Spend enough time in San Francisco, looking in the future of Cyberpunk, and you may find that strange things are starting to seem normal. Fleets of autonomous cars? Yawn. A start-up trying to resuscitate the woolly mammoth? Of course, why not. Invoke a divine artificial intelligence that could destroy humanity? Ho-Hum.
You can even find yourself, as I did Wednesday evening, standing in a crowded part in the district of Marina, looking at a brilliant white sphere known as Orbe, causing your eye globes in exchange for cryptocurrency and something called a world identity document.
The event was organized by World, a San Francisco start-up co-founded by Sam Altman d’Opnai who created one of the most ambitious (or frightening, according to your opinion) in recent memory.
The company’s basic argument is as follows: Internet is about to be exceeded in realistic IA robots of Robots which will make it almost impossible to say if we interact with real humans on social networks, dating sites, game platforms and other online spaces.
To solve this problem, World has created a program called World ID – You can consider it as clear or TSA Precheck for Internet – which will allow users to check their humanity online.
To register, users look at an orb, which collects an analysis of their iris. Then, they follow some instructions on a smartphone application and receive a unique biometric identifier which is stored on their device. There are confidentiality of agriculture confidentiality, and the company says that it did not store the images of users’ iris, only a digital code that corresponds to it.
In exchange, users receive a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, which they can spend, send to other global identity holders or exchange other currencies. (Since Wednesday evening, the registration bonus was worth around $ 40.)
During the event, Mr. Altman presented Le Monde as a solution to the problem he called “confidence in the Act era” as the general artificial intelligence is getting closer and that Human AI systems appear, he said, the need for a mechanism that indicates that robots and humans are increasingly urgent.
“We wanted a way to ensure that humans remain special and central in a world where the Internet was going to have a lot of content focused on AI,” said Altman.
Finally, Mr. Altman and Alex Blania, the director general of World, believe that something like Worldcoin will be necessary to distribute the product of the powerful AI systems to humans, perhaps in the form of a universal basic income. They discussed various ways of creating a “real human network” which would combine a system of verifying the proof of humanity with a financial payment system which would allow verified humans to transform with other verified humans – all without relying on the identifiers issued by the government or the traditional banking system.
“The initial ideas were very crazy,” said Altman. “Then we went down to a little crazy, which has become the world.”
The project was launched two years ago internationally, and he found a large part of his early traction in developing countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where users aligned themselves to obtain their orb scans in exchange for cryptocurrency awards. The company has raised around $ 200 million from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
There have been hiccups. The collection of global biometric data has been faced with the opposition of private life and regulators, and the company has been prohibited or studied in places such as Hong Kong and Spain. There have also been reports of scams and operating workers related to the reward system based on project cryptography.
But he seems to grow quickly. About 26 million people have registered for the global application since its launch two years ago, said Blania, and more than 12 million have received orb scans to verify themselves as humans.
The world remained outside the United States at the start, partly without concern that regulators are reluctant to their plans. But the friendly policies of the Trump administration gave him an opening.
Wednesday, World announced that it was launched in the United States and opening up retail in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and Nashville, where new users can scan their eyes and get their global identifiers. He plans to have 7,500 orbs in the country by the end of the year.
The company has also revealed a new version of its Orb, the Orb Mini – which is not, in fact, an Orb. Instead, it looks like a smartphone with shiny eyes, but serves the same goal as the largest device. And World has announced partnerships with other companies such as Razer, The Gaming Company and Match Group, the Conglomerate of Meeting Application, which will soon allow Tinder users in Japan to check their humanity using their global identifiers.
We do not yet know how it will all earn money, nor if the Americans concerned with confidentiality will also be eager to get rid of their biometric data for some cryptographic tokens as people in development in the world.
It is not clear either if the world can overcome basic skepticism as to the way in which everything can feel strange and sinister.
Personally, I am in favor of the idea that we need a way to distinguish robots and humans. But the proposed corrective of the world – a global biometric register, supported by a volatile cryptocurrency and supervised by a private company – can look too much like an episode of “black mirror” to achieve traditional acceptance. And even Wednesday, in a room filled with first adopters, I met a lot of people who were reluctant to look in the Orb.
“I do not easily give up my personal data and I consider my personal data on my eyeballs,” said a technological worker.
The world link with Mr. Altman also made a meticulous exam. During the event, some skeptics stressed that, due to his position in Overai, he somehow fuels the problem – an internet full of hyper -converse robots – this world is trying to solve.
But it is also possible that Mr. Altman’s connection can help the world to evolve quickly, if he associates with Openai or integrates with his AI products in one way or another. Perhaps the social network that Openai Building has a “human human only” mode, or perhaps users who will contribute to Openai products in a precious way will one day be paid in Worldcoin.
(The New York Times continued Openai and its partner, Microsoft, saying that the copyright violation of news content linked to AI systems. OPENAI and Microsoft denied statements.)
It is also quite possible that confidentiality standards can change in favor of the world and that what seems strange and sinister today can be standardized tomorrow. (Remember how weird was the first time you saw a clear kiosk at the airport? Did you promise never to put your biometric data back, then finally yield and accept it as the cost of convenience?)
When it was my turn to get into the orb, I removed my glasses, opened my global application and followed the instructions she gave me. (Look like that, look like that, go back a little.) The cameras of the orb swirl for a minute, capturing the texture of my iris. A ring around the orb shone yellow, and he let out a happy chime.
A few minutes later, I owed a world ID and 39.22 Worldcoin tokens. (The tokens are worth $ 40.77 at today’s prices, and I will give them to a charitable work, once I discover how to get them out of my phone.)
My orb scan was fast and painless, but I spent the rest of the night feeling vaguely vulnerable – as if I had just agreed to participate in a clinical trial for a new risky medication without reading the possible side effects. But many present did not seem to have such scruples.
“What am I hiding anyway?” A social media influencer named Hannah Stocking said, while she was approaching her orb scan. “Who cares? Take everything. “
