Ken Cardwell is a founder and systems architect working at the intersection of identity, artificial intelligence, and human representation. He is the founder of ActorForge and the Virtual Actors Guild, where he is building early infrastructures for governed synthetic performers—digital entities designed to operate with defined identity, consent, authorship, and lifecycle control. Ken has filed multiple provisional patents spanning synthetic identity binding, delegated presence, lifecycle management, and platform authorization frameworks, focused on making digital representation accountable in an age of programmable identity. His work addresses the emerging shift from content generation to presence generation—and the systems required to define, protect, and govern what is authorized to act in human form.

At TEDxBeverlyGrove
Ken Cardwell will share The Identity First Rule—a decision test for what must be true before we hand voice, judgment, and representation to digital systems. The risk isn’t “bad content.” It’s the moment assistance becomes impersonation. He’ll outline the guardrails that keep authorship, consent, and accountability attached to a real person.

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