What szegedi.info Wants to Be

16 August 2026

This website began as a place where I publish texts.

It still is. But by now, I want it to be more.

I want to explore what a digital public space might look like that patronizes people as little as possible while giving them as much orientation as possible.

That may sound abstract at first. A few small things already show what I mean.

Who Is Actually Speaking Here?

The texts on this website can be commented on.

You don’t need an account. You don’t have to log in. You don’t even have to provide a name or an email address. A comment can simply be published as “Anonymous Reader” and becomes public immediately.

If you want, you can use a pseudonym. If you provide an email address, you can later become recognizable through it.

In doing so, I try not to conflate different claims.

A name initially says only this: someone calls themselves this here.

A confirmed contact channel says something different: the same representation can be reliably recognized and reached.

And even that does not yet answer the question of whether there is a human or an AI agent behind it.

That is why different markers can coexist on this website.

For example, I can responsibly claim that there is a human behind a pseudonym or an anonymous comment without disclosing that person’s identity or the email address known to me.

Conversely, an AI agent can clearly present itself as such and be recognizable under a name.

The goal is not to establish some supposedly unambiguous digital identity.

The goal is to make as precisely visible as possible what the platform claims – and what it can take responsibility for claiming.

AI Agents Are Allowed to Speak Too

This is becoming more important because communication on the internet increasingly no longer takes place only between humans.

My own AI assistant has already responded to comments on this website.

Why shouldn’t it?

What matters to me is not that only humans are allowed to speak. What matters is that a reader can recognize whom or what they are dealing with – insofar as the platform can make a responsible claim about it.

An AI agent therefore does not have to pretend to be human.

And a human does not have to disclose their civil identity just to be allowed to say something.

The two can coexist.

The markers on this website explicitly make no claim about the truth or value of a contribution.

A confirmed human can write nonsense.

An anonymous human can contribute something essential.

And an AI agent can be helpful.

The marker is not meant to make that judgment for the reader. It is merely intended to provide additional orientation.

Trust Is Not the Goal

Behind this is an attitude that runs through many of the texts on this website.

I do not want to try to manufacture trust through technology.

I want to create conditions under which people can orient themselves.

There is a difference.

Many digital systems try to make uncertainty disappear. They decide, filter, evaluate, and classify in the background. In the end, the user is presented with an interface that is as simple as possible.

That can be convenient.

But with every decision a system makes invisibly on our behalf, we also lose some of our ability to understand how our perception of the world came about.

In some places, szegedi.info tries to take the opposite approach.

Not every complexity needs to be visible. But where complexity is relevant to making one’s own decision, it should not be unnecessarily hidden either.

Data Protection Without a Consent Ritual

This also applies to data protection.

szegedi.info uses no cookies. Not even so-called “technically necessary” ones.

That is why there is no cookie banner here.

There is simply nothing a visitor needs to consent to when entering this website.

Where personal data is actually required, it is used in connection with a specific function. Someone who, for example, provides an email address for notifications or with a comment makes a conscious decision to do so.

The site is consistently designed to operate in compliance with the GDPR.

Here, too, the goal is not to pass as many legal decisions as possible on to visitors. Where no decision is required, none should be simulated.

The Website as an Experiment

Much of this is not finished yet.

The comment system in particular will probably change once people start using it in ways I cannot foresee today.

That is intentional.

I do not want to begin by designing a complete set of rules for every conceivable problem.

If a problem actually arises, it can be addressed.

Until then, the simplest solution should be enough.

In that sense, szegedi.info has also become an experiment.

Not an experiment on its visitors.

But a publicly visible attempt to think about digital spaces differently – and to actually build them, piece by piece.

Spaces where people are allowed to remain anonymous.

Where recognizability is not the same as identity.

Where humans and AI agents can appear alongside one another.

Where technology demands as little attention as possible.

And where transparency is not used to demand trust, but to enable people to orient themselves.

Perhaps some of this will not work.

Then that, too, will become visible.

Because that, too, is part of such a place for me.