driver's licenses, insurance policies, business licenses, entry visas, real estate leases, real estate purchase and sale agreements, real estate title deeds, automobile title deeds, parking tickets, monthly bank statements, public company annual financial reports, tax returns, receipts, purchase orders, hospital bills, insurance claims, insurance policies, pay stubs, employment permits, employment contracts, construction permits, phone bills, airline tickets, credit cards, birth certificates, company balance sheets, articles of incorporation, powers of attorney, wills, professional certificates, transcripts, pharmaceutical prescriptions, marital status certificates, deeds, etc.

[0087] In most societies today, and in Western civilization in particular, from the invention of writing until the emergence of digital information technologies for the home in the late 1970s, a document-shared reality served as the dominant system for achieving a coherent, shared worldview and consensus. This enabled people to cooperate across time and space. It also established concepts of property (real estate, intellectual property), money, banking, modern economies, law, and accounting, and enabled the development of complex social structures (kingdoms, empires, feudal systems, modern states), science and technology, and organized religion. As noted above, in a document-shared reality, if I present someone with a signed piece of paper, that person will accept the displayed information and join the shared worldview unless they have specific reasons for distrust.

[0088] Even today, in the 21st century, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a negative COVID-19 test result was required for boarding international flights and crossing international borders. Because there was no way to verify documented test results, documents were the only standard means of information exchange, and test results were internationally accepted as long as they were written in English, carried on official letterhead, and included some kind of certification. This clearly demonstrates that, digital or not, we still rely on document-sharing when it comes to the need for independent cross-border information exchange.

[0089] Original Documents. An interesting feature to note about document shared reality systems is that not all documents are treated equally. Sometimes, original documents hold a special place: an original signed contract, a copy of a contract signed by the parties involved, an original license, an original diploma, an original transcript, an original receipt, an original passport, etc., each have unique value and cannot be replaced by a copy for most purposes.

[0090] Importantly, the concept of an original document implies that the particular object that carries information is a "thing": something that is tangible, unique in the world, has a unique address, and can be uniquely located. Courts can subpoena original documents. The owner of the original title deed has proof of ownership. etc. This concept has profound implications for how we think about facts and information. As an information object, an original document enjoys the privileged status of being tangible and unique in the world.

[0091] Notaries: Document Shared Reality. So how do you create a copy that has the same privileged status as the original? Or how do you prove you have the original document without producing the original? This problem has no direct solution within the document shared reality system. To solve this problem, the notary and apostille functions essentially amend the system. If a notary public risks losing his license and swears that he has seen the original or stamps his wax seal on the copy, it will be accepted as evidence.

[0092] Hybrid Document-Digital Shared Information Reality. While I have described document-shared reality systems as being in use from the invention of writing until the dawn of the digital age, the current system is a shared information reality system. Looking around us, we see that our systems of fact exchange are hybrids. Indeed, they contain many elements of document-shared reality systems. We still rely entirely on documents. However, these elements are implemented through a mixture of physical paper and digital means. Admittedly, digital documents—PDF files, word-processed documents, emails, and so on—are strange. In many ways, digital documents resemble paper documents (physical documents). They are intended for human access (as opposed to machine access), and their formats can change on the fly. However, they are much easier to copy and transmit. While digital information is characterized by its instant copying and transmission, its handling and use are exactly the same as traditional physical documents. My point here is that this is a strange hybrid, in effect an attempt to transfer as closely as possible the familiar document-shared reality system, which has existed for thousands of years, into the digital realm. It is a digital imitation of an older system.

[0093] In fact, it's surprising how little information systems have changed since the digital revolution. Word processors have replaced typewriters, emails have replaced envelopes, but conceptually that's basically it. The default medium for information exchange has always been documents for human consumption, not for machine processing. Fact-checking is almost exclusively a human activity.

[0094] The transition from paper to electronic documents has not fundamentally changed the way society uses documents. In most fields, physical documents remain the foundation of trust, and digital reproductions are considered inferior copies. As a result, those presenting documents are still required to physically store the originals, exposing them to the risk of destruction. One form of digital document is the PDF, which is a facsimile of the physical original. Electronic signatures are not widely used, and losing a signed original file means losing the document. Document verification standards have become lax and unclear, making document content and the validity of the document itself more difficult than ever. As a result, we exist in a data fog. For example, several recent large-scale financial fraud cases, such as those involving Enron, Madoff, MF Global, and Wirecard, have made it clear that verifying document authenticity is an extremely difficult task, even for highly skilled and sophisticated professional accountants.

[0095] Activities centered around the creation, representation, exchange, and verification of facts represent trillions of dollars in economic value annually. Consider the verification tasks required by insurance companies, law firms, financial institutions, and accounting firms. Also consider regulatory and tax compliance, VAT and sales tax collection, HIPAA compliance, receipt processing, the sale and purchase of travel and show tickets, corporate due diligence, medical billing and insurance, real estate transactions, tax returns, identity theft, and countless other government-related tasks.

[0096] Hybrid systems of digital and paper document exchange are computer-based imitations of paper. To quote McLuhan, "The first version of any new medium imitates the medium it replaces." In fact, most standards in today's IT industry, which underpin many social processes, imitate the only medium we've known for centuries: paper documents. For example, handwritten signatures on digital tablets, digital PDF documents, email, files and folders on operating systems and websites, and digital newspapers all imitate the older medium of paper documents. Ink signatures, drawer cabinets for organizing and storing documents, all imitate the older medium of paper documents. Consider email. Email is essentially a digital version of postal mail, complete with a little paperclip icon for attaching documents to email. These concepts are all from the 17th century. Some may argue that handwritten signatures on digital tablets at the cash register are completely absurd. Why should this be the standard for authentication and consent at the dawn of the 21st century?

[0097] These digital imitations are merely early versions of the new media. In a fully digital world, the exchange of information has progressed beyond digital paper and paper document imitations—mediums that digital information technology has replaced. In other words, we are working on computers while desperately trying to imitate pen and paper. This creates confusion and inefficiency. It's time to let go and use computers and currently available information technology in a fundamentally different way that matches their potential.

[0098] Discussion Let's discuss the properties of facts in a document-shared reality. First, and crucially, a document-shared reality is accessible to humans, and only humans. The information objects in a document-shared reality, i.e., documents, are created by humans for humans. They are written, signed, read, verified, and understood by humans. Second, a document-shared reality is unified and general-purpose. Documents and signatures created by anyone who can read the document language, past or present, wherever and whenever they were created, can be presented to anyone. For example, a contract may have been created 200 years ago and still be legally binding today.

[0099] We all know how to read written information and implicitly understand and adhere to a shared document reality system. Without language barriers, any two people can interact in this way and arrive at a common worldview. For example, a prospective student in France can present a bank statement from France to a US university, which then approves her visa application, acknowledging that she has sufficient financial backing to complete her studies. This is a miraculous interaction: the French banker and the US admissions officer share a common worldview about the prospective student's financial situation, even though none of the three have ever met, live in the same country, or even under the same legal system. See Table 1.

[0100] [Table 1-1] [Table 1-2] Table 1 - Comparing the realities of paper and hybrid shared information

[0101] Is there a shared information reality based on digital files? Interestingly, there is no shared information reality with digital files (in machine-readable format) as the core information object. The reasons for this are explained below. Simply put, for an information object to be the basis of a shared information reality, it must be permanently accessible, immutable, and signed. For example, imagine a contract stored in an information object that could become inaccessible, easily edited or modified, or unsigned. Digital files are not permanently accessible; they can disappear from all storage or become outdated in format. They are also easily altered and edited. Regarding signatures, digital signatures are a very effective way to sign digital files, attaching identity to them and ensuring their immutability, but the user interface aspect is not yet resolved enough for widespread adoption.

[0102] Can we imagine a shared information reality that truly transcends documents? In a digital world, it is unlikely that documents (physical or digital) will exist forever. In fact, as mentioned above, when we reach the end of the digital transformation, documents will simply be exhibited in museums alongside spears and typewriters.

[0103] So what will be the next stage in the evolution of information objects? · What will the next piece of information be shared? Can there ever be a universally adopted, fully digital information repository that truly transcends documents and files?

[0104] For example, consider a receipt. A receipt is a document (physical or PDF) that proves a transaction involving payment for goods or services. This transaction involves several simultaneous events: a physical transaction (for physical goods) or a digital transaction (for digital goods), a monetary transaction, a tax event, and a legal consent event (the customer pays, the seller consents to the sale, and legal consequences arise according to local sales laws). Receipts have many uses. They serve as proof of purchase, help the customer exercise their buyer rights at a later date (e.g., returning the product), serve as tax records if the purchase is subject to tax returns, and serve as financial records in the event of a payment dispute. If a company is making payments, receipts must be kept and accounted for in the company's financial records. If purchase implies physical presence, receipts imply being in a specific place at a specific time and can therefore be used to prove tax residency. If the purchase is part of an insured property recovery, receipts can be used in insurance claims.

[0105] The information contained in a receipt includes the identity of the seller (name, address, phone number, and possibly taxpayer ID), the date and time of payment, a description of the goods or services purchased, the amount paid, the payment method (payment information such as credit card number or bank account), any taxes collected, and possibly references to other related documents such as invoices, purchase orders, credit card statements, etc. Receipts are implicitly linked to other documents such as financial records where the payment was recorded (bank statements and credit card transactions), invoices, purchase orders, and product delivery confirmations.

[0106] So, essentially, a receipt could be a JSON string like this: Receipt = { Seller_name = '...' Seller_address = '...' Purchase amount = 88 Purchase current = 'USD' ... etc.}

[0107] Using receipts in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format has clear advantages. (i) As mentioned above, receipts are involved in many legal and financial processes that require verification of information compliance, such as tax returns, corporate financial statements, insurance claims, etc. Using a digital format makes receipts accessible to software, enabling the automation of these tasks. (ii) Machine-readable receipts can become part of a dataset used to discover new patterns, train machine learning algorithms, or draw conclusions or insights from the data through computational means.

[0108] So why do we still use paper receipts? Certainly it's not because we can't agree on a digital format. For one thing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a widely accepted digital data format.

[0109] What creates digital information technology that bridges time? Following Harold Innis, communication theorists distinguish between media that bridge space and media that bridge time. From this perspective, the invention of writing gave humanity a memory that transcended individuals and even civilizations. Writing bridged time. Transmitting written messages across space was difficult or impossible; writing did not transcend space. In contrast, telegraphs, telephones, radio, and television broadcasts are transmitted instantly at the speed of light (transcending space), but they are not recorded. Therefore, they do not transcend time. With the invention of computer networks, digital information technology became a medium capable of transcending time and space. Digital information can be stored for long periods and transmitted instantly. The fact that modern civilization still relies on paper documents (or their digital counterparts) and not on purely digital information exchange is reminiscent of the fact that the initial usage patterns of the Internet were focused on bridging space, not time. For example, online shopping, e-commerce, online newspapers, social media, instant messaging, and the sharing economy all take advantage of the instantaneous communication capabilities of information technology. The long-term memory that information objects must possess to convey facts has remained with written documents since the invention of writing. The only change is that documents can now be transmitted instantly in digital form. In other words, the usage pattern of digital information technology has been, above all, to connect spaces.

[0110] The question of how to use digital information technology to bridge the time gap - how to create permanent digital objects that are permanently accessible and agreeable, and ultimately retire documents - remains largely unanswered today. Making digital objects permanent requires a trusted records custodian. But who will that records custodian be?

[0111] The blockchain phenomenon detailed below did not arise precisely because blockchain is decentralized, as common beliefs seem to suggest. Perhaps decentralization is not an important or desirable characteristic. The blockchain phenomenon arose because Bitcoin was the first purely digital object to transcend time. Blockchains are perceived as permanent, permanently accessible records based on purely digital information. The fact that blockchains store financial records of everything (as opposed to medical records) is a key driver of the blockchain phenomenon. As of the end of 2021, Bitcoin's market value reached hundreds of billions of US dollars, a testament to the trust many people have in purely digital information.

[0112] According to blockchain, the answer to the question, "Who should be the trusted record-keeper for connecting time with digital information technology?" is "everyone." Everyone's records are kept by everyone. This is, of course, a ridiculous answer, and one of the reasons why blockchain hasn't taken over the world in the decade since the blockchain meme became so popular.

[0113] So who should be the trustworthy record keeper?

[0114] To summarize: There are strange phenomena in the way we use information today. For example, printing, signing, scanning. For example, printing digital information from a Standard Query Language (SQL) database and sending it by mail or email (which are almost the same thing) to another party who then enters it into their own SQL database. For example, collecting large numbers of small paper receipts and transferring the information from payment terminals to a corporate controller's computer. The original paper receipts are stored for seven years. And so on. We are not using information very effectively, and even worse, we are treating it in ways that invite error and allow fraud. So why is the status quo, and what's going to happen?

[0115] Consider how we use information. Like language, information is by definition a collection of symbols. Information systems (e.g., language) have grammatical rules (form) and semantic rules (meaning) that allow meaning to be embedded in well-defined forms. Like language, information contains symbols about reality. And, like language, the objects and events to which information symbols refer can exist not only in physical reality but also in an imagined (subjective) reality. [Benjamin, Jessica. "Creating an intersubjective reality: Commentary on paper by Arnold Rothstein." Psychoanalytic Dialogues 15.3 (2005)]

[0116] As we have seen, information refers to: Physical reality IT reality (what happened on the computer, what was stored, what was accessed, what programs were executed) Legal reality (criminal law, civil law - contract, tax law, corporate law) Financial reality (money, financial products, financial markets, loans, credit, payments)

[0117] What is information used for? Like language, it is used for communication. Information is an elaborate structure with unique rules, built using language and other systems of information representation. Its most important use is to reach agreement and cooperation about what exists or has happened, that is, to reach a common understanding of reality. In fact, when it comes to imagined (intersubjective) reality, information is the only means of reaching agreement and cooperation. The existence of intersubjective reality depends on information.

[0118] Example: Agreement and consent are terms in the legal reality. A signed original document is a symbol of an event: agreement and consent. This document can be stored, presented, exchanged, inspected, and verified to achieve agreement and cooperation regarding the event in the referenced legal reality. The document is a symbol. Similarly, a receipt is a symbol of an event in the financial reality: payment, and a tax bill is a symbol of an event in the legal (tax) reality: payment resulting in tax liability.

[0119] What matters is the connection between objects in different layers of reality: a payment (an object in the financial reality) is made by one entity to another, such as a business object in the legal reality, or an individual object in the legal and physical reality, in exchange for something else, an object in the physical, legal or financial reality. All of these entities are connected to the object of the payment.

[0120] In other words, information is a language, a system of symbols, used to describe (refer to) objects at different levels of reality. Sometimes the identity between object and symbol is so complete that no distinction is made between them. For example, someone might say, "The document (symbol) is a contract." However, this is not the case. It is just a symbol.

[0121] A contract is something that is written down and agreed upon.

[0122] A shared information reality is a self-contained system of symbols, a collection of symbolic objects. A shared information reality includes objects such as documents, computer files, printed images, and videos. These objects are symbols and are separate from the real objects they refer to.

[0123] Like language, shared information reality has expressive power, which may or may not be rich enough to represent every event and every entity in the underlying reality.

[0124] An ideal shared information reality would be expressive enough to represent every entity and every event in physical, legal, financial, computational, and political reality: for example, representing that a computation was performed, representing the identity of a physical person, or representing that a particular person opened a cabinet.

[0125] Importantly, shared information reality also expresses or fails to express the relationships between the objects it refers to: sometimes they can be represented symbolically, and sometimes there are not enough symbols to do so.

[0126] An ideal shared information reality would be expressive enough to represent all the relationships between the underlying objects: the graph of facts in the shared information reality mirrors the graph of the underlying reality: the chronology of events, the flow of information from the user interface to the UDRs, the structural connections between the facts in the lattice, etc.

[0127] How a shared information reality works. Information reality allows information to be stored, exchanged, presented, and verified for consensus and cooperation. Different information reality systems implement these differently. In a document system, presenting a document to someone requires transmitting that document (including the original document). Therefore, any information reality must be considered step by step to understand how it supports different activities.

[0128] Validation. As a representation system, a language, every shared information reality has its own set of syntactic and semantic rules. These are used to exchange and examine objects and collections of objects in that information reality. When accepting an object (document), there are rules about what it means for the document to be acceptable, accurate, valid, and authentic. An object that does not follow the rules makes no sense. Just like a language.

[0129] Someone must follow the rules, verify that the rules were followed, draw a conclusion, and sign it to prove that the rules (the verification process) were followed and that a specific result (e.g., a "valid" result) was achieved. The verifier must have the following capabilities: · Access to the object to be verified ·Know, understand and be able to carry out verification procedures and rules -Understand the relationship between the subject of verification and the underlying related subjects · Identify and access relevant subjects

[0130] Document Sharing Information In reality, documents can only be read by humans, and therefore verified by humans. Furthermore, relationships and associations are often implicit, requiring human intelligence to infer them from context.

[0131] In a hybrid document-digital information reality, it may be possible for software to perform the validation, but (i) the implementation procedures are not specified in formal language; (ii) some documents are only accessible to humans; (iii) the connection is not explicitly stated; (iv) fragmentation that makes related objects inaccessible; There were problems such as:

[0132] Intelligence. Intelligence and knowledge come from access to well-formed, well-connected information. A rich shared information reality (a complete representation of everything that exists and everything that happens) allows for greater intelligence, the detection of patterns, concepts, and abstract structures. Examples of greater intelligence include counterfactual execution (the ability to ask "what if") and merging (the ability to combine facts with new facts).

[0133] We need a fully digital, shared information reality that is integrated and accessible to software. The above illustrates the need for each word in this sentence. This allows software to be validated and intelligence to be created. Information exchange and validation happens easily, naturally, and automatically.

[0134] Information flows from represented reality to information reality and is exchanged effortlessly.

[0135] Information Flow. Let's talk about digital shared information reality, specifically how information flows into and out of the shared information reality. There is input (measurement). This is where we create new symbols and new objects in the information reality to represent what happened in the underlying reality. There is output. We display information from the shared reality and maintain consensus. What's the point of inputting information if we're not going to use it or display it? How we display information from the shared reality is how we maintain consensus.

[0136] Seamless information flow means seamless input, output and validation.

[0137] Input: Information from different realities is automatically entered and displayed in the UDR. When people give consent, a door is opened, a payment is made, etc., appropriate symbols are displayed in the UDR.

[0138] Output: The information is automatically linked to the UDR, indicating that the necessary validation has been performed, and so on, and so on, for validation and verification.

[0139] Flow from Legacy Systems - An embodiment of the invention involves connecting the UDR with the real world in a hybrid digital document sharing information system. Inputs and outputs to the UDR with other systems.

[0140] Detailed background on the two axes of information flow To more clearly understand the principles underlying the embodiments of the invention described herein, as well as their advantages and potential applications, we will now briefly develop the theory of information exchange. All information exchange occurs in two distinct directions, which can be imagined as two orthogonal axes. The processes of digital transformation and its opposites, digital integration and digital fragmentation, are best understood along these axes.

[0141] Inter-stakeholder information flow ("horizontal")The first axis is the exchange of information that occurs between different stakeholders. This axis cuts across the global social, economic, financial, and political ecosystems, and we call it "cross-stakeholder" or "horizontal." Information flowing along this axis is exchanged between individuals or legal entities on an arm's length basis. Broadly speaking, the overarching goal of horizontal information exchange is the insights that can be extracted by combining information from different sources.

[0142] The second axis is the information exchange that occurs as information is acquired, recorded, processed, and presented. This axis runs from objects, states, and events in various shared realities to the information objects that represent them in the shared information reality, to the processing of the information objects, and to the presentation of the results of the processing in the user interface. Information flowing along this axis moves through various stages of representation, processing, presentation, and validation. Broadly speaking, the overarching goal of vertical information exchange is societal or interpersonal collaboration. Figure 3 illustrates two axes of information flow: cross-stakeholder ("horizontal") information flow between different stakeholders 301, 302, and 303, and source-to-user ("vertical") information flow through various stages of information processing: objects, states, and events 304 in the real world are reflected in information objects 305, processed by computation or ICC 306, and presented 307.

[0143] Source-to-user ("vertical") information flow. Vertical information flow consists of several stages.

[0144] Vertical Flow, Phase 1: Real-world Objects, States, and Events Objects, states and events in various shared realities, such as physical, financial, legal and IT, are not yet reflected in or represented by information objects.

[0145] Vertical Flow, Phase 2: Reflecting on Information Objects In the second stage, information objects are used to reflect or represent states and events of objects in a shared reality. Information objects carry symbols with shared meaning. The meaning contained in information objects can be of three types: observation, computational inference, and inference based on information consistency and compliance. In the second stage, observed information objects are created that reflect the objects, states, and events.

[0146] Observed information object: An information object that represents observations about reality, specifically that an object exists, that a state has been observed, or that an event has occurred in a shared reality (physical, legal, financial, IT reality, etc.).

[0147] Example (document info object): · The title to a property reflects the status of ownership in legal reality. · The property purchase and sale agreement reflects events in financial reality. Water meter readings reflect the physical reality. · A handwritten signature reflects legal consent (an event in legal reality). A concert ticket reflects a legal state (right to enter). A receipt reflects a financial event (paid). · Account statements reflect financial status (account balance).

[0148] Vertical flow, stage 3: processing In the third stage, the information objects created in the second stage are processed to create new information objects.

[0149] Inferred Information Object. An information object that represents the result of applying a deductive inference process. Such an information object references (explicitly or implicitly) the underlying information objects to which the deductive inference process was applied, and describes (implicitly or explicitly) the deductive inference process itself. A deductively derived information object specifies that processing has been applied to specified existing information objects to derive a specified result.

[0150] Information processing has two distinct purposes.

[0151] 1. Computational Processing. One is performing calculations on data to summarize, transform, and draw conclusions. This has become mainstream. Think of all data analysis, spreadsheets, accounting software, statistical analysis software, image processing, natural language processing, and so on, all of which involve numerical data processed with arithmetic operations. Numerous computational platforms, including machine-readable languages ​​(C, Python, Java, R, Ruby, etc.), have been developed for this purpose. A computationally derived information object specifies that specified arithmetic steps have been applied to a specified existing information object to produce a specified result.

[0152] Examples of computationally derived information objects: Corporate earnings reports report totals (annual, income), which are the result of applying arithmetic calculations to underlying documents such as invoices and receipts of income and expenses. U.S. federal tax returns report total tax owed, which is the result of applying complex calculations to underlying documents such as pay stubs, corporate dividend notices, expense claims, and prior year tax returns. An investment portfolio valuation reports the total value of a portfolio at a point in time, which is the result of applying simple arithmetic calculations to underlying information objects that include the assets held in the portfolio and the current valuation of each asset, which reflects financial and legal reality. A scientific report may report the results of a complex deductive reasoning process applied to experimentally observed data, i.e., statistical analysis performed by running computer code.

[0153] 2. Information Consistency and Compliance (ICC) Processing. Another processing objective is verifying information consistency and compliance. Information regarding financial transactions, taxes, legal procedures, ownership and transactions of real estate and goods, and service transactions is necessary to comply with various rules and regulations. A company's accounting records and financial reports must be complete, accurate, and comply with specific reporting standards. All administrative procedures are based on the compliance of the information exchanged. Financial statements must comply with specific standards. Some of these standards, rules, and regulations are explicitly stated in government regulations, laws, corporate bylaws, or GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Others are implicit social norms, standard practices for exchanging information that support certain social processes. While the tax return verification process is inherently linear and algorithmic, computers are rarely used to perform these calculations; instead, they are performed by humans. This is much the same way that calculations were performed by humans before the invention of digital computers.

[0154] Examples of information objects derived by the ICC: The mortgage application contains detailed information about the loan being applied for, including the property to be purchased, the current property owner, the current owner's identity, a preliminary purchase and sale agreement, property valuation, property insurance, the applicant's financial situation, credit rating, income, and loan agreement. A passport application contains information about an individual, including proof of identity and any previously issued passports. A property insurance claim compiles information regarding the identity of the insured, the insured property, the insurance policy, the loss event, the property inspection, and the repair assessment. Corporate M&A document packages include company capitalization statements, employment agreements with founders, directors, officers and employees, intellectual property rights, option agreements, intellectual property and financial reports.

[0155] The same information object may contain the results of both the calculation process and the ICC process. For example, a financial report contains both the calculation results and the ICC results of a GAAP audit. Figure 65 shows the processing steps.

[0156] The execution of a process as a single entity. The processing stage of a vertical flow consists of the execution of a well-defined process and algorithm: a calculation with defined inputs, calculation steps, and outputs, or an ICC verification with defined inputs and requirements.

[0157] A key observation in the inventions disclosed herein is that process execution, whether by a machine (numerical calculation or data analysis) or a human (verification of ICC requirements), is an independent entity. A process is executed at a given time by a specific machine or set of machines, or by a human or set of humans, to produce a specific result, such as a new information object. Numerous social institutions exist to essentially create sworn testimony that attests to a process being performed based on specified inputs and resulting in a specified result. For example, an auditing firm attests to having performed an audit process (a specified ICC process), a bank employee attests to having verified a loan application (a specified ICC process), and a scientific report scientist attests to having performed data analysis and resulting in a specified result. These are all documented sworn testimony. As discussed below, existing shared information (hybrid shared information of written and digital documents) cannot reflect process execution, so affidavit-attached documents are used. However, one can imagine shared information capable of reflecting the events of software-based process execution.

[0158] Computation and ICC processes and their reflection. Both computation and ICC are algorithm-based tasks, but computation has been digitized, while ICC has not. It remains a human task. While computation has been digitized, it has not yet advanced enough to be treated as data and is not represented by information objects. For example, code execution events remain vague concepts, not formal objects that can be addressed or exchanged. ICC processes lag even further behind; their execution is not digitized and is performed by humans, not software. For reasons we will discuss later, the reality of information shared in documents is inherently inaccessible to machines, and the connections between information objects in the shared reality of documents are implicit. Therefore, currently, only humans can execute ICC processes. This explains, for example, why the end of accounting has not yet occurred, despite predictions.

[0159] Vertical Flow, Stage 4: Human-Readable Presentation The final stage of the vertical flow is to present and visualize the results in a human-readable format. Accounting reports, financial reports, insurance contract summaries, scientific reports, etc. are all examples of results presented in a human-readable format. The overarching goal of the vertical flow is cooperation, which is achieved when there is agreement on the results presented to the individuals who need to agree. Figure 4 shows an example of a human-readable result.

[0160] Facts. One of the goals of information exchange is to reach agreement, which makes cooperation possible. An agreed-upon information object is a fact. A fact is an object, a state, an event, or the result of a deductive reasoning process about which agreement has been reached. We often equate a fact with the information object that represents it. That is, a fact is an information object in a shared information reality about which agreement has been reached.

[0161] Properties of a Factual State. The factual state of an information object makes cooperation possible because the information it represents enters into a shared reality. How can we characterize this elevated status from the perspective of the information object it represents? 1. Permanent: An information object that can be stored indefinitely, if necessary, in case it needs to be presented to some interested third party at some unknown point in the future. 2. Communicable: A is an information object that can be presented and inspected by an interested third party. 3. Verifiable: The validity and authenticity of a fact defined within the context of a shared information reality can be verified by a third party inspecting the information object that represents it. 4. Immutable: Facts are immutable information objects, i.e., the content of a fact, and therefore the symbols on the information objects that represent it, do not change after they are created. 5. Authentic and Signed: The identity of the entity that created the information object is known, and it can be verified that the information object has not been altered since it was created by that entity. 6. Citable: The validity of a fact may depend on other underlying facts, or conversely, its validity may depend on other facts. Information objects that represent facts cite information objects that represent underlying facts in some way defined by a shared information reality.

[0162] A verified monitored information object is called a "monitored fact." Verifying a monitored information object means achieving agreement about that object, state, or event using symbols on the information object that represent that object, state, or event.

[0163] example: The title deed reflects the legal status of ownership. Verification of this document leads to agreement on the status of ownership. A real estate purchase and sale agreement reflects an event in financial reality. Its validation results in agreement regarding the event (e.g., sale, transaction, change of ownership). Water meter readings reflect the physical reality. Verification of these readings means agreement on the meter readings. A handwritten signature reflects a legal consent, an event in legal reality. Signature verification implies agreement by a person to the event of consent.

[0164] A verified inference information object is called an “inference fact.” The verification of an inference information object depends on the processing method used for the inference.

[0165] Validation of a computationally inferred information object implies agreement on the following: (i) the validity of the underlying information object (ii) the validity of the deductive reasoning process itself (iii) the correct application of inference processes to the underlying information objects

[0166] Examples of validation of computationally derived information objects: Corporate earnings reports report totals (annual, income), which are the result of applying arithmetic calculations to underlying documents (e.g., income and expense invoices and receipts). What is Profit and Loss Statement Verification? (i) reaching an agreement that the underlying invoices and receipts are valid, i.e., that they faithfully reflect all of the entity's revenue and expense financial events, as described above; (ii) reaching a consensus that the deductive reasoning process (arithmetic calculations, including accounting judgments and considerations) complies with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP); and (iii) Reaching a consensus that deductive reasoning has been correctly applied, i.e., that the arithmetic calculations have been performed correctly. The same applies to other financial statements, such as balance sheets.

[0167] U.S. federal tax returns report total tax dues resulting from complex calculations applied to underlying documents such as pay stubs, corporate dividend notices, expense claims, and prior year tax returns. What is tax return verification? (i) Reaching agreement that all underlying documents are valid. Some of them represent observed facts (such as invoices and dividend notices), and validating them means reaching agreement on reflected objects, conditions, or events, such as expense payments remitted or dividend payments received. Some of them represent inferred facts (such as prior year tax returns), and validating them means recursively applying the process described here. (ii) Achieving consensus that the deductive reasoning process (tax calculation) is an arithmetic calculation, including accounting judgments (such as which expenses are tax deductible) and applicable tax rates, that supports tax laws and their interpretations and rulings. (iii) Achieving consensus that the deductive reasoning process has been applied correctly, i.e., that the calculation of tax amounts, including arithmetic calculations and tax rate ranges, has been performed correctly.

[0168] Scientific reports may report the results of complex deductive reasoning processes, i.e., statistical analyses performed by running computer code applied to experimentally observed data. The verification of the conclusion of a paper often involves the verification of inferred facts, i.e. (i) To reach consensus on the underlying observations; (ii) to reach a consensus on the statistical methods applied and their precise implementation in computer code; (iii) reaching a consensus that the computer code was accurately executed and applied to the underlying data; It comes down to:

[0169] Validation of Information Objects Inferred by the ICC: An ICC derived Information Object summarizes or repeats the information of other referenced Information Objects. It is a package that contains references to existing Information Objects. Validation of such information objects means: (i) verification of all referenced information objects; (ii) verifying the accuracy of applicable consistency and compliance requirements; (iii) It means verification that the requirements have actually been met. Most bureaucratic forms are of this type.

[0170] Many important institutions fundamental to modern civilization have evolved out of the need to verify the ICC's information objects before they become accepted as facts and shared reality. Bureaucracy presupposes the need for people to review documents and groups of documents for compliance and conformance with certain rules. Audits presuppose the need for people to review financial documents for compliance and conformance.

[0171] example: A mortgage application summarizes information about the applied for loan, such as the property to be purchased, the current property owner, the current owner's identity, a tentative purchase and sale agreement, property valuation, property insurance, the applicant's financial situation, credit rating and income, loan agreement, etc. Consistency and compliance requirements include consistency of person and property identities on different documents, appropriate loan-to-value ratios, appropriate income-to-payment ratios, etc. A passport application compiles information about an individual, including proof of identity, previously issued passports, etc. Consistency and compliance requirements include, for example, passport eligibility. A property insurance claim form compiles information about the identity of the insured, the insured property, the insurance policy, the loss event, the property inspection and repair appraisal, etc. Consistency and compliance requirements include consistency of the identity of the person and the property across various documents. A corporate M&A document package may include corporate cap tables, employment agreements with founders, directors, officers and employees, intellectual property rights, option agreements, intellectual property, financial reports, etc. Consistency and compliance requirements include, for example, best practices in contracts with employees, customers and service providers, compliance with cap tables and stock issuance resolutions, etc.

[0172] Documented Facts Shared Reality. For example, let's evaluate whether and how a documented shared reality system meets the five factual criteria above. 1. Permanence Information on a document survives as long as all copies remain physically alive. 2. Transmission The transmission of information, the exchange or presentation of facts, is accomplished by the physical exchange of documents, for example, sending paper documents by post or courier. 3. Verification To verify the information in a document, a person must read the document and evaluate its logic. If the facts depend on other documents, those documents must also be physically obtained and verified. 4. Immutability The documented facts remain unchanged. 5. Signature and Authenticity As mentioned above, versions of document-shared reality have existed before. In the days when only a few people could read and write (such as scribes working with scrolls), written scrolls were true. Because writing was difficult and expensive, written documents were considered authentic. As more people gained the ability to write, simply having something written was no longer enough. Signatures were added to verify identity and provide authenticity: a "written signature" was true. With the invention of the printing press and typewriter, a "printed signature" became true. The key principle here is that if a document is difficult to forge, it is considered authentic. Documents contain implicit proofs of work, and if they are reasonably difficult to create, such as printing or signing, then the document is considered authentic and true. 6. Quote Crucially, there is no standard way to cite documents or facts within documents. Some conventions exist, for example, books and articles are cited by publisher, publication name, and publication year. However, most documents, such as contracts, diplomas, licenses, and prescriptions, cannot be cited uniquely and unambiguously.

[0173] How do you verify information in a document-shared reality system? Importantly, because information in a document-shared reality system is only accessible to humans, verification is necessarily a human task.

[0174] Facts in a document-digital hybrid document shared reality.Compare the characteristics of facts in a document-digital hybrid shared reality. 1. Persistence. If all digital copies are stored on some form of digital storage, the information on the document will remain alive. 2. Transmission. Transmission of a digital document is possible only by copying it onto a computer network or digital storage media. All copies are equally original; there is no special original copy. Presentation of a digital document occurs through a user interface. 3. Verification. To verify the information in a document, the document must be read and the inferences evaluated. If the facts depend on other documents, those documents must also be digitally retrieved and verified. 4. Immutability. Digital documents are nearly as easy to alter and edit. Using home information technology, they can be edited or forged much more easily than paper documents. 5. Signature and authenticity. Although digital documents can be signed electronically, ensuring the authenticity of their contents and the identity of their creator, this is not a mainstream social norm regarding the information they share. Instead, digital documents in use today are much easier to forge than physical documents and are signed with the graphical equivalent of a handwritten signature, such as "print, sign, scan," scribbled on a graphic pad, or using a credit card at the cash register. 6. Quote Crucially, there is no uniform way to cite digital documents: although some digital documents are assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), digital documents in general cannot be cited any more clearly and unambiguously than physical documents.

[0175] Consideration: Two axes of current state of the art The two axes of information exchange provide a unified framework for describing and analyzing all information exchange in society and explain many of the institutions and processes of society, government, and business.

[0176] A "horizontal section" along the vertical level of information objects. Moving horizontally along the vertical level of information objects, we find various stakeholders, each of whom stores information objects. To achieve collaboration (part of the fact-exchange cycle) and to derive insights from the combination of information objects owned by different stakeholders, stakeholders must exchange these information objects in arm's length transactions. It is interesting to examine the mechanisms of horizontal information exchange at this level. This includes various exchanges: physical documents, digital documents, digital files, email, and interactions via the World Wide Web. Most arm's length exchanges are performed using documents. Even if each stakeholder stores information individually in digital files, the files are exported to documents, the documents are exchanged, and the recipient imports the documents into their digital file system. See "Digital Fragmentation" below.

[0177] "Horizontal division" along the vertical level of processing Moving horizontally along the vertical level of processing, the current state of the art does not allow direct information exchange between parties to an arm's length price at the level of the processing itself. Indeed, given the current shared information reality, parties cannot directly exchange information about the execution events of processing steps (calculations or ICCs). Instead, information is exchanged, usually in the form of documents, with affidavits prepared by the parties who performed the processing. Typical examples of this include scientific reports and financial reports signed by external auditors.

[0178] "Horizontal sections" are created along the vertical levels of presented results. Moving horizontally along the vertical levels of presented results, one can see that, in the current state of the art, direct exchange of process results is rare. Instead, descriptions of the results are written down and exchanged at arm's length prices. For example, the results of a statistical analysis are exchanged by conveying a verbal description of the procedures performed and a verbal description of the results obtained. The results themselves (e.g., in the form of a digital file) are not exchanged. A notable exception is spreadsheets. When spreadsheets (not verbal descriptions of the spreadsheets) are exchanged, the actual arithmetic procedures performed and the actual results are exchanged.

[0179] Across the information flow along two axes, achieving consensus and cooperation Fact Exchange Cycle. To reach consensus and achieve cooperation, various independent stakeholders follow a procedure called the Fact Exchange Cycle. Because various stakeholders are involved, the Fact Exchange Cycle traverses horizontal (between stakeholders) information flows, and also vertical information flows, because fact verification involves examining various vertical flow stages.

[0180] In the first stage of the fact exchange cycle, stakeholders create information objects. These objects can be observed information objects that reflect real-world objects, states, or events, or inferred information objects that contain the results of processing applied to other information objects. The creators of information objects are called "fact providers."

[0181] In the second stage of the fact exchange cycle, the fact provider communicates the information object to another stakeholder (called the "fact receiver"). These two parties are interested in reaching agreement on the information object, i.e., establishing that it represents a fact. Therefore, either the fact receiver will try to verify the information object or the fact provider will try to prove its validity.

[0182] A key constraint shaping the fact exchange cycle is that the identity of the ultimate fact recipient is not known in advance, and typically not at the time of the creation of the information object. Conventions governing the use of shared information entities are intended to solve precisely this problem. For example, a court receiving a signed contract can assess its validity even if the contract was not disclosed to the court at the time of its creation. Or, a potential landlord wanting to verify a potential tenant's income documentation can consult previous pay stubs printed by past employers, even if the tenant obviously did not present them at the time of payment.

[0183] As mentioned above ("Monitored Information Objects" and "Inferred Information Objects"), the verification of information objects is a formal procedure. For inferred information objects, it is essentially vertical, requiring the identification, access, and verification of the underlying information objects from the stakeholders who own or store them.

[0184] Detailed background on digital integration along two axes of information flow We have proposed the term "digital integration" to describe one of the processes underlying digital transformation: the gradual unification of interfaces, formats, digital accessibility, citation ability, and interconnectivity of digital information across all stakeholders in the information society and at all stages of information collection, processing, and presentation. Digital integration is best understood along two axes: information exchange.

[0185] Cross-stakeholder ("horizontal") digital integration refers to a fully digital, shared information reality in which information objects (monitored and inferred) exist permanently, have clear owners, and are permanently accessible through a unified interface to independent stakeholders with access permissions.

[0186] An early example of cross-stakeholder digital integration (the vertical level of information objects) was provided by the World Wide Web. Information (digital file formats) from various stakeholders suddenly became available through a uniform interface in HTTP and through a uniform set of digital formats (HTML and MIME types). The invention of HTML and stable web addresses (URLs) made explicit citation along the horizontal axis possible: an information object (web page) owned by one stakeholder could explicitly cite another information object owned by another stakeholder. The result was the modern search engine, which provides an unprecedented level of insight.

[0187] This was only possible when information from many stakeholders was integrated and made available for software processing.

[0188] Horizontal digital integration has not yet been achieved along the vertical level of processing, which would allow processes (calculation events and ICC validation events) performed by different stakeholders to be accessed through a uniform interface.

[0189] Also, horizontal digital integration along the vertical level of results presented has not yet been achieved. For comparison, results on paper can be exchanged between independent parties. In fact, a document is a uniform user interface. In contrast, there is currently no uniform interface for exchanging human-readable results in digital form. That's why, for example, annual financial reports are still presented in paper form, and there is no such thing as a website. If such integration were achieved, results presented in human-readable form by various stakeholders would be accessible through a uniform interface.

[0190] Horizontal digital integration along the three vertical levels of artificial intelligence (AI) will unlock astronomical value in training AI models and deriving insights from digital information. AI and machine learning models require large amounts of high-quality training information. Horizontal digital integration will enable the creation of cross-stakeholder datasets for training a wide range of AI.

[0191] Source-to-user ("vertical") digital integration means a fully digitized shared information reality in which the vertical flows, i.e., inferred information objects from monitored information objects and the processes used to infer them, and links from inferred information objects to human-readable visual representations, are explicitly published in digital form.

[0192] The integration of steps along the vertical information flow, from the acquisition of objects, states and events, to their representation as digital information objects, to the processing of collections of information objects, to the display of the processing results in a user interface, all stages of the vertical information flow and their interconnections are made available on a unified interface, for example, making executed computational processes available on a unified interface, explicitly identifying the information objects to which the processes were applied, explicitly identifying the results of the computational processes, and explicitly linking the results to any display on the user interface.

[0193] Such integration would allow efficient and comprehensive verification of information exchanged by human users, and many aspects of medical billing, taxes, business accounting, auditing, and legal work would be handled by software.

[0194] Elements integrated along vertical flows. Digital integration requires the integration of various elements along vertical flows of information exchange. The current state of the art rarely considers these elements as part of a single whole. However, this holistic perspective is essential for vertical integration. 1. Identity is a unique identifier for a person, legal entity, organization, or physical object. In vertical integration, every identity (physical or legal entity object) must correspond to a unique digital object. For people, legal entities, and organizations, identity objects include cryptographic information that can unambiguously and uniquely identify the person / organization, such as secret passwords, cryptographic keys, and / or biometric information. For physical entities, identity objects include, where possible, information that uniquely corresponds to the physical entity, such as serial numbers, MAC addresses, etc. 2. User interface refers to the means by which a computing system interacts with a human user in physical reality. This includes devices that authenticate users, i.e., obtain identification credentials from human users, and devices that perform biometric measurements. It also includes devices that display and present information to human users and / or obtain user input. This includes screens, mobile devices, cell phones, credit cards, fixed or mobile biometric scanners, small biometric scanners, biometric scanners integrated into other systems, touchscreens, keyboards, gesture pads, smart watches, etc. In some embodiments, a user interface can have a corresponding unique identity digital object that includes a means for uniquely identifying it. In this specification, a user interface does not necessarily have to be a computing device. For example, a piece of paper, a physical object that can display information, can be considered a user interface (and may also have a unique identifier). It is important to distinguish between the representation of information on an information object and the information itself. For example, a particular representation may represent combined information from multiple different information objects, or it may represent selected partial information from an information object. 3. A physical interface is a means by which a computing system interacts with physical reality. This includes sensors, measuring devices, cameras, and other analog and digital input devices. It also includes controllers, digital or analog switches, and other output devices. In some embodiments, a physical interface can have an identity that is a unique digital object that includes a means to uniquely identify it. 4. An interaction is a specific exchange of information in close physical space between two interfaces. The exchange of information is based on physical contact (e.g., touching a screen), the exchange of short-range wireless signals (e.g., Bluetooth handshake), the exchange of acoustic signals, the exchange of visual signals (e.g., scanning a QR code), or other means of short-range physical information exchange. It may be exchanged between two user interfaces when two people meet and exchange information, or between two user interfaces when a person interacts with a representation of a fact displayed on a user interface via a personal identification device. It may also be exchanged between a user interface and a physical interface, such as when passing identifying information from a personal identification device (user interface) to a door lock (physical interface). Every interaction corresponds to a unique digital object that records, among other things, the identities of the interfaces involved in the interaction. 5. Code execution is the unique act of executing a particular computer program or computed code on a particular computer, computing platform, computing device, or distributed computing system with particular inputs to produce particular outputs and / or commands to a user interface and / or commands to a physical interface. An execution is represented by a collection of unique digital objects. Different executions of a program correspond to different executed digital objects. For example, if the same computer program is run twice with the exact same inputs and produces the exact same outputs, there will be two different executed digital objects. 6. Machine-readable information consistency and compliance requirements are computer programs and / or machine-readable code that specify the consistency, compliance, or acceptability of a process or information. For example, the conditions for a legally binding contract to be properly signed and legally effective can be specified as a protocol. Also, a loan application must include or reference a list of required supporting information, such as proof of income and identification documents, or a company's annual financial report must be valid in accordance with GAAP and include or reference a list of required supporting information, such as financial statements, issued and collected invoices, bank statements, etc.

[0195] The Promise of Full (Two-Axis) Digital Integration. We have characterized the end state of digital transformation and observed that the path to this end state is a series of digital integration events. What can we say about the path to the end state of digital transformation, i.e., the next major digital integration event? Figure 5 depicts the irreversible trajectory of digital integration.

[0196] Digital integration across both axes of information exchange will bring about a world in which measurements, user interface interactions, digital representations of objects, states, and events, the computations used to process digital information, and the results of these computations and the presentation of information on user interfaces are all unified under a single, coherent information technology discipline. This will create and enable markets, products, and services that transcend the limits of our current imagination. This is no exaggeration to assert. Indeed, the impact of the Google search engine, and the integration of the Internet and the World Wide Web more generally, is a daily reality today. However, it far exceeds the limits of our daily imagination in 1980. Horizontal integration will enable insights to be extracted from the world's digital information. Vertical integration will enable automated validation and dramatically more efficient collaboration. The outcome of horizontal and vertical integration will be the capture of all objects, states, and events in digital information objects; all the processing applied to those digital information objects and their interdependencies and interconnections; and all the presentations of those information objects in user interfaces—all of these will become organized, software-accessible digital footprints.

[0197] Figure 6 illustrates horizontal and vertical information flows using different shared information realities. Information flow between stakeholders (horizontal) and from source to user (vertical) can occur using a variety of shared information realities, such as a document shared information reality 604, a hybrid shared information reality 603, a digital (file-based) shared information reality 602, or a unique digital reality (UDR) 601, which will be described later.

[0198] Software and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Through digital integration along two axes, horizontal and collaborative, products, services, and capabilities in the field of AI and machine learning include: "Data responsibility" - Which training data caused the model test to fail? Demonstration of reasonable precautions – demonstrating to regulators and courts that a particular AI model or software has been tested and that specific results were observed in that testing. Proof of Know-How - Proving for intellectual property law purposes that some code ran and passed tests at some point in the past. Regulating the training and testing of software systems and AI models - Proving to regulators that regulatory-mandated testing has been conducted and passed. Hypothesis testing - what would have happened if the model that produced these results had been trained on a different training set? Data Experience – Allows stakeholders to train AI models on their datasets and get assurance that those datasets were actually used. Compute Marketplace – a marketplace for certified, trained AI models. Data refinement – ​​a marketplace for certified high-quality datasets that have undergone specific pre-processing stages and passed specific tests.

[0199] Fundamental challenges in digital integration What makes digital integration possible? Here are some examples of the difficult problems we must address before we reach the end state of digital transformation: where information flows, verification is performed, trust is evident, and knowledge is created. 1. How do we create something digital – a permanent digital object whose content and ownership are agreed upon? 2.2.How do we think about physical interaction between two people, or between a person and a user interface, legal interaction, interaction in the reality of information technology, interaction as a permanent fact? 3. How do you automate the verification of information? 4. How do we represent interactions, identity, code execution events, and information compliance and consistency verification events in digital form? 5. How do we integrate digital information objects with the user interfaces that display them? 6. How can knowledge be automatically extracted from a collection of human-readable reports?

[0200] There are no good answers to these questions in the current state of the art, and most questions currently have no answers at all.

[0201] Detailed background on digital fragmentation in the state of the art Fragmentation vs. Integration. There are two opposing processes along the digital transformation trajectory: digital integration and digital fragmentation. Broadly speaking, digital fragmentation is the process by which digital assets become siloed, complex, difficult to access, and less uniform. User interfaces, software interfaces, and formats become more specific. Stakeholders find it harder to communicate through digital information exchange. Friction increases in the flow of information. Communication becomes unclear. Software access to information, especially between parties, becomes more difficult. Audit trails and information sources become increasingly obscured, making them difficult to clearly cite. The digital universe is divided into "walled gardens" that cannot communicate with each other. Data sources become less provenance and clear. Audit trail recovery becomes more like a forensic activity. There is an increasing reliance on documents as the primary means of establishing collaboration, on manual processes as the primary means of verifying information, and on manual processes as the primary means of deriving insights from information.

[0202] Through the concept of digital fragmentation, the benefits of a "unique digital reality" described below can be more clearly evoked as an enabler of digital integration and ultimately as the end state of digital transformation.

[0203] Digital Fragmentation. The vision of a fully digital world in 2021 is far from reality. In fact, today, exchanging information is a daily struggle. Information is exchanged using a mixture of physical media (paper documents, photo albums, certificates, books) and various digital media. From an individual's perspective, they do not own their digital information, nor do they know who owns it. While the value of data has been proven beyond doubt, concepts and abstractions that enable a serious public discussion of data citizenship have yet to be conceived. For internet and personal computing consumers, their digital information is fragmented across a vast number of services, identities, applications, platforms, social networks, healthcare service providers, government agencies, cloud storage services, devices, and digital formats.

[0204] From old personal photos to medical records to credit card transactions, the world's trove of personal information is vast, growing by the minute, and completely unmanageable. Images uploaded to closed social network groups are everywhere and nowhere once they're uploaded. They're never erased, uncontrollable, and could come back to haunt us 20 years from now. How do we safely and securely protect our digital information? Who owns it? Where is it? Who uses it and how? What are they authorized to do with it, and what can they do without? Can the government use it? What happens in the event of a disaster or hack? Do I know where my data backups are, who has access to them, and how secure are they? What are the risks? Will I still be able to access all my digital information 20 years from now if existing file formats become outdated, online storage service providers go out of business or simply discontinue their services, or healthcare providers change their websites? I don't know.

[0205] In our society, individuals and organizations spend so much time exchanging information via email attachments, printing, signing, and scanning documents, filing tax returns, managing and tracking finances, dealing with bureaucracy, and filling out and sending out forms. We essentially carry information on our shoulders. Some of us—lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats—literally carry information all day, every day. Often, we transport information in hard copy or PDF form from one computer system to another. This is because the two computer systems at either end of the process cannot digitally communicate with each other. Information does not flow automatically like electricity on a power grid. It does not flow seamlessly from one system to the next like electricity flows from a socket. Information requires constant maintenance, management, transportation, organization, processing, and care.

[0206] From an individual perspective, the information landscape is constantly becoming unmanageable. From the perspective of businesses and governments, the situation is no better. Businesses and governments exist on the basis of information exchange. A huge amount of human labor is expended organizing, verifying, presenting, cross-validating, formatting, and protecting information. Consumers of information, from news readers to tax authorities, must constantly worry about the validity of the information presented to them. It is difficult to distinguish unverified or false information from verified, properly verified information. It is sometimes downright impossible to distinguish reliable, rigorously verified information from complete fabrications. Even when information is verified and confirmed, the exact verification procedures remain partially or sometimes completely unclear. It is widely recognized that data is an immensely valuable resource, but unlike other resources (e.g., oil), there are no standards for data quality control, data cleansing procedures, or data ownership. Machine learning and artificial intelligence systems rely heavily on the quality of the data used for training, but their performance is not clearly linked to these training data. Finally, the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) systems remains largely untapped. AI systems are software systems that draw conclusions and generalizations from large amounts of information. For example, they learn to recognize human faces by processing large numbers of facial images. Today, information is so fragmented that, with the exception of AI systems developed by large multinational internet companies, most AI systems are trained primarily on corporate-curated datasets, specialized for very specific tasks. Pervasive AI—systems that can draw broad conclusions from a wide variety of interlinked sources—remains largely elusive. Figure 7 shows the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

[0207] We call this situation "digital fragmentation." The processes of digital integration and digital fragmentation are the two fundamentally opposing processes that constitute digital transformation. Digital fragmentation is a natural first stage of the digital transformation process and a corollary of the fact that the digital information revolution has, in fact, only recently begun and is developing at an explosive pace. Within the broader framework of society, the economy, government, and business, few sectors are significantly further along in their digital transformation process. An example of such a sector is the trading of financial instruments (stocks, commodities, futures) traded on exchanges. In most other sectors, ad hoc, idiosyncratic, and therefore preliminary and provisional, digital transformations are underway.

[0208] This general process of digital fragmentation, an early stage in the larger trajectory of digital transformation, is characterized by a specific dominant paradigm for digital information collection and use. This paradigm emphasizes unique storage systems, software systems for humans rather than machines, a conception of information technology that prioritizes software-accessible interfaces, unique identity and access control systems, unique formats, and unique user interfaces. Each organization determines its own standards for storage, identity management, access control, digital formats, and user interfaces. Each application stores digital information in silos in inaccessible storage in proprietary formats. Each entity monopolizes its unique data and hides it from the world. The economic value of data is mostly extracted by individual organizations that protect and monopolize their unique databases. With the exception of the World Wide Web and some scientific databases, stakeholders generally do not analyze information and derive insights from it across separate platforms and systems.

[0209] In the digital fragmentation paradigm, digital information is characterized by its ability to be instantly and costlessly replicated. As a result, data is here and there, but nowhere. Once leaked onto a public network by a hacker, data is instantly replicated throughout cyberspace and can never be erased, owned, or controlled. In digital fragmentation, digital information is not a thing. It has no tangible existence anywhere, and it can never be completely erased. It cannot be deterministically owned, sold, or rented; it can be accumulated and used (or misused) by entities other than its original creator or rightful owner, against their interests and wishes.

[0210] A major consequence of the current dominant paradigm in information technology is that the reliable exchange of digital information between independent parties is a laborious, error-prone, and fraud-prone manual process. Information technology design principles digitize information in ways that simply prevent the seamless flow of authenticated information or automated software-based verification.

[0211] A significant consequence of digital fragmentation is the impossibility of explicit and unambiguous cross-referencing or cross-citation between documents and information hosted by different, separate entities. As discussed below, this is a primary cause of horizontal and vertical digital fragmentation. Consequently, as any audit accountant knows, verifying information whose validity depends on other unavailable information or information residing on another platform is impossible or requires manual forensic work to reconstruct the audit trail. Data is legally and practically owned and controlled by the platform, not its creator, originator, or rightful owner. Tracking audit trails and digital provenance across platform boundaries is impossible, either computationally or automatically, because each platform has its own unique identity management, addressing system, and APIs, and the information can become unavailable at the whim of the platform owner—for example, if the platform goes out of business or is compromised by a cyberattack.

[0212] The result can only be described as "digital paralysis." The exponential advances in information technology that have characterized the past 30 years have not translated into greater ease in processing and verifying information. In fact, the situation in this regard appears to be worsening as the number of platforms, providers, formats, and identity systems increases. Digital fragmentation has meant that some of the great promises of the Information Age—such as bureaucracy, legal interactions, financial reporting, and audits—have yet to be realized.

[0213] Let's take an example. Consider filing a tax return. A taxpayer's goal is to exchange information about their income and expenses with government tax authorities, after which their tax liability is calculated and certified. Many documents are involved: pay slips, invoices, withholding tax certificates, etc. To exchange information with the government, the taxpayer gathers all the necessary documents, fills them out, performs the calculations, and submits it all. This is one side of the information exchange. On the other side of the information exchange, government officials verify the collection of documents and forms and ensure the taxpayer is paying the correct amount of tax. How is this information object (a "tax return") created? What preparation is required, and how much does it cost? How is the information presented and submitted? How is the information verified by both the taxpayer and the government? What happens if an error is detected? We are so accustomed to the everyday routine of this information exchange that we rarely think about it.

[0214] To create an information object, you gather documents. You keep track of them and make sure you can find them (either paper documents or scans of digital documents) while hoping you haven't lost them. Next, you extract information from the documents, for example, extracting monthly income from a pay slip. To send / exchange the information, you mail the set of documents, either physically or electronically, to the correct government address. You hope it's the right address. You hope the delivery arrives. You hope it doesn't get lost somewhere. And so on. After that, you perform any necessary calculations and fill out forms. You must enter the information accurately, ensuring that the names and numbers on the forms match those on the attached documents. Meanwhile, validation involves a government official verifying this consistency. And so on.

[0215] How much does this transaction cost? It takes time for me, it's complicated, and I sometimes hire an accountant. It takes time for government officials. So, this transaction costs resources, time, and money on both sides.

[0216] What's interesting is that this entire interaction is purely algorithmic. When I collect documents, fill out forms, and perform calculations, I follow simple, fully specified algorithms. And on the verification side, government officials follow fully specified algorithms. So why isn't this interaction automated? Why does it continue to be so expensive and difficult that I often rely on experts? Understanding what has prevented us from automating this work offers fundamental insights into the exchange of information in our civilization.

[0217] The first barrier to automation is our existing conception of documents, both physical and digital, which leads to a lack of software accessibility and a lack of clear digital citation capabilities.

[0218] A second barrier to automation is the lack of machine-readable instructions for verification and validation.

[0219] A third barrier to automation is the ad hoc social protocols that govern how information is presented to stakeholders.

[0220] Digital fragmentation is a failure of imagination. It is hard to escape the conclusion that our lack of imagination in designing and building digital information systems has led to the current situation of radical digital fragmentation. Indeed, digital fragmentation is caused by a lack of imagination, not by technological impediments. The core design principles of current information technology systems—networking, encryption, storage, end-user devices, and interfaces—are fundamentally absent, making digital fragmentation inevitable. As a whole, we are failing to utilize information technology in the most efficient way. Digital fragmentation is the result of the rapid and explosive progress of early digital transformation and market incentives that keep it in a local minimum. While unifying events like the emergence of the World Wide Web are irreversible, market incentives keep the industry fragmented and in limbo for years to come. Business models built on digital fragmentation and market incentives have essentially trapped the entire information technology industry in a local minimum.

[0221] As the next step in digital transformation, digital integration requires a rethinking of how we use currently available information technologies and how we use computers, computer networks and human-computer interfaces in social processes based on information exchange.

[0222] Part of digital fragmentation is due to our inability to explicitly reflect the relationships, states, and events between objects in different layers of reality. We use documents to cross the gaps between different fragments and communicate information between them. This means that in a mixed digital and documented reality, we have no choice but to rely on documents to share our shared reality. And documents do not do a good job of capturing the relationships and connections between objects, which cannot be expressed digitally.

[0223] Consider, for example, the copy-and-paste operation. Copying and pasting between digital documents is both a major cause and symptom of digital fragmentation. When copying and pasting occurs, the connection between the source information object (where the "copy" occurs) and the target information object (where the "paste" occurs) is broken. As another example, consider that every time information available in a rich digital format is printed onto a physical or digital document, the connection between the digital information and the user interface (paper) that presents it in a human-readable format is broken. Every time a document is printed, signed, and scanned, the quality of the information is significantly reduced. In other words, we transform information from a rich digital format into a bitmap (a scanned signed document) in which the information content, the signer's identity, and the signing event are inaccessible to machines.

[0224] In a unified digital reality, everything is given a unique identifier, so anything (any symbol pointing to any object in any reality) can be uniquely referenced from anywhere, and connections and relationships can be easily expressed. In other words, a unified digital reality is revolutionary in its ability to explicitly express relationships between referenced objects with symbols that have never been expressed before.

[0225] An example of digital fragmentation. Identity Fragmentation: In today's digital identity fragmentation, individuals prove their identity to multiple service providers using multiple usernames / passwords. Individuals also have multiple identity cards, such as driver's licenses, employee ID cards, membership cards, multiple customer clubs, identity cards, access cards, etc.

[0226] This is also true from an entity perspective: each entity holds a separate digital representation of its users / customers / citizens. Each entity's user database and identification mechanisms are all separate.

[0227] When identity theft occurs, recovery is a complex process. Identity fragmentation also means that there is no simple, clear protocol when identity theft occurs.

[0228] Fragmented payment methods: Today, individuals have multiple credit cards to prove their financial identity to merchants, as well as multiple other payment methods, such as PayPal accounts, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

[0229] Fragmented Financial Information. An individual's financial information is potentially scattered across many entities: all the banks where the individual has (or has had) bank accounts, investment companies, pension funds, mutual funds, brokerage firms, federal and state tax agencies, etc. Each of these institutions maintains accounts for the same individual, based on their own private information. This prevents individuals from easily creating a complete personal financial profile, forces them to manage multiple accounts simultaneously, and prevents them from directly exchanging financial information between the institutions where accounts are held. While information is stored digitally at each institution, it must be exchanged using paper documents or digital (PDF) versions of account statements, balance sheets, and other forms.

[0230] Fragmentation of Medical Information. Currently, an individual's medical information, including medical records, test results, medical imaging scans, medical opinions, medical visit histories, treatment and hospitalization histories, prescriptions and medications, is scattered across many computing systems, including various hospitals, clinics, HMOs, doctors' offices, and health insurance companies. Individuals have no control over or ownership of their medical information. Individuals cannot directly prevent its use for research purposes, nor can they voluntarily provide all of their medical information for any purpose. An individual's medical information is not an asset that can be transferred by bequeathing, cashing out, selling, renting, or otherwise.

[0231] Fragmentation of personal digital information. Personal and corporate information is stored fragmented across multiple providers. The following are some of the entities and platforms that store personal information of individuals or organizations: Google Docs, Microsoft 365, Apple iCloud, Dropbox, Box, local files on multiple computers, multiple smartphones and other mobile devices, electronic document vaults, Facebook, SAP, Amazon, bank accounts, PayPal, Apple Pay, and multiple other payment systems, credit card companies, WhatsApp, Slack, Messenger, investment management accounts, HMO accounts, multiple calendar accounts, and multiple email accounts from Google, Apple, Yahoo, etc. Each of these locations uses a unique identity management system, with a unique user interface and unique APIs (if any).

[0232] Fragmentation of Artificial Intelligence. Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems are trained on massive datasets to perform specific tasks, such as facial recognition, speech recognition, speech generation, and natural language translation. These systems are fragmented in the sense that they are trained on datasets stored separately on fragmented systems and privately owned by separate entities. Similarly, the trained AI systems are also fragmented.

[0233] Fragmentation of software services: The proliferation of software services with essentially identical functionality, such as ride-sharing (Uber, Lyft), video conferencing (Zoom, Skype, Webex, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Amazon Chime), etc.

[0234] Information usage patterns in digital fragmentation Any attempt to analyze and understand the current stage in the trajectory of digital transformation, i.e., the state of the technological state, must take into account both the technical aspects, e.g., the current state of information technology, and the human usage pattern aspects, e.g., the societal agreements and usage patterns that govern how information technology is used to exchange information and achieve cooperation.

[0235] On the technical side, the fundamental properties of digital files - they are easily copied, not unique, impossible to own, easily altered, and not uniquely and universally addressable - impose severe constraints on usage patterns and social norms for human collaboration through the exchange of digital files.

[0236] In terms of usage patterns, it is crucial to recognize that usage patterns and social agreements for information exchange based on physical documents, pen signatures, and wax seals have developed over millennia, while existing corresponding usage patterns based on digital information exchange have developed over only a few decades to a few decades. More specifically, existing usage patterns and social agreements have been subjected to rapid and ad hoc adaptations to the rapid advances in digital information technology, which have replaced other means of communication and information exchange almost overnight on a historical timescale.

[0237] From the IBM personal computer of the 1980s (with a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive and no network interface) to the 5G mobile broadband internet of the 2020s (connecting large-scale industrial cloud computing facilities with billions of high-performance multicore computing devices), 40 years in the making seems like a long way in terms of technology. However, the human usage patterns and social consensus that determine how these technologies are used to exchange information cannot evolve and adapt so rapidly. Numerous ad hoc responses have led to current common usage patterns and social consensus, best described as a chaotic amalgam of different usage patterns and social consensus, resulting in information chaos unparalleled in history. And the information exchange process that follows these consensuses is fraught with confusion, inefficiency, and distrust. For example, the ad hoc communication methods used to verify coronavirus test results and immunity certificates during the Covid-19 pandemic are intriguing. These include scraps of paper with handwritten signatures, printed documents, smartphone apps, website screenshots, and signed digital documents. In the absence of clear social norms for the trusted exchange of digital information, all sorts of methods are being used. We are witnessing the biblical myth of the Tower of Babylon becoming a global reality. While everything is becoming digital at a ferocious and exponentially accelerating pace, social norms regarding the exchange, trust, and social processes that enable this new digital information have not kept pace. Individuals, communities, and governments are struggling to understand what is happening as new information technologies—and even more so, new usage patterns and social agreements—emerge faster than we can blink.

[0238] Inefficiencies due to digital fragmentation. Digital fragmentation leads to inefficiencies and distrust. It also hinders data ownership and privacy, and prevents us from even imagining the next generation of digital transformation based on shared digital information. Below are some examples of inefficiencies caused by widespread digital fragmentation: Inefficiency: Facts cannot be exchanged, accessed, or automatically verified by software. Digital fragmentation also prevents information from being reused: data collected by one service cannot be used by another and must be collected and stored multiple times. · Distrust: Digital fragmentation makes it virtually impossible to obtain the chain of provenance of facts, leading to a lack of transparency and distrust. No concept of data ownership: Personal information collected from individuals is stored in multiple isolated and often private databases that cannot be queried externally. True data privacy is impossible because numerous private companies hold individuals' personal information. Impossibility of realizing a shared digital reality: Importantly, under the current state of technology, i.e., the digital fragmentation paradigm, pieces of digital information are not things: they have no universal identity and cannot be uniquely referenced, cited, exchanged, etc.

[0239] Here, we use the terms "data" and "digital information" synonymously. Data is not persistent. There is no guarantee that it will be stored in an unchanging state forever. · Data is inaccessible. Due to the fragmented storage method, there is no way to access information that exists only on one entity's private storage system. · The data does not have a unique identifier. Data cannot be cited. Data does not support ownership. As a result, private companies and governments can accumulate personal information without being able to attribute that information to its owner. Data cannot be tracked or monetized by its rightful owner / creator. Data has no inherent validity. Establishing the validity and reliability of information requires effort, often manual work.

[0240] Figure 8 shows the characteristics of data at the current state of technology. At the current state of technology, our society struggles with questions such as: · Why can't I own my data? And who owns it? · Who has access to my personal information and data about me? ·Which news stories on social media are fake? Since almost everyone has access to professional-level photo editing software, how can you trust the content of the images and PDF documents you are presented with?

[0241] Horizontal Digital Fragmentation. Similar to digital integration, the reverse process of digital fragmentation is best understood along two axes of information exchange: horizontally, between stakeholders, and vertically, from source to user.

[0242] Horizontal digital fragmentation is a process that limits the possibilities for digital information exchange between different (internal) software systems belonging to individual stakeholders and between independent stakeholders. In complete horizontal digital fragmentation, information cannot be exchanged in a machine-readable format but must be converted into a human-readable format, such as a document. In this case, a human reads a document created in one system and manually enters it into the user interface of another system, so digital information does not flow between systems; rather, it is carried between systems by a human on his or her shoulders. Before the invention of water pipes and channels, people had to carry water on their backs rather than letting it flow. This is the current state of horizontal digital fragmentation. Figure 9 illustrates horizontal digital fragmentation in a two-axis diagram. Stakeholder 903 owns digital information 901 and is interested in transmitting it to another stakeholder 904. In horizontal digital fragmentation, this is impossible because stakeholder 903's digital system is isolated from stakeholder 904's system. Therefore, stakeholder 903 must convert (and downgrade) the information they are transferring into a physical document or PDF document 902. Stakeholder 904 receives the document and then must convert the information into a digital format in their own system, converting the human-readable information in the document into a machine-readable format.

[0243] Communication Inefficiencies - Horizontal Digital Fragmentation: Because storage systems are separate and unique, and storage formats are also unique, companies often cannot exchange information digitally between each other, despite each company having exclusive use of digital information storage. As a result, to communicate information, it must first be converted from digital to paper (or PDF) format. Information is communicated in paper (or PDF) documents, and then imported into the digital format used by the receiving company. The latter is very difficult to automate with software because paper and PDF documents do not follow standardized information formatting rules. It usually requires manual effort, which is costly and prone to fraud and errors.

[0244] Example: Fragmentation of corporate information Consider the complete information assets of a modern enterprise. Where are they stored and who owns them? Information is scattered across enterprise applications, cloud service providers, and other providers. Companies that organize and own their data often have enormous economic value. Others find themselves at the mercy of uncontrollable horizontal digital fragmentation.

[0245] Under horizontal digital fragmentation, information cannot be owned, sold, or shared. Data Ownership (and the Lack Thereof). Another major impact of horizontal digital fragmentation is the complete absence of the concept of data and information ownership. There can be no concept of information ownership when information is stored in ad hoc formats in fragmented, private storage systems. This has far-reaching implications today. Companies accumulate personal information collected through various tracking strategies (e.g., tracking cookies) or provided by individuals in exchange for free digital services. Individuals lack access to, let alone ownership of, the full extent of their personal information, from financial information to shopping history, medical history, geolocation, and music preferences. Individuals cannot monetize, search, or use all of their personal information to train artificial intelligence. Instead, companies that accumulate vast amounts of personal information gain significant valuation due to the immense value of the information they collect. Under digital fragmentation, digital citizenship is impossible to enforce; indeed, it is impossible to even define.

[0246] Dark Information. In modern cosmology, dark matter refers to the vast amount of matter believed to exist invisibly in the universe. In fact, there is evidence that most of the matter in the universe is dark matter. Borrowing from this concept, we propose to call information that is temporarily digitized and then disappears forever, or becomes permanently locked and inaccessible, "dark information."

[0247] Vast amounts of digital information are created every day. Due to digital fragmentation, much of the digital information that exists is dark information, meaning it is inaccessible outside the organization that owns it, and often even within that organization. Information can also be considered "dark information" because of its format. PDFs and scanned documents are dark information. Documents convey information that is not suitable for digital processing.

[0248] In a digital world, there is no such thing as dark information. All information is accessible from anywhere, provided you have the necessary access rights. As mentioned above, in a digital society, there are no papers, PDFs, documents, folders, or signatures. This axiom implies a whole new universe, one that needs to be mapped and laid out. In this world, information is no longer "dark." The objects that carry information are no longer 17th-century objects, but factual objects, digital objects. This revolution is moving us from a document-centric society to a factual object-centric society.

[0249] In the context of digital fragmentation, data is not a thing. As we will see, in our current information exchange regime, digital documents are considered inferior to original hard copies. For example, a scan of a document is inferior to a printed version of the original document. The reason for this is digital fragmentation. Digital files are easily copied, so they are not unique. They are relatively easy to counterfeit.

[0250] The fact that digital information is not a thing, that it is not real, has many far-reaching implications. Because it is not real, it cannot be owned. It cannot be clearly identified or referenced. It is impossible to know who has used it and for what purpose. And, crucially, it is impossible to organize it or derive value from it. The world's data is in a state of great disarray, both in terms of where it is stored and how it is conceptualized. Yet, it is the most valuable resource on the planet.

[0251] Data isn't even considered a "thing" right now. It's invisible. We don't think about giving it away like we would give away something precious to ourselves, or handing it over to those whose sole purpose is to exploit, manipulate, and control us. Nor do we think about passing it on and managing it for future generations. How do we pass it on? It lives on a thousand different computer formats, under a thousand different copyright agreements. It's on my old laptop, and the laptop before that, and on various backup disks—who knows where! I have a state-of-the-art digital camera, but I don't know where my photos are. The only way to store them is to pay a lot of money or give them away. As a society, we haven't organized data as an asset, as a reality. It's not real yet. Sure, when I email a photo, suddenly there are two of them. But where are they? And where will they be tomorrow? My photo albums are tangible, tangible things. They're family heirlooms. But what about the thousands of hours of video stored on my various computers and social media accounts? They're scattered here and there, but nowhere. I still don't think of the data I own and the data I generate as atomic units with independent existence, units of value, something that can be collected and stored forever.

[0252] Horizontal fragmentation prevents interconnections in digital representations. Interestingly, today, in many cases, information on documents (such as receipts) was once digital but has been downgraded to paper format and lacks interconnections with other information objects. Fragmented information cannot express relationships or connections between objects. Therefore, manual verification is necessary when dealing with fragmented information realities. Again, if Payment(X) = Payment(Y), and X and Y are part of different fragmented information realities, the "=" sign cannot be expressed and the connection is lost. This is a strong argument in favor of a unified information reality, where all information belongs to the same system. The technique described below explicitly reveals Solzhenitsyn's "invisible thread" (discussed above) in a software-accessible digital format.

[0253] friction The current state of technology, or digital fragmentation, means that the human activities involved in presenting, exchanging, and verifying digital information are highly complex, manual, and difficult. We call this complexity and difficulty "friction."

[0254] In the context of information exchange, friction refers to the costs of resources, time, manpower, effort, etc. required for information exchange and processing that are not inherent but are mandated by the usage patterns and arrangements surrounding the systems of media and information objects used for information exchange.

[0255] For example, parties exchanging information about bank accounts or investment portfolios today must exchange documents and PDF files that are not machine-accessible. Validation is often a tedious, manual process, even though both parties use sophisticated digital systems to store the information locally. Interestingly, we have become so accustomed to the friction that we barely notice it. It is difficult to imagine a situation where information exchange and validation between different legal entities typically occurs smoothly and easily.

[0256] Fragmentation creates friction. As mentioned above, the daily practice of information exchange prescribes explicit or implicit protocols for how information objects are created, stored, presented, inspected, copied, and verified. Two types of information systems are used: physical and digital documents. A detailed examination of the costs of these exchange elements reveals significant inefficiencies and limitations in both systems, in terms of reflection (expressiveness), the possibility of reliability and consensus, and the costs required to achieve the greatest possible consensus.

[0257] The limitations arise around the fact that information objects are fragmented, inaccessible to software, not unique, not citable, and not permanent. Working around these characteristics requires significant resources, and some limitations cannot be worked around. We can see that frictions arise along two axes of information exchange. Let's start with horizontal friction, i.e. friction that affects the information exchange between stakeholders.

[0258] Horizontal friction. Imagine two parties need to exchange and verify digital information. For example, suppose a particular summary created from a company's accounting software needs to be submitted to the government, and that information needs to be captured in government software. Digital fragmentation means that the company's systems and the government's systems cannot communicate directly, and furthermore, it means that there is no way for the company to prove that the digital information stored in its systems is authentic and valid.

[0259] As a result, a common method of communication between a company and the government is as follows: a company employee fills out a form with the required information; other forms are attached as evidence and proof; a stack of these forms is sent to the government, where government officials read and inspect the forms and enter the numbers into the company's system. At great human cost to both parties, the goal is achieved. If the two systems have access to a shared layer of reality that contains the company's financial records, verification of the records can be done by software.

[0260] In many current systems, two entities that want to initiate a digital exchange must set up a bridge that is unique to them and cannot be easily reused with other trading partners. Validating the information exchanged remains a challenge, requiring unique, ad-hoc solutions that often involve manual effort.

[0261] More generally, the fragmentation of digital information creates friction in any transaction of digital information. Friction is unnecessary and arises only because the parties do not share a digital reality, but each maintains a unique digital world that was not designed for external digital information interaction, much less for proving the validity of the facts held in that digital world to external trading partners.

[0262] Measures of Information Quality: If we separate information from its visual or textual presentation, we can think of information quality in terms of software accessibility. On this measure, the easier information is to access and read by software, the higher its quality.

[0263] Digital information can be stored in a variety of formats. Highly structured formats, such as relational databases, are annotated and contain machine-accessible semantic information that allows software to easily process the information. Less structured formats, such as scanned documents (bitmaps) and portable document files (PDFs), contain little machine-accessible semantic information and are intended for human reading, making them more difficult for software to process.

[0264] Fragmentation leads to poor quality information transfer. Human messengers. When two information systems are fragmented from one another, digital fragmentation means that the information in one system cannot be clearly referenced by the information in the other. Also, when transferring information from one system to another, such as medical information from Hospital A to Hospital B, the quality of the information decreases. For example, when converting from a database entry (highly structured and machine-readable) to a PDF (uniquely structured and only human-readable).

[0265] Invoices and receipts that exist as paper documents or PDFs are perfect examples of the need for a "flesh and blood messenger": information that needs to exist digitally on both sides must be transferred by a human carrying a piece of paper or, more recently, by emailing a PDF.

[0266] When fragmented systems communicate, they often do so by exchanging poor quality information. Even if digital information is stored in a high-quality, structured format (such as a relational database), to exchange it between fragmented systems it must be converted to a PDF, sent to the other party, and then converted back to a high-quality format in the other system—a highly inefficient process.

[0267] Documents. Today, verifying documents can be extremely difficult. What would you do if someone showed you a medical degree, a driver's license, a rental contract, or an insurance policy? Frank Abagre (the protagonist of the film "Catch Me If You Can"—a true story) successfully committed various frauds using forged documents in the 1960s. Interestingly, many of these methods are still possible today in the internet age. Are the facts we see valid? Is the document authentic? Was it ever valid? Who signed it? Does its validity depend on external facts? Decades after cryptographic digital signatures were invented and implemented, it's still not possible to simply and definitively assert that car insurance is valid, since it relies on the validity of other documents like the driver's license, car registration, and on-time premium payments.

[0268] Even today, with the rapid pace of digital transformation, the economic value of activities centered around the creation, representation, exchange, and validation of documents is in the trillions of dollars annually. Consider the validation activities required by insurance companies, law firms, financial markets and receipt cycles, travel and show ticket sales, real estate transactions, tax returns, identity theft, and the myriad bureaucratic activities related to data protection. Figure 10 juxtaposes an accounting ledger from the early days of double-entry bookkeeping with the user interface of modern accounting software. Not much has changed. The new digital medium mimics the old paper medium, and software validation of financial reports is virtually impossible, although it is possible using current information technology.

[0269] Vertical Digital Fragmentation. A key characteristic of current information technology is that reliable information is only available if it is accessible and can be inspected by humans. Consider a collection of documents: contracts, receipts, purchase orders, financial reports, tax returns, pay stubs, and so on. Whether the documents are physical or digital, only humans can inspect that collection. Only humans can draw conclusions from it. Only humans can verify and validate the information and facts presented within it. Importantly, when one document references another, for example, a financial report references a receipt or another financial report, only humans can trace the reference and inspect the referenced document. The process of examining, verifying, or validating a collection, or drawing conclusions from it, is by design limited to humans and impossible for software.

[0270] It is difficult to estimate the number of jobs in Western economies dedicated to document research, verification, and cross-validation. The validation of receipts, financial reports, tax returns (both personal / business and government tax authorities), forms, and applications is an algorithmic activity. Verification and validation follow very strict and clearly defined rules. In a shared information environment that makes facts accessible to software rather than intentionally denying it access, the entire verification and validation of facts becomes a software activity. Humans specify the conditions for validity in computer programs or machine-readable language, and verification itself becomes a software activity. The impact of this on efficiency and reliability is enormous, as discussed in more detail below. Figure 11 illustrates industries aligned with vertical information flows. The goal of many services is to reconstruct the vertical information flows lost due to digital fragmentation.

[0271] Verification Inefficiencies in Digital Fragmentation One of the most serious inefficiencies in digital fragmentation relates to verification. To verify information, one needs access to the underlying facts and information. For example, to verify a company's financial statements, one needs the underlying invoices and receipts. In a digital fragmented world, much of the underlying information is difficult to obtain, unavailable to automated processes, and difficult to process. This means that in a digital fragmented world, verification inevitably becomes a manual process that is time-consuming, costly, and prone to fraud and errors.

[0272] Data Fog. Digital fragmentation and the resulting lack of ability to verify information have led to an accepted reality that presented information (e.g., financial information) can never be completely trusted. Major financial and accounting fraud scandals such as Enron, Madoff, MF Global, Wirecard, and FTX, not to mention the 2008 mortgage-backed securities crisis, all occurred when financial information contained in documents that even experienced experts believed to be reliable turned out to be completely false. We call this situation "data fog." This is the widely accepted realization that financial reports, even those audited by qualified experts, can never be completely trusted.

[0273] Vertical fragmentation: verifying results is a forensic task and digital audit trails are lost. A significant portion of economic activity is spent examining documents, for example in healthcare, insurance, government, banking, corporate financial management, etc. This creates huge inefficiencies, given the fact that data is digitized in a fragmented form, with no single shared reality to which the documents belong, and no single interface for software to access the fragments.

[0274] Example: Financial fraud scandals. The frequent occurrence of large-scale accounting scandals highlights the opacity of documents as information objects, which is both a cause and a symptom of vertical digital fragmentation. Consider the following two documents. Neither is accurate, but for a long period of time, many people would have had difficulty even suspecting that something was wrong:

[0275] Figure 12 shows information from Enron's 2000 annual report.

[0276] Figure 13 shows a brokerage account statement for Madoff Securities. The figures in both documents were later found to be complete fabrications, but it took extensive investigation to discover this fact. These are stark examples of the dangers of vertical fragmentation.

[0277] This audit failure occurs because the network of information objects underlying the presented information is entirely implicit: documents implicitly reference other documents, arithmetic calculations are performed and then discarded, leaving only the final result. Similar failures have been observed in the scientific literature, where scientific misconduct and serious errors are extremely difficult to detect by manually reconstructing published results from the underlying data (which resembles a painstaking forensic task).

[0278] Files. From the perspective of digital fragmentation and the ongoing digital transformation, digital files are the "root of all evil." Digital file, folder, and directory structures fundamentally follow a mental model based on the world of physical documents. Digital files are mutable, inaccessible, and unowned, can be copied and replicated at zero cost, have no clear owner, have no unique address, and are not cipherable; therefore, they are not "things." The fact that files are the primary means of storing and exchanging digital fragments underpins much of horizontal digital fragmentation and is also related to vertical digital fragmentation. Files cannot be explicitly referenced by parties (leading to horizontal fragmentation). They cannot be permanently referenced on the same system (leading to vertical fragmentation). Files can only implicitly reference each other. Because files can be copied at zero cost, they cannot be owned, creating incentives for competing parties to silo data in their own files. In the event of a security breach, files can be copied en masse and potentially irretrievably stolen.

[0279] Factors accelerating horizontal digital fragmentation include: 1. Data hoarding. The development of AI means that the economic value of data is proportional to the available computing power, which is increasing exponentially according to Moore's Law. This leads each stakeholder to want to hoard as much data as possible in order to build AI that will win the arms race. The digital sphere has become a turf war, with each player trying to acquire as many users and therefore as much data as possible. There is little or no incentive for platforms to develop horizontal interfaces, i.e. unified software interfaces that allow data flows between arm's length parties. 2. Checks and balances of power. Whoever has access to all digital data is powerful in terms of AI, but also politically. The possibility of all data being available (to governments) by creating a backdoor in the UDR could be a powerful incentive for fragmentation.

[0280] The following factors are driving vertical digital fragmentation: 1. Desire for Friction - Humans want to be in the loop. There are social and political incentives to make information flow dependent on the exchange of human-readable documents. Vertical automation, such as automated validation of calculations or ICC, takes humans out of the loop and removes human judgment. There is a natural human tendency to maintain veto power and manual oversight, even in automated processes. 2. The Need for Obfuscation. Many vertical information flows rely on vertical fragmentation. For example, in modern governments, it is nearly impossible to trace where government funds ultimately flow. Political negotiations and national security expenditures involve expenditures that are intentionally obfuscated to hide them from public view. Similarly, in the tax domain, there is constant tension between tax authorities and individuals and entities that have created intentionally complex tax structures and tax reports. These processes benefit from the fragmented, machine-inaccessible, and document-based opaque nature of vertical flows.

[0281] Prior Art: Blockchain As we will see, increasing digital fragmentation is inconsistent with the ultimate goal of digital transformation, which requires the complete integration of all digital information exchanges. Further leaps in digital integration are inevitable; the only question is when and how they will occur. There is reason to believe that a third leap in digital integration is on the horizon. A sign of this is the overwhelming popularity of blockchain.

[0282] Blockchain is arguably the best-known (and perhaps most influential) technological development pointing the way toward a digital shared information reality. It has generated great excitement and confusion in equal measure in the general public. The conceptual framework presented in this paper sheds light on blockchain hype, explains its advantages and disadvantages, and clearly illustrates what blockchain can and cannot do. Blockchain has been hailed as the dawn of a new era in information technology. Placing it within the broader context of a shared information reality, we explain the deeper reasons for blockchain hype. The intense interest in blockchain is actually an intense interest in a fully digital shared information reality. Blockchain hype is particularly interesting given the obvious fact that blockchain technology is not capable of supporting or realizing a fully digital shared information reality. Furthermore, there are very few real-world applications, especially compared to the attention and resources invested. We assert that blockchain's primary contribution is a harbinger of something bigger to come. This means that it is possible to rethink and restructure the current shared information reality system. That something bigger is, in fact, UDR. UDR is a technology that can realize a complete digital shared information reality on a global scale.

[0283] Blockchain is a distributed shared database and a protocol for a community of stakeholders to maintain consensus on the contents and change history of the shared database. Stakeholders participate in a peer-to-peer network. Each participant maintains a local copy of the entire database. Updates to the database are organized into blocks, and stakeholders provide proof-of-work to validate and publish blocks, adding them to the chain. The consensus mechanism ensures that all stakeholders can agree on the current state of the database and its entire change history, unless more than half of the stakeholders in the network cooperate maliciously.

[0284] The original use of blockchain was as a ledger to support and enable cryptocurrencies. At present, this is the only real, widespread use of the technology. Since 2016, numerous proposed uses for blockchain have been put forward, including in finance, medicine, law, real estate title registration, and supply chain management.

[0285] The expression "It's on the blockchain" has become synonymous with permanent agreement through purely digital means. Through this meme, "blockchain technology" holds great promise for the future. Indeed, what better test case for consensus than a financial account? Indeed, Bitcoin runs on the blockchain. However, this thinking is wrong. Large-scale digital transformation is fundamentally different from cryptocurrencies. Digital transformation involves more than peer-to-peer transactions. Digital transformation based on shared ledgers, let alone shared ledgers with low transaction commitment volumes, cannot do it all. When asked, "How can we bridge time using digital information technology?", blockchain's answer is: (i) Commitment is made through proof of work. (ii) Because everyone keeps all of everyone else's records, there is no need to designate a trusted records custodian.

[0286] The reasons why blockchain has not taken the world by storm are (i) the paradigm lacks scalability, (ii) the protocol is inherently designed to support peer-to-peer transactions and not more general, permanent digital information objects, and (iii) the user interface aspect has received very little attention in the blockchain field.

[0287] A blockchain is a small-scale, low-volume digital shared information. Stakeholders participating in a particular blockchain agree on the contents of the shared database. In other words, they share a view of the world made up of the database entries. For example, if the database contains ownership information for a set of assets, such as cryptocurrency allocations, all stakeholders share a view of who owns what, as well as a history of all transactions that led to the current ownership state. If the database contains information about events, all stakeholders share a view of what happened. And so on.

[0288] While the most notable property of blockchain networks is that they are decentralized, i.e., no single node in a peer-to-peer network has special power over a shared database, strong industry interest suggests that in practice, for most applications, this is not a particularly important property.

[0289] We assert that the deeper reason for the intense interest in blockchain is simply that it was the first example of a fully functioning digital shared information reality. Until then, the world had no known way to maintain a fully digital shared information reality. All other systems for shared information reality were based on documents, even if those documents were digital. With blockchain, stakeholders could share a worldview without documents and maintain that shared worldview by exclusively sharing digital information.

[0290] Blockchain is not suited to the large-scale, massive digital shared information reality. As a technology, blockchain alone cannot enable digital transformation. The amount of data stored in digital reality is enormous, potentially including all of the world's digital information. It is not feasible for each participant or stakeholder—in other words, everyone—to keep a complete copy of all the data. The number of new facts committed to digital reality is enormous, potentially including every event happening in the world at that moment, physical or digital. Blockchain cannot keep up with the rate at which these new facts are committed. In fact, it cannot support even a fraction of the commitment rate needed to fully support digital transformation. Blockchains can support limited sharing of information, for example, only certain real estate transactions, or only certain medical activities, where new facts are added at a slow pace. As a result, a large collection of blockchain networks is required to support a widespread shared information reality—a reality distributed across different blockchain databases. As mentioned above, this fragmentation hampers the key benefits of digital transformation.

[0291] Blockchain and the Digital Shared Information Reality. Blockchain and shared ledger technologies cannot support large-scale digital integration—for example, every financial transaction, every continuous geolocation, every server query, and every code execution. It would be absurd for every stakeholder to store everyone's information and maintain permanent consensus on everyone's information throughout history. Blockchain was not designed for this purpose. Importantly, blockchain's popularity cannot be explained by the concept of decentralization. Centralization has worked well throughout history and during digital transformation. The true reason behind the blockchain hype and the notion of "blockchain = revolution" is that Bitcoin is the first widely adopted, fully digital shared information reality in history. Blockchain enables stakeholders to maintain consensus on facts using purely digital means. This offers the first glimpse into a world beyond document-based consensus. The World Wide Web provided uniformity of interface, but not a purely digital way of agreeing on facts. Blockchain can support small-scale horizontal integration between a few stakeholders exchanging limited amounts of information, but it cannot support large-scale digital integration. Importantly, blockchain has nothing to do with the notion of vertical integration or the integration of information flows from reality to presentation. Blockchain focuses on horizontal slicing of information objects.

[0292] Evidence that blockchain enthusiasm is fueled by a vague sense of "something big is happening" and that this vague sense points to a digital shared information reality (not decentralization) is the recent buzz surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum contracts. NFTs are assigned clear ownership and can be traded and sold. In fact, NFTs can be auctioned like paintings or the Declaration of Independence. Digital objects have never before been widely accepted as tangible objects. It's no wonder that the first use of NFTs was to associate them (imaginatively) with works of art, which are tangible and unique physical objects. NFTs can also be associated with days of the week, and for the same reason, Wednesdays can be auctioned. In other words, the fact that NFTs are the first example of widespread acceptance is the source of their appeal.

[0293] Blockchain is an interesting phenomenon. It has endured despite the fact that vast amounts of capital have had little practical impact on digital transformation. What is the source of this obsession? Why is capital pouring in?

[0294] The real reason behind the popularity of the "blockchain meme" is not decentralization. At first glance, the answer is decentralization: the prospect of eliminating governments and centralized powers and instead basing payments, products, and services on pure peer-to-peer exchange. However, the decentralization meme will die out because governments won't allow it (see China's Bitcoin crackdown). While decentralization is an appealing sentiment, it is not a market force. The constant rise in Bitcoin's exchange rate was interpreted as a sign of the arrival of the decentralized economy, but in reality it was the result of large-scale money laundering. Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with government regulation or centralized authority as long as everything works well.

[0295] Bitcoin is popular as a harbinger of the next phase of digital transformation. The deeper reasons for the blockchain phenomenon are connected to a deeper national sentiment: a vague premonition that digital transformation is inevitable, that we won't be using documents and their computational emulations for much longer. While some areas, such as securities trading and operations at large corporations like Amazon, could be called end-stage digital transformation, outside of those areas, digital transformation is still in its early stages. When we use computers to facilitate the exchange of products and services and the information exchange that underpins and enables social processes, we mostly use the new medium as an imitation of the old medium—paper interactions. As noted above, end-stage digital transformation involves using computers in fundamentally new ways: not as an imitation of humans sorting paper on a computer screen instead of A4 paper, but as a purely software-driven digital interaction for all information exchange and verification. End-stage digital transformation means that independent counterparties can use purely digital information for reliable information exchange, independent of paper and paper-like digital applications. Inevitably, this requires a universally available digital information layer that transcends the specificities of digital systems—a new, fully digital medium of information exchange. With this in mind, I assert that the deeper reasons for the blockchain phenomenon and the influx of venture capital into this space are as follows: Bitcoin is the first widely adopted, fully digital shared information reality in history. It is a harbinger of exactly what is to come, not in the decentralized sense, but in the digital transformation sense. Bitcoin (and other popular cryptocurrencies) is a shared information reality that anyone can participate in, fully digital. It has never been realized on such a scale before. Indirectly, blockchain is interesting because it connects with the vague premonition that this is coming at a large scale. It is the first proof-of-concept of the potential of this new medium for information exchange.If blockchain has earned the trust of so many people, worth roughly $1 trillion, and if it is a purely digital medium for information exchange, then that means something new is happening. Blockchain is a hint at the future of digital transformation that we instinctively sense.

[0296] Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the concept of permanent, unique digital objects. We've already discussed the concept of original documents from a document-sharing reality: unique documents that are physical objects. You can view the original copies of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. You can also buy first editions of famous books or Einstein's scribbled notes at auctions. However, no such concept exists for digital documents.

[0297] That's where NFTs come in. Many people seem fascinated by the possibility of owning a permanent, unique digital object that's tied to a digital file or real-world object. Of course, that connection is imaginary. NFTs have no connection to the image file, and nothing about them guarantees actual ownership of the file.

[0298] Blockchain is a brand, not a technological enabler, for digital transformation. However, while it is a great brand and a harbinger of the long-awaited future of human society, it will never actually bring about the final digital transformation. Moving all human affairs (or even a small portion of them) to digital information exchange requires a scalable system—one that can support sufficient transaction volume and a sufficient (and appropriately growing) number of permanently stored digital information objects. Blockchain provides neither transaction volume (limited by proof of work) nor permanent storage, because all stakeholders store every information object ever recorded. This is a ridiculous idea when considering large-scale digital transformation. Compare this to the traffic of technologies like web servers, mobile phone networks, and digital payment networks. At the end of the digital transformation, every interaction (financial, physical, medical, etc.) that takes place in the world will leave a footprint. That's a huge amount of information.

[0299] Where do blockchain's limitations come from? Blockchain was specifically designed for cryptocurrencies, and its design revolves around the concept of transactions and the requirement of complete consensus (all stakeholders in the network agree on a global view of the world at any given time). In digital transformation, as previously mentioned, only a small subset of stakeholders have an interest in the facts published in the network. This means that it simply doesn't make sense for everyone to store everything. The fact that each stakeholder holds a copy of the ledger is fundamentally incompatible with end-game digital transformation. It's like everyone in a country holding a copy of every company's accounting books since 1600. The decentralization and complete consensus requirements mandate proof-of-work or proof-of-possession, making scaling nearly impossible. With proof-of-work, computation is intentionally difficult. It's not a scalable design choice. In fact, attempting to scale blockchain means moving most activity off-chain.

[0300] Introducing the concepts of unique digital objects and unique digital realities (UDR) As we have seen, blockchain and related shared ledger consensus protocols cannot achieve the end state of digital transformation. What is needed to achieve this end state? First, as mentioned above, we need a universally available layer of digital information that transcends the specificities of digital systems—a new, fully digital medium of information exchange. The blockchain solution is to record all information on a ledger and distribute copies to all stakeholders. However, this cannot handle even a fraction of the traffic required for large-scale digital transformation. Does any technology exist that can handle such massive volumes of traffic?

[0301] The embodiments herein posit that there exists a fundamentally new method of information exchange, i.e., a system of information objects, that is fundamentally different from anything else in history. This method can be implemented using currently available information technology, i.e., computer networks, hardware, and software. This method offers a wide range of advantages and improvements over current practices, and brings very real value and benefits. This method is the logical next stage of the digital revolution. Indeed, all around us are subtle signs that we are already well on our way to this next stage.

[0302] Unique Digital Reality (UDR) Currently available information technology will enable a much more sophisticated system of information objects than those currently in use. This sophisticated system of information objects will enable reflection on a much broader scale, trust and collaboration on a much stronger scale, and at a much lower cost in terms of time, effort, and resources. In terms of another function of information—insight—this system will be a quantum leap forward, enabling entirely new ways of deriving insights from information.

[0303] We are now presenting an abstract characterization of the next generation of shared information reality: a fully digital shared information reality that truly transcends documents and files, enables horizontal and vertical digital integration, and supports the end state of digital transformation.

[0304] A unique digital object is a universally unique, permanent, immutable, tamper-proof, signed, and committed information object. A unique digital object is permanently and securely software-accessible from a universally unique network address through a cross-platform, uniform, and stable software interface. By design, the existence, characteristics, ownership, timing, content, and interconnectivity of a unique digital object are undisputed within a particular stakeholder community. A unique digital object may contain machine-readable code that validates it, consistent with the Principle Validation of Digital Transformation.

[0305] Unique digital objects are things. For example, they can be named, owned, given away, loaned, cited, and exchanged. They are as real and unique as physical original documents. Data ceases to be a vague entity and becomes a concrete, named resource. Optionally, software processes that operate on unique digital objects produce results that are themselves unique digital objects. In this sense, software that operates on unique digital objects will be a transformative force in human history. First, finance, auditing, law, insurance, and medicine will all be software endeavors. Second, we can process data systematically to transform people's lives.

[0306] Key characteristics of unique digital objects include: Unique digital objects are permanent: they are stored permanently and never expire. Unique digital objects are permanently accessible (pending access rights) through a globally unique, permanent network address and a uniform network interface. Unique digital objects are made immutable using digital signatures and commitment schemes. Unique digital objects are created, signed, and owned by entities with defined digital identities. Unique digital objects can be explicitly cited. Unique digital objects are unique and cannot be copied. To communicate them, communicate their network address, not copy them. Unique digital objects are secure and respect privacy.

[0307] A Unique Digital Reality (UDR) is a fully digitized, fully software-accessible shared information reality that employs unique digital objects as a system of information objects.

[0308] A shared information reality, a UDR, is a collection of information objects along with the usage patterns and protocols that govern the creation, exchange, and validation of these objects (i.e., their transformation into facts).

[0309] As we will see, UDRs offer a wide range of expressive power for implementing reflections and verbs that are much more sophisticated than those currently available, and therefore can maximize the benefits of digital integration and, ultimately, digital transformation, as discussed above.

[0310] Recall that shared information reality implements what we call verbs. Let's examine the verbs of a unique digital reality. See Table 2.

[0311] [Table 2-1] [Table 2-2]

[0312] As a result, UDR facilitates the flow of information, enabling software to create, store, exchange, and examine information at a much lower cost than shared information realities currently in use, while also supporting and enabling fundamentally new ways of extracting insights from information.

[0313] Commitment is the only way to create immutable digital objects. As we have seen, the digital world still uses documents (some of which are digital documents) as information objects for independent information exchange, rather than machine-readable files or web pages. The reason is that digital files and web pages can be modified without cost and therefore cannot be used as the basis for a shared information reality. Therefore, an essential element for the realization of a digital shared information reality is the ability to create and exchange immutable digital information objects. And this is made possible by the act of committing a new digital object in front of all potential stakeholders (fact recipients in the fact exchange cycle) so that any stakeholder can compare it with the committed version and verify that the object has not been tampered with.

[0314] Commitment Scheme. A key design choice is how a fact receiver knows that an object was committed at the intended time with the intended digest. This choice impacts the overall architecture of the digital shared reality, based on the choice of commitment scheme. Essentially, a fact receiver can either receive all available digests created by all other stakeholders and thereby verify the date and time of receipt themselves, or they can ask someone they trust and have that person verify the date and time of receipt. Blockchain follows the first choice: all stakeholders hold a copy of a shared ledger that contains all digests created by all stakeholders since the inception of the blockchain. U.S. Patent Nos. 9,064,238, 9,852,376, 10,733,513, 11,170,308, and 11,481,651 teach a second option where the digest is transmitted through an SSL-style network of trusted witnesses, and the recipient of the facts asks the witnesses if they saw the digest at the desired time.

[0315] Digest of Digests and Two-Layer Commitment. A third possibility is to not distribute all digests—that is, not on the blockchain nor in the network of trusted witnesses—but rather have the fact provider (the stakeholder who created the information object) store the digest locally and distribute only the digest of the digest. This reduces the number of digests stored on the ledger (in the case of a blockchain) and network traffic (in the case of a network of trusted witnesses). In this case, to verify a digest, the fact recipient must contact the fact provider and receive both the digest of the trusted digest (which can be verified on their own ledger or by contacting a trusted witness) and the digest block on which the digest of the digest was calculated. This is the idea behind second-layer blockchains, e.g., Ethereum Rollup, where only the digest of the digest is stored on the public blockchain. Digest verification requires a validating server that can respond to requests and provide the complete digest block.

[0316] Privacy-preserving commitment - Separating digest storage from payload storage. When the digest of an information object is committed and published or distributed for immutable purposes, the privacy of the information object is respected and its contents are not revealed. It is possible to commit an information object without revealing its actual contents. Zero-knowledge proof methods can be used to later verify that the presenter of fact owns the payload of the committed information object.

[0317] Reflective Capabilities of UDRs. The expressive power of UDRs is much greater than the hybrid shared information of written and digital documents. UDRs allow for the reflection of many types of objects, states, and events in legal, financial, and critical information technology domains. With other ancillary inventions related to digital devices and interfaces, UDRs can also reflect states and events in the physical world. Any event can be reflected in a UDR: accessing a door, logging into a server, executing a software process, accepting a contract, taking a picture with a camera, or auditing a document portfolio for information compliance, to name a few.

[0318] example: · Objects in the physical world are represented by unique digital objects that contain a unique object identifier (such as a serial number). · Objects in the physical world can display machine-readable codes (such as barcodes) that contain universal identifiers, allowing them to be unambiguously linked to their corresponding unique digital objects. · Because the unique digital objects are accessible to software, software processes can be used to track inventory of physical objects (see the example of "Omnicodes" below). Events in the physical world are represented by unique digital objects created by UDR-enabled measurement devices and sensors. Such devices may take measurements, such as cameras or motion sensors with alarms, or sense other measurement devices, such as door access card readers or handshaking devices. These devices may have biometric capabilities to identify human users. These devices, equipped with operating system-level UDR access, can generate a set of unique digital objects signed by each device and containing the identified human's identity, details of their interactions with other measurement devices, and other details such as GPS coordinates. Objects in the legal reality. Legal entities, contracts, and other objects in the legal reality are represented by unique digital objects. The inter-references of these objects reflect their relationships in the legal reality. For example, a unique digital object for a contract references unique digital objects representing the individuals and entities that signed the contract, and references unique digital objects representing real estate properties, etc., mentioned in the contract. Events in the legal realm almost always involve consent and require confirmation from the parties involved. Unique digital objects representing these events reference unique digital objects that reflect the consent given by individuals using a user interface. Events in the IT realm may simply be unique digital objects. Cyberspace events such as user accounts, profiles, and information files are best stored as unique digital objects rather than being represented by them. This allows for access control, access tracking, and persistence. An event in the IT world (such as logging into a server or executing code) is recorded as a unique digital object or collection of unique digital objects that reference the resources involved in the event.

[0319] A fully implemented UDR is a fully digital, shared information reality—a collection of interconnected objects accepted as reality by a community of stakeholders. In a key implementation, the community of stakeholders is the entire Internet, in which case the UDR becomes a new, globally accepted layer of reality. This new layer is essentially similar to more familiar artificially constructed realities, such as legal reality—covering laws, judgments, companies, and contracts—and financial reality—covering amounts, accounts, financial transactions, and bonds. In particular, universal recognition of legal and financial realities and the artificial objects within these realities has enabled growth and wealth creation on an unimaginable scale. Similarly, the material disclosed in this book teaches how a unique digital reality can enable significant growth and wealth creation, including new products, services, jobs, and dramatically more efficient social and business processes.

[0320] Under UDR, software can be used to identify, access, quote, verify, own, transfer, sell, track, and verify any piece of digital information, and to link it to the validity of that information and other facts on which it depends. The mountains of fragmented information scattered across storage devices around the world that currently exist under digital fragmentation will be consolidated into a single, cohesive layer of reality. Perhaps the hybrid paper-digital system has not revolutionized how we use information or brought about dramatic improvements in efficiency or reliability. Instead, reliability has declined, and we are now drowning in information, fake news, fraud, and distrust. See "Digital Fragmentation."

[0321] The UDR presents a concrete, codified, and standardized alternative to the current state of the art for addressing all aspects of digital information in our society. Furthermore, the UDR specifies standardized interfaces for accessing and operating on digital information. The UDR specifies standardized protocols and metaprotocols for the creation, storage, indexing, access control, exchange, inspection, versioning, updating, verification, validation, matching, citation, merging, ownership assertion, and interconnection of digital information. It also specifies protocols for performing deductive reasoning and learning processes that draw conclusions from digital information, explicitly referencing unique digital objects, including: (i) Inference process (ii) the underlying information to which the process is applied (iii) The fact that the process was properly carried out (iv) the results of that process

[0322] UDRs and User Interfaces. Unique digital realities include usage patterns that govern the display of information on a user interface. Importantly, the display or rendering of information contained in a unique digital object on a user interface is visualized by the universal address or universal identifier of that unique digital object. Information is never displayed or visualized out of context or without a citation.

[0323] UDR Guidelines Data unification: Data will be unified. There will be a single communication protocol in the digital reality. Cross-platform interoperability: All computing systems have an interface to digital reality, enabling seamless information flow and seamless access to digital information across time, systems, jurisdictions, and organizations. Uniqueness: Each fact / data / digital object is unique in the world. · Permanence: Data within digital reality is permanent and unchanging. · Ownership: Each fact / data / digital object is owned by an identity. Commitment: Once data is stored in the digital reality, it is committed to the entire stakeholder community using a commitment scheme, making the data permanent and asserting ownership. Accessibility: Data is accessible via a unique identifier with access permissions. · Software access: Data is accessible by software. Data formats follow standards and declaring standards makes the data machine-readable. Citation and Quotability: Facts in digital reality depend for their validity on the validity of other facts, cite the facts on which they are based, and are cited by the facts that support them. Provenance: Each fact in the unique digital reality is given a universal fact identifier that allows for permanent and unambiguous citation and reference. Facts in the digital reality cite related facts, supporting facts, supporting facts, and facts necessary for verification. When a fact in the digital reality relies on other facts for accuracy, it always cites all of them. There is no uniform concept of universal fact identifiers in the existing shared information reality. For example, there is no way to uniquely and universally identify a specific person's driver's license, a 2013 federal tax return, a specific lease agreement, or a specific photo published on social media.

[0324] Advantages of UDR over the current state of the art Compared to the current state of the art, the use of UDR by stakeholder networks brings about a wide range of concrete improvements in most areas, processes, products and services involved in the exchange of digital information.

[0325] 1. Efficiency. UDR makes digital information processing much more efficient. ·Unification of digital information representation and format. Under a unified UDR, all digital information is integrated into a single collection accessible through permission-controlled access to the stakeholder community. Pieces of digital information move from isolated entities residing on separate platforms and without a shared existence to a universally accessible, shared existence with universally acceptable characteristics. In this respect, the transition from the existing state of the art to a UDR is like using the Internet to connect computers around the world: from isolated entities to a universal network of interconnected, universally accessible entities. Under a UDR, information and facts previously deposited in a UDR can be cited, referenced, inspected, and cross-checked, regardless of when they were created or in what system. Standard Software Interface. In a UDR, each piece of digital information displays a standard interface through which it can be accessed, manipulated, and verified. In the preferred implementation, this interface is an API (software interface). As a result, and crucially, digital information on a UDR can be automatically processed by software. As noted above, this means that UDRs enable a new era of information mining, discovery, verification, matching, automated deductive reasoning, and broader artificial intelligence. · No gaps between parties, no friction. With current technology, various problems arise when digital information created by one entity and stored in that entity's system needs to be presented to another entity. Security issues, legal issues, and formatting issues come into play. Furthermore, the authenticity of the information must often be manually verified by manually inspecting proof of authenticity. Under UDR, the world of digital information becomes flat and gaps disappear. Specifically, all digital information within a UDR is accessible through the same interface, regardless of the system or entity that originated it, or when it was created. Digital information within a UDR exhibits a unique proof of authenticity, eliminating significant friction caused by gaps between parties. Simplicity. Under UDR, it becomes simpler and easier to design and implement systems and processes that handle digital information, especially digital information from different sources, agents, and legal entities. · Automated verification. Verification of information accuracy and precision is typically implemented in software and performed automatically, largely eliminating the need for human audits and bureaucracy.

[0326] 2. Trust. UDR significantly reduces the risk of errors and fraud in the handling of digital information, resulting in significantly increased confidence in the legitimacy of information by all stakeholders. Reliable by Design. Under UDRs, a complete provenance trace of the facts is often available, including the underlying facts and the underlying deductive reasoning process, making them automatically verifiable. In other words, the facts in a UDR expose how they can be automatically verified. Error prevention. Facts in a UDR reference each other using globally unique identifiers. New facts are often created from previous facts by software, rather than manually. This reduces the chance of human error and allows for automated verification that no errors have been introduced. Fraud Prevention. Fraud in all forms, including banking, insurance, healthcare, and finance, can occur due to a lack of sufficient scrutiny and verification. Facts within a UDR cite the underlying facts and the deductive reasoning processes underlying those facts, which are also available within the UDR. The entire network of facts underlying a given fact is public and can be computationally verified. As we will explain below, this makes fraud significantly more difficult.

[0327] 3. Digital Citizenship. UDR transforms digital citizenship from an abstract discussion into a concrete reality that can be easily implemented in software. Data ownership. A fundamental characteristic of information under UDR is ownership. With current technology, data ownership is ambiguous. Major internet companies store and trade personal information freely provided by users. Under UDR, each piece of digital information belongs to the individual or individuals who created it. Free data markets. As a result, UDRs will allow individuals to rent and sell their data in the resulting free data markets. This embodies a fundamental civil right that is currently debated but not realized with current technology: the right of individuals to control and monetize their information. Data, locked in the systems of a few large corporations and organizations, is arguably the world's largest untapped resource with immeasurable economic value. UDRs will clearly address this point and enable society to harness this resource. Data access tracking: Access control in the UDR ensures that any access to data within the UDR is recorded in the UDR, providing owners of digital information with a complete understanding of the access history of that information.

[0328] 4. New Frontiers of Technological Possibilities UDR will enable a wide range of entirely new products, services, markets, business models, jobs, and social interactions that are not possible (or even imaginable) with current technology. Interoperability across the digital ecosystem. UDR enables the design and implementation of systems that operate across the entire digital ecosystem, i.e., across legal entities, processing information and drawing conclusions from a wide range of sources. This enables entirely new ways of discovery, verification, matching, and automated deductive reasoning based on digital information from diverse sources. Software execution as a fact. UDRs allow the act of software execution itself to be treated as a fact, or new digital information. For example, to properly document the fact that some software ran on specific input data and produced specific output data, the inputs and outputs must be uniquely identified. UDRs make this possible. As a result, in addition to the raw pieces of information, the digital ecosystem contains facts about the execution of code against those pieces of information. Smart contracts. Broad AI. A key characteristic of current artificial intelligence systems is that they are trained to specialize in very specific tasks. A fundamental bottleneck in the development of these systems is the need to obtain large amounts of training data, which is typically impossible for ordinary individuals, research institutions, and companies. Under UDR, access to the entire digital ecosystem, including the vast array of forms and sources of digital information, and data marketplaces where individuals can rent or sell digital information, will exponentially advance the development of artificial intelligence beyond narrow tasks and into what is commonly known as broad AI.

[0329] 5. New Conceptual Framework. In a very real sense, UDR changes the way we think about digital information. It advances fundamental concepts about information processing, rooted in the paper-based thinking of the last century, into more advanced digital concepts. This advance in conceptual framework allows for the formation of new abstractions, which in turn lead to new inventions that depend on this technology.

[0330] The UDR will enable the development of systems that specifically identify and mitigate significant shortcomings in the current state of information processing, including fake news, data citation and ownership, financial fraud, reliable citation of scientific data and research, election reporting, the appropriateness of social network posts, the appropriateness of corporate public information, data privacy and the acceptable use of personal information.

[0331] UDRs and Modern Systems of Information Objects. A UDR is an integrated system of information objects that are uniformly software-accessible and persistent. Three attributes—integrated system, uniformly software-accessible objects, and persistent objects—are crucial for vertically integrated digitization. Figure 14 compares the World Wide Web (WWW), document-sharing reality, digital fragments, and UDRs. WWW objects 1401 are uniformly software-accessible but not persistent. Documents (both physical and digital) 1402 are persistent but not software-accessible. Fragmented software systems 1404, such as enterprise software systems, are locally software-accessible but not uniformly. In contrast, a UDR 1403 is an integrated system composed of uniformly software-accessible, persistent objects.

[0332] example Here are some examples of how UDRs are used in various situations: Physical sensors record measurements directly to the UDR through embedded modules, making them trustworthy because they are signed and currently committed. Measurements recorded in the UDR can be accessed at any time by authorized third parties for analysis and verification. Financial transactions (bank transfers, securities transactions, etc.) are recorded directly in the UDR through the trading system's software module. This ensures that transactions are signed and confirmed, increasing their reliability. Transactions in the UDR can be accessed at any time by authorized third parties for analysis and verification. Legal information such as contracts and property deeds are recorded in the UDR through a module in a word processing (or equivalent) system, which includes machine-readable annotations that allow machines to access certain characteristics of the contract and automatically validate it. Real Estate. Real estate ownership is managed by UDR objects. Real estate transactions are recorded in UDRs. Regulations and laws regarding information flows. When information is exchanged by exchanging the addresses of UDR objects (without copying information objects), access to and use of information objects can be monitored. Regulations regarding citizens' rights and permissible uses of information make sense and can be enforced. Payments. Point-of-sale payments and online payment clearing systems record payments in the UDR. This information can later be incorporated into tax documents, financial reports, accounting summaries, etc. Scientific research. Scientific data analytics computing platforms record computations and key results directly in the UDR through modules in the platform. A scientific paper essentially encapsulates a collection of data and computational objects in the UDR, providing a layer of monetizable content. This content in the UDR enables entirely new methods of scientific research that draw insights from data and computations performed in previously published research. Medical Information: The medical system records information directly into the UDR. This information is owned by the patient and accessible to medical staff. This information can be used for automated verification of treatment protocols during treatment, and later for medical billing, medical insurance claims processing, audits, and retrospective medical studies. Social networks. All personal information is recorded in the UDR as the individual's own property, not the property of the social network service. This includes personal content such as personal photos, videos, and location information. The services provided by social network internet companies are user interfaces that make some of the personal information recorded in the UDR accessible to other social network users.

[0333] Persistent Network Interface. Currently, the recommended implementation of UDR is based on server interaction. This is fundamentally the technology that powers today's digital world. It is scalable enough to support large-scale digital transformation. Persistent unique information objects (the fundamental information objects of UDR) are implemented as persistent network interfaces, rather than as items in a shared ledger. A full description of this implementation is provided below.

[0334] UDRs enable "horizontal" digital integration. As mentioned above, horizontal digital integration requires that digital information objects (both monitored and inferred) be permanently accessible through a unified interface to authorized independent parties (stakeholders). UDRs enable horizontal digital integration because they reflect all vertical sections, including monitored and inferred information objects and their inference processes. Furthermore, different stakeholders can grant and obtain access to each other's unique information objects, which can be accessed through a cross-platform, stable software interface. This is consistent with the principle of information flow in the end phase of digital transformation. Figure 15 compares digital information transfer under digital fragmentation with digital information transfer using UDRs that enables digital integration. Under digital fragmentation, the transmitted information object 1503, for example, using a digital file, must be copied during the transfer. A new copy 1504 is created during the transfer, resulting in two independent copies (e.g., copies of the digital file) 1503 and 1504. In contrast, when an entity 1505 communicates a unique digital object 1506 to another entity 1506, the object is not copied or modified. Instead, the entity 1505 grants the entity 1506 access to the unique digital object 1506 on the UDR.

[0335] UDRs enable "vertical" digital integration. As mentioned above, vertically integrated digitalization requires vertical information flows. That is, the information objects derived from monitored information objects, the processes used to derive them, and the links from the derived information objects to human-readable visual representations are explicitly published in digital form. UDRs enable explicit and stable citations that reflect the vertical flow links in unique digital objects, reflecting all elements of the vertical flow from monitored information objects that reflect objects, states, and events in physical, legal, financial, and IT reality, to processes, inferred information objects, and their representation in a human-readable user interface. Figure 16 compares vertical (source-to-user) information flows using digital files with vertical information flows using UDRs. In digital files, information objects 1601 have no unique identifiers and cannot be clearly linked to other information objects. The processing steps 1602 (either calculations or ICC processing) cannot be recorded in digital form, and the presentation of the results 1603 is isolated from other digital information; i.e., the presented results cannot be associated with the process or information object that created them. In contrast, in a UDR, the information objects 1604 (represented as unique digital objects) are interconnected, the processing steps 1605 can be recorded in digital form (e.g., as a series of unique digital objects) using a verifiable execution script or SICCL script, and the presented results 1606 are explicitly connected in digital form to their digital flow (including the underlying information objects and processing steps), all of which can be represented as unique digital objects.

[0336] Below are some key examples of inventions that enable vertically integrated digitalization. Authentication and verification of unique identities Verifiable interactions Verifiable Code Execution (V / X) Standard information consistency and compliance language A human-readable representation of a unique digital object

[0337] Each of these will be explained below.

[0338] Verifiable Code Execution (V / X). Verifiable code execution is a method for reflecting code execution events in information objects and unique information objects. To this end, the environment for executing machine-readable instructions—i.e., a virtual machine, an interpreter, or the operating system itself—contains an active V / X module, running in parallel with the code execution process. These operations include capturing intermediate data structures, such as the executed source code, input data structures, output data structures, execution steps (including subroutine and library calls), and inputs and outputs to specific subroutine calls. The code itself may contain specific instructions to the V / X module. These instructions do not modify the execution of the code but rather are used to control the behavior of the V / X module. For example, a V / X module may be instructed to flag critical subroutine calls so that their inputs and outputs are recorded during execution, or to flag specific variables as special critical variables that can later be displayed as results in a user interface. The V / X module collects information during execution, effectively recording the computational steps and creating a collection of interconnected information objects. In a preferred implementation, these information objects are unique digital objects on the UDR, and variables, data structures, and source code are stored in their own unique digital objects. The interconnections and mutual references of these unique digital objects reveal the entire computational process.

[0339] There are many use cases for computations recorded using V / X modules as a collection of unique digital objects in a UDR, including:

[0340] V / X enables vertical integration of flows where computations are included in the processing steps. Without V / X, there is no way to reflect the computations in the shared information. Without reflection, computation results are communicated in a human-readable format, but there is a significant disconnect between the computation results, the process that produced them, and the underlying information on which they are based. This disconnect has some very visible consequences today. For example, the 2008 housing crisis was caused by an inability to connect numerical results (results of risk models) with the underlying information. Auditing these numerical results requires recovering the underlying calculations and data, a nearly impossible task of computational forensics.

[0341] V / X enables data refinement, a marketplace for standard-grade data, and standard pre-processing steps. If code execution is not reflected in information objects, and the results of code execution are fragmented and separated from the computational processes that generated them, there is no way to know with certainty the details of the pre-processing steps applied to the data at hand. Conversely, V / X makes it possible to associate data with the pre-processing steps applied to it. This allows the exchange of data that has passed specific quality tests and is certified to meet quality standards. This makes it possible to offer data refineries as a service, generating quality-assured UDR objects, and creating a marketplace for trading such objects.

[0342] V / X enables computation markets. Computation is expensive. For example, a 10,000-hour computation that applies specified code to specified inputs to produce an output is a valuable resource. If the computation is not reflected in shared information, it is not the object itself, and the only way to trade the computation's results is to trust that the given output was actually produced by the asserted computation process. In contrast, V / X effectively caches computations on UDRs, transforming code execution into tradable objects that specify in detail the inputs used, the process applied to those inputs, and the results obtained.

[0343] V / X allows for counterfactual execution and reuse of other computation results. Counterfactual execution asks how the computation result would change if some of the computation parameters, some of the implemented methods, or some of the computation inputs were changed. In some cases, a computation can be re-executed using a set of unique information objects created by V / X. In this case, it is possible to hypothetically execute a computation that produced a particular result.

[0344] V / X enables dataset merging. Merging data from different sources is a challenging and important problem in data science. There are many options for merging datasets, and if the computation that performed the merging is not recorded, there is no way to know how the process was performed. V / X records the merging process and explicitly links the merged dataset to the original datasets and the merging code that was run, so the merging process and the original datasets can be reviewed before using the merged dataset.

[0345] V / X makes it possible to extract vast amounts of new insights and knowledge from scientific literature and financial reports. The results of complex numerical calculations are typically summarized in a few numbers, figures, or charts presented in a human-readable format. For example, scientific papers often summarize the results of highly complex calculations and data analyses in a human-readable format accompanied by explanatory text. However, the true value that can be extracted from the scientific research reported in the paper lies in the underlying data and computational processes, and little value is attached to the paper's language itself. V / X makes it possible to clearly link published results to their underlying calculations and data. This makes it possible to use software processes to gather the underlying data.

[0346] V / X enables software industry regulation, particularly testing mandates and standards for mission-critical software systems and AI systems. Regulation of software systems is long overdue. It boils down to mandated software testing that asserts the quality assurance, safety, fairness, etc. of software made available to the public. This is impossible when computation is intangible. However, code execution recorded with V / X can conclusively demonstrate to regulators that specific tests have been performed.

[0347] V / X allows for back-citation of the data sources underlying the results of a human-readable user interface (e.g., scientific or financial results). See above.

[0348] V / X enables the "experience of owning data." In the fields of machine learning and AI, large datasets are required to train high-quality machine learning models. Companies compete as data holders because owners of large datasets are in an advantageous position to train better machine learning and AI models. However, dataset owners can train machine learning models for other companies for a fee. Due to privacy concerns, dataset owners often prohibit healthcare institutions from transferring their datasets to third parties interested in training machine learning models. V / X and UDR allow data owners to train models with their data on behalf of third parties and certify to those third parties that the models were actually properly trained.

[0349] V / X enables a market for trained AI models. While a trained AI model may be small in terms of information storage, it represents the value of the training data, which can be substantial, including the cost required to collect and / or label the training data and the computational value required to train the model. GPT3 and similar trained models are well-known examples of trained models that are offered without access to the training data used to train them. For the same reasons as above, V / X enables the market trading of trained AI models. For example, a trained AI model becomes a unique digital object, and V / X can be used to prove that training actually took place, using zero-knowledge proof methods to prove that it was indeed trained on the asserted training dataset, without disclosing the dataset itself.

[0350] V / X enables "data responsibility." The reliability of traditional (procedural) software systems depends solely on the quality of the code. AI models are different. Reliability depends not only on the quality of the training code, but also on the quality of the training data. A model trained on noisy data can make absurdly incorrect predictions, even if the training code itself is perfect. For this reason, debugging an AI model requires access to the training data used to train it. When computations are decoupled from their results, the connection between the trained model and the training data used to train it is implicit, and in practice the training data may be lost or deleted. However, with V / X, this connection is explicit. For example, the unique digital object containing the final trained model is connected to an object representing the training computation, which in turn is connected to an object containing the training data. As a result, if there is a problem with a prediction, it is always possible to find and inspect the training data (which permanently resides on the UDR).

[0351] Standard Information Consistency and Compliance Language (SICCL). SICCL is a machine-readable format for expressing consistency and compliance requirements across a set of information objects. It can take the form of a machine-readable language or be defined using an existing computer language, such as Python. An entity in SICCL is a unique information object, nested among various data fields and citations. This allows for defining the allowable values ​​and semantic types that fields within an information object can take. It also allows for defining the relationship requirements that two fields of two information objects must satisfy. In some embodiments, SICCL scripts can be executed on a SICCL interpreter or the interpreter / virtual machine of the implemented host language. The primary purpose of SICCL is to express information consistency and compliance requirements (e.g., those that constitute bureaucratic processes) that have previously only been understandable to humans and not expressed in a machine-readable format. We assert that ICC validation is an inherently linear, algorithmic task, making it an ideal candidate for software automation, and explain why limitations in current information systems prevent such automation. In essence, SICCL makes information consistency and compliance validation a software problem that can be easily automated by software. In some embodiments, SICCL is both machine and human readable, so requirements written in SICCL can be understood by non-technical users.

[0352] A human-readable representation of a unique digital object. Embodiments of the present invention relate to a human-side protocol that governs how verification and trust are conveyed to individuals involved in the exchange of information. It relates to how the content of information objects in UDRs (such as persistent network interfaces) is rendered, presented, and visualized to a human user.

[0353] An information system itself may be perfect but still be useless. Why? Of the two functions of information exchange, the one considered here is the consensus-based cooperation that information exchange enables. This means that information exchange systems encompass important aspects of human behavior. People must be able to understand the information presented to them, understand its reliability, and develop social norms based on the exchange. Therefore, the third embodiment of the present invention teaches how to present information objects taught in the first embodiment of the present invention and automatically verified in the second embodiment in a way that makes their accuracy, reliability, verification status, etc. immediately apparent to human stakeholders. The third embodiment also teaches how to present underlying information that may be needed now or in the future to inspect, investigate, or independently verify the presented information.

[0354] Verifiable Interactions. Interactions (e.g., user-to-user interactions, device-to-device interactions, user-to-information-object interactions) are events at various layers of reality and are the basis of most legal, social, and business processes. Verification for many types of ICC requirements involves verifying that an individual signed a document or, more generally, that they agreed to certain presented terms. Reflecting these events in an information object is a major challenge. Indeed, how can one create a digitally verifiable record of an interaction between two devices? Or, how can one create a digitally verifiable record of an individual's agreement to a document? Embodiments of the invention show how to create unique information objects on UDRs, thereby making it possible to verify that an interaction took place and to embed these important monitoring facts in digitally integrated vertical information flows.

[0355] UDR will enable breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI). The future is not just about efficiency and cost reduction. It means the possibility of entirely new products, services, markets, and jobs. A mature digital age is about creating new knowledge by keeping a digital record of everything that happens. This mature digital age, enabled by shared digital information representing everything we've learned, experienced, and known in a software-accessible digital format, will usher in a new level of artificial intelligence. Indeed, once computers can tap into the experiences of every human in the world, they will be able to train AI systems in ways that are not even considered possible today. Currently, AI systems are simplified, in part due to limited access to information. Each AI system is trained for very specific tasks based on very specific data sets. AI with access to UDR has the potential to become much more sophisticated. The computer age is evolving toward the ability to mine knowledge, learn, sense, and experiment with reality in diverse ways. The full breadth of reality reflected in UDR will enable dramatically more advanced AI and dramatically more advanced science.

[0356] Detailed Description: Persistent Network Interfaces The basic concepts of unique digital objects and unique digital realities taught herein can be implemented in many ways. As a detailed example of a possible implementation, we teach the implementation of a unique digital reality using existing computer network server technology. In this implementation, the unique digital object is implemented using a persistent network interface, and the entire UDR is implemented using a collection of persistent server interfaces.

[0357] A persistent network interface is a network service that consists of the following elements: (i) Permanent Universal Identifier (ii) Permanently available application programming interfaces (APIs) (iii) an immutable, digitally signed, and committed information payload (iv) Owner identifier (v) Time of occurrence (vi) Access Rights (vii) Optionally modifiable metadata

[0358] The API allows network participants with appropriate access privileges to query the object's payload and metadata. Specifically, the persistent interface responds to API queries sent over the network to a network address associated with its universal identifier. The network may be the Internet or other digital communications network that is assigned addresses and allows for bidirectional communication using the network addresses.

[0359] A persistent network interface acts as a durable (write once, read many times) information object, which is a viable implementation of the abstract notion of a unique digital object and can replace existing information objects such as paper documents, digital documents (PDFs), and digital files as the primary medium for information exchange in the digital age.

[0360] Introduction and Overview. Disclosed herein is a system of information objects based on permanent, immutable, unique, universally addressable, referable, and permanently software-accessible digital objects. Once created, each object is permanently stored on a server or network of servers. Embodiments of the present invention teach various possible protocols for the creation, addressing, and permanent storage of these objects. For example, the universal addressing system may be similar to or comprised of Universal Locator (URL) addresses. Alternatively, it may be based on blockchain shared ledger entries. Storage may be implemented as a single server system (HTTP or otherwise) with a single central entity responsible for providing storage and content, or it may consist of a network of competing service providers that adhere to a single protocol, such as HTTP website storage. The server honors an API for controlling access permissions to the information objects. Each object exposes an API with various methods and properties depending on its type. For example, an image information object exposes methods for displaying it in various formats, and a contract information object exposes a method for obtaining the identities of the contracting parties. Importantly, information objects are digital objects, separate from their visual or graphical representation: they can be displayed, visualized, or embedded in a variety of contexts and formats.

[0361] First of all, replacing files (digital documents) or physical documents with persistent network interfaces changes the way we access them. Digital and physical documents / files must be transmitted. In fact, the concept of email is an extension of physical documents, and it is assumed that information objects are transmitted from sender to receiver. In contrast, persistent network interfaces are universally accessible, subject to access permissions. They can be exchanged simply by granting access permissions. Because they are immutable and permanent, they can never be lost. This means that digital information objects become "things," which revolutionizes information exchange. Each one is unique, permanent, and named. Files are essentially local objects and cannot support a collective, imagined reality. Furthermore, digital files are inexpensive to copy and can be instantly deleted on the one hand, but never deleted on the other (once they are propagated across the Internet, they are not things). To own a thing, you must precisely identify what you own, but digital files cannot. Files cannot serve as a basis for consensus and therefore cannot support a shared, subjective reality.

[0362] A persistent network interface, on the other hand, is committed, immutable, and permanently accessible through a universal address. It is a "thing." It can be owned and can be the basis of consensus. It can be quoted (using an address), and the quotations are known to remain valid because the object is immutable and permanently accessible. Because persistent network interfaces are software-accessible—that is, they expose APIs accessible through universal addresses—persistent network interfaces, as information objects, as opposed to digital files, can be accessed, processed, analyzed, and aggregated using software. I can't write code to validate my tax return because that code would require API access to all the underlying documents (payslips). And who can guarantee that the files will still be there when the code runs in 10 years? Aside from the fact that payslips (whether physical or digital) don't expose APIs and are by design inaccessible to software. If payslips and other tax-related documents were all persistent network interfaces, validation code could reference these underlying documents and verify their consistency and compliance with tax laws. Furthermore, because all the underlying information is available and accessible by software, the validation code can be re-run even 10 years from now. In other words, persistent network interfaces are possessible and support software access, validation, analysis, etc. In effect, persistent network interfaces open up a wide range of possibilities for information exchange and processing, unimaginable from the limited perspective of documents as the only information objects for millennia. Furthermore, persistent network interfaces can be collected into collections that form new information objects, which leads to the topic of validation.

[0363] Verification. Let's take a closer look at how information objects are verified. When an information object—such as a license, a loan application, or a contract—is presented for verification / authentication, the verifier implicitly follows a simple recursive algorithm. Information objects as assertions can be either "observed," meaning that an assertion is made about a real (physical or other) object, state, or event, or "inferred," meaning that a specific deductive reasoning process was applied to a previous information object, resulting in the asserted result. For example, the reading of someone's water meter on January 1, 2000, is an observation, as is the assertion that $100 was transferred from account X to account Y at time Z. However, the assertion that I owe $1,000 in taxes on my 2020 tax return is an inferred fact. It is derived by applying a specific inference process (a calculation based on tax law) to historical information objects (my income, my tax payments, etc.). The verification of inferred facts is a ubiquitous activity, accounting for double-digit percent of GDP worldwide. Government officials, bankers, accountants, lawyers, office workers, local and national bureaucrats at all levels, tax authorities, insurance companies, health insurers, medical billers - all of these spend most of their time exchanging information and creating and verifying inferred facts.

[0364] One of the fundamental improvements made possible by persistent network interfaces is the ability to be verified by software. And the fact of verification itself becomes a new information object. Why? Because persistent network interfaces enable a much broader range of expressiveness for reflection. One type of reality that documents and files cannot reflect is computational reality. This reality has become much more important in recent decades. In fact, the mere possession of certain illegal files can land you in jail. Certain server access events, such as hacking, can land you in jail. Certain server access events, such as cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure, are now cassations of war. Despite the critical importance of the consensus about IT reality—the reality of storing and accessing digital information—current information systems (files and documents) cannot fully reflect this reality. In fact, the evidence presented in cybercrime trials is often nothing more than a printout of a server log.

[0365] Let us consider some examples of computational realities where the exchange of information to achieve consensus is currently crucial or likely to become crucial in the near future. Malpractice lawsuits involving AI systems – defendants must prove reasonable care, which comes down to proving that specific software testing and quality assurance procedures were followed. Government regulation of AI systems – Governments will require providers of mission-critical AI systems to demonstrate that reasonable testing has been conducted and passed. Fairness and non-discrimination – governments (or public opinion or shareholders) will require AI systems to prove they have been tested for fairness. Insurance related to AI systems requires assurance that the insured system has been tested.

[0366] Persistent network interfaces allow for the reflection of computational reality. For example, ownership of a persistent network interface is clear, and there is no question about who owns which digital asset. Server access events automatically create persistent network interfaces. Importantly, persistent network interfaces allow for verifiable execution, i.e., they allow the reflection of code execution events, events that documents cannot reflect (more on this below).

[0367] Returning to validation, code execution is a reflected event in the sense that there is a persistent network interface that asserts the code execution event. So the event of running validation code against a set of persistent network interfaces and getting the results is itself a persistent network interface. The act of validation succeeding is itself a fact. In contrast, today, when a human employee validates a loan application, there is only an implicit assertion that the employee followed the validation steps. We don't know if they did it, or if they did it correctly, or maybe they skipped some steps. And to revalidate, we have to start the whole thing over again. This is part of why we have so many people working in what we might call the information exchange and validation industry.

[0368] Regarding the creation, exchange, verification and use of facts (i) the hybrid paper-digital systems currently in use; (ii) The three specific examples of the invention described above Let's compare them.

[0369] Mortgage Application Validation: This involves verifying the consistency and suitability of the identities of the seller, buyer, property, etc. (i) You have a stack of paper or PDF documents in a folder, such as the property title deed, the purchase and sale agreement, proof of identity for the buyer and seller, proof of income for the buyer (evidence of ability to repay on the agreed-upon schedule), the loan agreement, and an appraisal report supporting the sale price of the property. (ii) It has a URL, which is a universal identifier for the loan application. All stakeholders have access permissions. Persistent network interfaces reference other persistent network interfaces for the information objects they need. Each is labeled syntactically and semantically. For example, an identity object is marked "identity." A loan application is not a PDF or paper, but structured information, such as: Purchased by: a.com / 123 Seller: a.com / 456 Property name:a.com / 789 Sales contract:a.com / 999 Evaluation report:a.com / 111 Total loan amount: 600 Loan amount in USD

[0370] All URLs such as a.com / 123 above are permanent URLs, which act as universal identifiers and access addresses to persistent network interfaces. verification: (i) Manual verification - Consistency, e.g., the parties in the loan agreement are the same as the parties in the sales agreement, the property in the sales agreement is the same as the property in the appraisal report, etc. Compliance, e.g., monthly repayments match with income proof, the sale price matches with the appraisal report, etc. (ii) Software verification by SICCL: The following code is present in the specific field of the loan application, which is a persistent network interface. % consistency Require Self.property.id == self.appraisal_report.property.id Require self.seller.id == self.property.owner.id % compliance Require self.loan_price < 0.4 * self.appraisal_report.appraised_price % regulatory requirement Require self.monthly_payment < 0.25 * self.proof_of_income.monthly_income

[0371] Human interaction - how do we know this is verified: (i) A bank employee stamps the document with a verified stamp or clicks on the verified button - the employee has performed the required tasks and swears that everything has checked. (ii) The SICCL code is executed, a new persistent network interface is created that records this execution, and the generic identifier of this object becomes the verification proof. It can be re-executed, etc.

[0372] Server interactions enable large-scale, unique digital realities. Persistent network interfaces are unique digital objects based on server interactions. This is a new approach compared to previous attempts to create persistent digital objects. Server interactions are used to create, commit, access, validate, present, and consume information in the persistent interface.

[0373] basis 1. Digital Shared Information Reality. As mentioned above, even today, despite the digital transformation of processes in full swing, many types of information interactions still involve paper documents or their digital imitations, such as PDFs and emails. Most legal and financial arm's-length transactions are based on document interactions, not on any kind of purely digital communication. As analyzed in detail elsewhere in this paper, for an information object to support agreement—that is, to support the creation of facts—it must be permanent, universally accessible, and accessible. A website that may look different tomorrow cannot serve as the basis for a contract. Similarly, a digital file that may become inaccessible in the future and whose content can change without effort cannot serve as the basis for a contract. Paper documents are still in use today because they are permanent, immutable, and permanently accessible. Anyone can read the document and access its contents. A persistent network interface is a new kind of information object. First, because it is purely digital and not a digital imitation of a document, it is accessible by software, a key characteristic that documents lack. Second, it is permanent, immutable, digitally signed, and committed. Because its information payload is signed and committed, it cannot be changed after creation. It is permanently accessible as an information object. As a result, it has the potential to replace documents as the information object underlying information exchange. As mentioned above, its reflection capabilities are much higher than other information objects. 2. Digital Integration. As mentioned above, digital files—a key design concept in modern information technology—are the foundation of all digital fragmentation. In contrast, systems that use persistent network interfaces, rather than digital files, as a fundamental element of their design foster digital integration. Currently, the way we control access to digital files is by keeping them fragmented from the rest of the world. For example, when a digital file is shared, it is impossible to establish ownership or prevent copying. In contrast, persistent network services have clear owners and are unique. They exist in a unified digital universe, similar to the World Wide Web. Systems, products, and services can access the information within a persistent network interface across organizational, government, and personal boundaries, given the appropriate permissions.

[0374] A universe of stakeholders. A persistent network interface serves a set of stakeholders. If implemented on a local corporate network, it may serve only local stakeholders. Alternatively, it may serve any stakeholder, such as anyone with Internet access.

[0375] Possible Implementation - Working Example. In the working example embodiment used throughout the detailed description of the persistent network interface, the network is the Internet. The set of stakeholders is anyone with Internet access. The persistent network interface is implemented as a RESTful web interface. The server interaction is an HTTP client-server interaction. The persistent unique identifier is in the form of a SHA256 output, e.g. "e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855". Note: In the examples below, we use four-letter identifiers for brevity, e.g. "ae3c".

[0376] Interface Authority. A persistent network interface exists indefinitely, i.e., it responds to queries indefinitely at the address associated with its unique identifier. The entity responsible for the continued service availability of a persistent network interface is called its interface authority. In a stakeholder universe, there can be one or more interface authorities.

[0377] Example Continuation - An interface authority operates an HTTP web server that serves all web interfaces under its responsibility. In the example below, the authority operates through the fictitious DNS domain "facts.com". Assuming other authorities exist, a central interface registry operating from a root domain (e.g., the fictitious domain "registry.com") might maintain a table associating the generic identifier of a persistent interface with the authority responsible for this interface. For example, it might associate the persistent interface identifier "ae3c" with the domain of the institution responsible for this interface.

[0378] Second Possible Embodiment: In another embodiment, different interface authorities could use different server technologies to provide the persistent interfaces for which they are responsible. For example, one authority might implement a parallel system where one uses an HTTP server (as described above) and another uses FTP. Both would implement the same protocol for creating and using persistent interfaces.

[0379] In some embodiments, the concept of an interface authority is analogous to the concept of a bank in a financial system, with digital objects provided by the authority being analogous to bank accounts. There are potentially multiple interface authorities, with each authority maintaining a shared, unique digital reality that is part of the whole. As a whole, the interface authorities are responsible for the shared digital reality, similar to how a bank is responsible for the financial system as a whole. The bank is the custodian of the information and is responsible for its persistent availability, similar to the interface authority. Persistent interfaces can be transferred between authorities, similar to accounts between banks.

[0380] Identity Management. To create a persistent interface and / or access an existing interface, a stakeholder must first register their identity with the interface authority. Each registered stakeholder is assigned a globally unique identifier. In a preferred embodiment, the authentication credentials themselves are stored as a persistent network interface, with the authentication credentials as its payload. This effectively makes the identifier the unique identifier of the persistent network interface. However, this is not required; see below. The interface authority provides an authentication service that allows stakeholders to authenticate and interact with authenticated servers. In a preferred embodiment, after the authentication process, the authenticating interface authority issues the authenticated stakeholder an access token, which is then used in server interactions with that authority. Identities can be assigned to natural persons (individuals) or legal entities. Identities assigned to natural persons (individuals) can be associated with the identities of other natural persons, for example, company officers.

[0381] Continuing the execution example. The interface authority allows stakeholder registration using an API or www page. Newly registered stakeholders are issued a generic identity identifier and password. A persistent network interface is created for each identity, with the hashed password in its payload. The interface's generic identifier becomes the identity identifier for this stakeholder. The interface authority allows login via a secure API, where the generic identity identifier is sent and an access token is returned. The token is then attached to server interactions with the authority. The access token is implicitly included in the execution example below. See Table 3.

[0382] Alternative embodiment: The interface authority enables enrollment, including the collection of biometric information. The biometric information is stored in the payload of a persistent network interface created for the new identity. The interface authority enables login through a secure interaction with a biometric device. A generic identity identifier and a biometric scan are sent, and an access token is returned. The token is then attached to further interactions with the authoritative server.

[0383] [Table 3]

[0384] In all server interactions described below, it is assumed that the stakeholder has an access token prior to the described exchange.

[0385] Universality of Identity. The totality of stakeholders, i.e., all stakeholders in the network, is a single pool. In the case of multiple responsible network authorities, all authorities must share a single identity system. This allows any stakeholder to potentially access persistent network interfaces that belong to the responsibility of any of the different interface authorities. It also allows persistent interfaces to be changed and migrated between authorities without compromising access control (see below). Thus, in the case of multiple authorities, in a preferred embodiment, the identity itself is represented by a persistent interface. This ensures that the identity identifier, which is a generic identifier for the persistent interface corresponding to the identity, is universally unique across authorities. In another embodiment, all authorities share an authentication system, and access tokens issued after successful authentication (in embodiments where access tokens are used) are recognized by all interface authorities. In another embodiment, each interface authority maintains a unique authentication, and stakeholder identity identifiers are unique and recognized by all authorities, but stakeholders must authenticate to each authority separately.

[0386] Network address. Each interface is accessible through a network address associated with its unique identifier. In some implementations, the address itself is hard-coded when the interface is created and is permanent. Other implementations may use an address resolution system (similar to a Domain Name Server (DNS)) to dynamically resolve network addresses based on generic identifiers. For example, in a multi-authority implementation, a global resolution system may maintain a database of assigned identifiers for all existing interfaces and resolve each interface's network address with its respective responsible authority. This design allows for the administrative authority to change or have multiple administrative authorities (see below).

[0387] Stable network addresses. In some cases, it is necessary to provide stable network addresses for persistent interfaces, i.e., addresses that do not change as the interface moves between administrative authorities. When using a central registry, the network address of the central registry can be used as a stable address prefix for all persistent interfaces, redirecting them to the administrative authority's address listed in the central registrar table.

[0388] Runtime example - continued. The network address associated with a permanent network interface is the authoritative domain followed by a " / " and a generic identifier. For example, if the authoritative domain is "facts.com" and the generic identifier for the responsible fact is "ae3c", the network address is "facts.com / ae3c". RESTful API HTTP commands are available at this address, for example, "GET https: / / facts.com / ae3c / get_payload". As in the example above, assume there are multiple interface authorities and a central registry. The central registry associates the identifier for interface "ae3c" with the domain of the authority responsible for this interface. The central registry also runs an HTTP web server that redirects all requests (specifying the generic identifier "ae3c" but not the responsible interface authority) from "registry.com / ae3c" to the correct authority's address, "facts.com / ae3c". If the interface "a3ec" migrates from "facts.com" to another institution, a request to "facts.com / a3ec" may return an "HTTP permanent redirect" response pointing to "registry.com / ae3c".

[0389] Payload. The payload of a persistent interface is the core's immutable data that is permanently available through the persistent interface. The payload may consist of arbitrary binary data, or it may be one of several pre-specified data types and formats. In the latter case, the authority maintains a defined list of possible payload types, which may be extended at any time, and for each payload type, a list of possible formats.

[0390] Base Format: For formatted payloads, any of the available formats is defined by the interface authority as the base format. In one embodiment, the payload is stored in the base format by the storage authority.

[0391] Execution example - continued. In the interface permission "facts.com", the payload type "image" allows "jpeg", "png", and "gif" as possible formats. Let's say the primary format of "image" is defined as "jpeg". When a new persistent network interface is created with payload type "image", the uploaded payload will be converted to "jpeg" format and stored in this format by the permission.

[0392] Alternative Embodiment: In an alternative embodiment, the primary format is the format in which the payload was originally uploaded, i.e., the payload is stored in the same format in which it was created and uploaded.

[0393] Access Permissions. Interface permissions potentially handle a very large number of persistent network interfaces. The number of persistent interfaces will only grow over time. Importantly, not all stakeholders have access permissions to all objects. A persistent interface includes an access control specification that specifies the stakeholders with granted access by a generic identity identifier. In some embodiments, different access levels are possible. For example, read access can allow access to all APIs, including payload access, while header access can only allow access to parts of the API that respect the privacy of the payload. For example, access to the time of origin, owner identity, payload digest, etc., but deny access to the payload itself. The access control specification is considered a mutable part of the persistent interface, rather than a property of the interface permissions. In some embodiments, an API call may allow the owner to change the access permissions. If a persistent interface is transferred to another responsible authority (see below), the access control specification transfers with it.

[0394] Alternative Embodiment. In another embodiment, there are limitations regarding the possibility of revoking access privileges after the interface is created. For example, consider the case where permanent privileges are made available to a tax authority at the time of creation. This represents a part of a financial process that the tax authority may be interested in reviewing at a later time. In this case, revoking access privileges to a tax authority is in limbo: the information exists but is not available for review. In another embodiment, some access privileges are defined permanently at the time of creation, and the owner cannot revoke them later.

[0395] Metadata - Mutable meta-information. The payload of a persistent network interface is fixed at the time of the interface's creation and cannot be subsequently changed. However, a persistent network interface can optionally store mutable meta-information associated with the interface, such as machine-readable code for verifying the information contained in the payload, encryption keys, etc. Persistent interfaces can use API commands to update and inspect meta-information, such as comments for inspecting and running the verification code.

[0396] Ensure the uniqueness of new general interface identifiers. There may be multiple interface authorities. To allow for authority transitions (see below), the interface authorities are responsible for coordinating name or address spaces to prevent collisions of general interface identifiers.

[0397] In another embodiment, each authority has a hard-coded predefined prefix for identifiers, and each authority assigns new, unused identifiers with unique prefixes to prevent identifier collisions.

[0398] Another embodiment: Collisions are prevented using a central identifier registry. Before assigning a new generic identifier to a new interface, each authority checks that the desired identifier is not in use in the central registry and registers the new identifier with the central registry, along with the authority that created it. See Table 4.

[0399] [Table 4]

[0400] Assignment of a new generic identifier. In another embodiment, the identifier assigned to a new interface is a hash (e.g., SHA256) of its payload in its primary format. If this address is obtained, i.e., an interface with the same payload exists, an alternative identifier is used.

[0401] Digital Signatures. In a preferred embodiment, the payload of a new persistent interface is digitally signed by the creator (owner) of the interface at the time of interface creation. To sign, a stakeholder first creates a public key persistent interface associated with their identifier and publishes their public key. During creation of the new persistent interface, the public key-created signature and the identifier of the public key interface are attached to the payload and included in the immutable component of the persistent interface.

[0402] Creating an interface on behalf of another stakeholder: In many possible implementations, a persistent interface is created by a stakeholder (the hospital), but owned by an...

Claims

1. 1. A method for digital integration, comprising: capturing the objects, states and events into a plurality of unique digital objects, each unique digital object comprising a universally unique, permanently accessible, immutable, committed, universally uniquely addressable and machine readable digital object permanently stored on a server, a network of servers or a distributed database; The unique digital object includes either observed assertions about one or more objects, states or events in reality (physical or other), or deduced assertions where a deductive reasoning or compliance verification process has been applied to prior information objects to obtain the asserted result; The unique digital object is accessible through a persistent network interface, includes an internet service that is permanently available on a network using a universally unique identifier, and provides an application programming interface (API); the persistent network interface responds to queries with a network address associated indefinitely with the unique identifier; The persistent network interface exposes an API as a unique digital object accessible through its universal address; the persistent network interface includes a network service that includes a permanently unique universal identifier, a permanently available API, an immutable digitally signed committed information payload, an owner identity, a time-of-origin, access permissions, and optional mutable metadata; the payload includes core immutable data that is to be made permanently available through the persistent network interface while access privileges are suspended; method.

2. Providing verifiable code execution by reflecting code execution events as a collection of unique digital objects, where the unique information objects created by the same machine, virtual machine or interpreter that executes the code, record the progress of the computation, including the executed code, input and output data structures, intermediate variables, and key results for subsequent display or processing. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

3. providing a cryptographic key pair, such that a digital signature created using a private key can be verified using a public key, the private key being issued to an individual and the corresponding public key being made publicly available through a unique digital object intended to prove the identity of the individual; providing authentication information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the individual; protecting access to said private key by an authentication process, which compares information collected from said individual during an authentication attempt with said authentication information; The method of claim 1 further comprising:

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the individual is a natural person.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the authentication information includes biometric information, including any of face information, eye information, fingerprint information, heart rate information, or genetic information.

6. verifying a unique digital identity for the individual, said verifying comprising: providing an identifier and a private key corresponding to the unique digital identity; obtaining biometric measurements for the individual; and hashing the obtained biometric measurements; using said private key to thereby obtain a hashed biometric representation of said individual; verifying the unique digital identity for the individual based on matching the hashed captured biometric measurements with the hashed biometric information; Including steps The method of claim 3 further comprising:

7. The execution of code in a programming environment Creating a plurality of digital objects within a unique digital reality (UDR), each digital object uniquely corresponding to an execution event of a particular block, subroutine or function within a computer program; Subsequently, verifying that the computer program was executed using one or more specified inputs and that the computer program produced one or more specified outputs. Validate by,step The method of claim 1 further comprising:

8. Creating the plurality of UDR objects comprises: storing, during execution of said computer code, source code corresponding to each event or function call in the UDR, said source code including all relevant variables for each event or function call; The method of claim 7, comprising:

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the computer code is implemented in a procedural programming language.

10. storing details corresponding to the environment of said execution in a main UDR object that describes the execution of said program; The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the subsequently verifying comprises an automated verification process that accesses the UDR objects created using a computing device during execution of the program.

12. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein validating the UDR object comprises re-executing the computer program using the one or more specified inputs, thereby verifying that the computer program produces the one or more specified outputs.

13. The method of claim 7 , wherein the subsequently verifying proves that functionality of the computer program has been performed or tested.

14. The method of claim 7 , wherein the subsequent verifying certifies that the computer program is fair or non-discriminatory.

15. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein said subsequent verifying proves that a specified data analysis procedure produces a claimed result.

16. Representing a document, form, or collection of documents or forms using a collection of unique digital objects, comprising: information necessary to verify the consistency and compliance of each document or form is contained in the corresponding unique digital object, and information necessary to verify the consistency and compliance of the collection as a whole is contained in one or more digital objects within the collection of corresponding unique digital objects; Steps and expressing in a machine-readable language or computer code instructions conditions regarding consistency and compliance of said document, said form, or said collection of documents or forms; verifying the form or collection of documents or forms for consistency and compliance by executing the machine-readable language or computer code instructions using a device including a processor and a communications interface; During said execution, said device accesses at least one of the document, the form, or a unique digital object corresponding to the collection of documents or forms for which consistency and compliance is being verified. Steps and The method of claim 1 further comprising:

17. and a module for performing a visualization or human readable representation of the document or form, the method performed by said module comprising: accessing a unique digital object representing the document or form to be submitted, the payload of the unique digital object including either instructions for a human readable representation of the document or form, or machine readable primary information contained in the document or form; accessing any unique digital object that represents an associated document, an associated form, a human signing event, or other document interaction related to the submitted document or form; using the unique digital object, its payload, and any associated unique digital objects to render a human readable representation or visualization of the document or form; the display or visualization includes at least one of a human-readable or machine-readable form of a unique identifier of the unique digital object, and any display or visualization presents a visually prominent symbol that asserts the validity and verifiability state of the unique digital object; Steps and The method of claim 1 , comprising:

18. the representation or visualization generated by said module enables user interaction on a user interface displayed above or next to said representation or visualization; The method of claim 17 , wherein the module creates a new unique digital object that records a user interaction with the representation or visualization.

19. 1. A computer-implemented method for creating a uniquely addressable, machine-readable, and legally binding document, comprising: providing a document creation module and a document certification module; collecting, in said document creation module, a digital format of the document in a human readable form and the main information contained within said document in a machine readable form; issuing, at the document authentication module, both a unique document identifier for the document and a document authentication data structure; the authenticity of both the digital format of the document in human readable form and the machine readable form of the primary information is verifiable by a recipient of the document authentication data structure; Steps and associating a unique document identifier with the document in either a visually perceptible, optically scannable, or machine-readable format; archiving the unique document identifier and the document authentication module in a permanent storage system; A method comprising:

20. 1. A computer-implemented method for attaching a visually perceptible, cryptographically secure digital signature to a digital or physical document, comprising: providing an identity module, a personal device, and a signature certification module; the personal device includes a processor, a communications interface, a document identity sensor, and a user authentication mechanism; each of the identity module and the signature verification module includes a processor, a communication interface, and a persistent storage system; Steps and During an identity creation phase, the identity module and the personal device create a digital identity of an individual, Creating a cryptographic signature key pair for an individual user, the key pair including a public key and a private key, such that a digital signature created using the private key can be verified using the public key; storing a unique personal identifier corresponding to the individual and the public key in persistent storage of the identity module; storing the unique personal identifier, private key and authentication credentials corresponding to the individual in persistent storage on the personal device; Creating a method for producing a recording medium comprising: a document presented for signature optically or electronically displays or emits a unique document identifier that is readable or receivable by the document identity sensor of the personal device; Steps and During the signing phase, the personal device: reading or receiving a unique document identifier from a document presented for signature via the document identity sensor; authenticating the identity of a user of the personal device using the user authentication mechanism; Retrieving the unique personal identifier and the private key corresponding to the authenticated user from the persistent storage; generating a cryptographically secure digital signature of the document by the individual using the processor and the private key; transmitting, via the communications interface, all of the unique document identifier, the unique personal identifier, and the secure digital signature to the signature authentication module; Steps and Including, During the signing phase, the signature verification module: receiving, via the communications interface, from the personal device, all of the unique document identifier, the unique personal identifier, and the secure digital signature; issuing a certified signature data structure, the certified signature data structure including at least the unique document identifier in the persistent storage, the unique personal identifier, and the secure digital signature; storing the authenticated signature data structure in the persistent storage; method.

21. the unique document identifier comprises a machine-readable optical code presented on the document; The method of claim 20 , wherein the document identity sensor comprises a camera or optical scanner configured to read the optical code.

22. emitting the unique document identifier as a radio frequency (RF) code by an electronic display device that displays the document; The method of claim 20 , wherein the document identity sensor includes an RF antenna configured to read the RF code.

23. 21. The method of claim 20, wherein the user authentication mechanism of the personal device includes a user interface configured to verify a passcode or passphrase.

24. The method of claim 20 , wherein the user authentication mechanism of the personal device includes any of biometric authentication, facial authentication, voice authentication, or fingerprint authentication.

25. the personal device comprises a smartphone; the unique document identifier comprises a machine-readable optical code presented on the document; the document identity sensor comprises a camera of the smartphone; The user authentication mechanism includes a native smartphone user authentication mechanism.

21. The method of claim 20.

26. after completion of the signing step, the authenticated signature data structure is retrievable from a signature verification module by presenting either the unique document identifier or the unique personal identifier; any visual representation of the signed document including a visually recognizable representation of the signature and a unique locator of both the authenticated signature data structure and a signature verification module; 21. The method of claim 20.

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