The Real Problem with AI Agents Isn't Identity, It's Authorization

The text discusses the challenges of managing authorization for AI agents, emphasizing the need for fine-grained access control to address the limitations of current broad-scope authorization models. While identity management through service accounts and tokens is relatively straightforward, the real issue lies in ensuring that AI agents have appropriately scoped access to resources, particularly when interacting with APIs. The document highlights the differences between local and remote agents, using Google Drive as an example to illustrate the complexities of scoping permissions. It advocates for implementing Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), and Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC) to provide more precise authorization. The text also warns about potential challenges, such as agent-to-agent delegation, consent granularity, and managing relationship sprawl, noting that while ReBAC aligns well with intuitive access control, it requires significant infrastructure and tooling to implement effectively.