Spend a lot of time in San Francisco, looking at the future of Cyberpunk and you may find that strange things start to look normal. Auto-driving fleets? Yawn. A start that is trying to resurrect mammoth? Sure, why not. Making a divine artificial intelligence that could eliminate humanity? Ho-Hum.
You may even find yourself, as I did on Wednesday night, standing in a full room in the marina area, looking at a glittering white sphere known as a sphere, having your eyes scanned in exchange for encryption and something called World ID.
The event was hosted by World, a start of San Francisco co -founded by Openai’s Sam Altman who has come to one of the most ambitious (or creepy, depending on your view) technological works in recent memory.
The main step of the company is this: The internet is to be overcome by flocks of realistic bots AI that will make it almost impossible to say if we interact with real people on social networks, dating areas, gambling platforms and other online spaces.
To solve this problem, people have created a program called World ID – you can consider it clear or Tsa Precheck for the Internet – that will allow users to verify their humanity online.
To register, users look at a bullet, which collects a scan of their iris. Following are some instructions on a smartphone app and receive a unique biometric ID stored on their device. There are baked privacy features and the company says it does not store the images of users’ iridescourse, only a numerical code corresponding to them.
In return, users receive a encryption called Worldcoin, which they can spend, send to other people’s identity holders or market for other coins. (Since Wednesday night, registration bonus was worth about $ 40.)
At the event, Mr Altman threw the world as a solution to the problem called “Trust in the Age of Agi”, as artificial general intelligence is approaching and the AI ​​systems said, said, the need for a mechanism that says bots and people are becoming more and more urgent.
“We wanted a way to make sure that people remain separate and central in a world where the internet will have many contents with AI-guided,” said Altman.
Finally, Mr Altman and Alex Blania, the CEO of the world, believe that something like Worldcoin will need to distribute revenue from powerful AI systems to humans, perhaps in the form of a universal basic income. They discussed various ways to create a “real human network” that would combine a proof-in-law verification system with a financial payment system that would allow verified people to deal with other verified people-without relying on government or traditional banking system.
“The original ideas were very crazy,” Mr Altman said. “Then I went down to one who was a little crazy, becoming people.”
The project began two years ago internationally and found much of its early attraction in developing countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where users are lined up to get ORB scans in exchange for encryption rewards. The company has raised about $ 200 million from investors, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
There were some hiccups. The biometric data collection worldwide has faced opposition from supporters and privacy principles and the company has been banned or investigated in places such as Hong Kong and Spain. Reports of fraud and exploitation of workers associated with the reward system based on project rewards system have also been reported.
But it seems to grow quickly. About 26 million people have been registered for the implementation of the world since it started two years ago, Mr Blania said and more than 12 million have received orb scans to verify as humans.
The world was initially out of the United States, partly of the concern that regulatory authorities would hinder its plans. But the Trump -friendly policies of Trump’s administration gave him an opening.
On Wednesday, the World announced that it began in the United States and opened retail outlets in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Nashville, where new users can scan their eyes and get their global identifiers. It plans to have 7,500 bullets in the country by the end of the year.
The company also revealed a new version of its Orb, the ORB Mini – which is not, in fact, a bullet. Instead, it looks like a smartphone with shiny eyes, but serves the same purpose as the larger device. And World has announced partnerships with other businesses, such as Razer, gaming company and Match team, the Dating App Conglomerate group, which will soon allow Tinder users in Japan to verify their humanity using their World IDs.
It is not yet clear how one of them will make money or whether Americans who realize privacy will be so willing to pass their biometric data for some cryptographic brands and people in the development of parts of the world.
It is also not clear if people can overcome basic skepticism about how strange and threatening the whole thing can feel.
Personally, I am nice to the idea that we need a way to say bots and people separately. But the world’s proposed fix – a worldwide biometric register, supported by a volatile encryption and supervised by a private company – may sound very much like an episode of “black mirror” to reach the mainstream acceptance. And even on Wednesday, in a room filled with eager first adopters, I met many people who were reluctant to look at the bullet.
“I don’t easily give up my personal data and I consider my eyes personal data,” one technology worker told me.
The connection of the world with Mr Altman has also examined control. During the event, some skeptics pointed out that because of its position at the top of Openai, it is in some way to feed the problem-an internet full of super-pents-this people are trying to solve.
But it is also possible that Mr Altman’s connection could help the global scale quickly if he works with Openai or integrates with AI products in some way. Perhaps the social network that Openai is alleged to have created a “verified people” feature or perhaps users who contribute to Openai products in valuable ways will be paid in the WorldCoin one day.
(New York Times has sued Openai and her partner, Microsoft, supporting copyright infringement of the AI ​​-related news content. Openai and Microsoft have denied claims.)
It is also quite likely that privacy standards can shift to the favor of the world and that what feels weird and threatening today can be normalized tomorrow. (Remember how strange it felt the first time you saw a clear kiosk at the airport? You promised that you would never deliver your biometric data, then you will eventually restore it and accept it as a cost of convenience?)
When it was my turn to accelerate the bullet, I remove my glasses, opened my global application and followed the instructions it gave me. (Look in this way, look in this way, go out a little. A ring around the bullet shines yellow, and let a happy hit.
A few minutes later, I was the owner of a global identity and 39.22 brands of Worldcoin. (The brands are worth $ 40.77 at today’s prices and I will donate them to charity as soon as I understand how to get them out of my phone.)
My scan was fast and painless, but I spent the rest of the night I felt vaguely vulnerable – as I just agreed to participate in a clinical trial for a dangerous new drug without reading the possible side effects. But many present have appeared to have such doubts.
“What am I hiding, anyway?” An influence of the social media called Hannah Stocking said as he went up to get the sphere scanning. “Who cares? Get everything.”
