Data processing on the device itself. “We don’t send any data to the cloud.”
The Orb is a physical manifestation of the AI-powered future, and it’s a future that’s both exciting and terrifying. It’s a future that’s both utopian and dystopian. It’s a future that’s both a solution and a problem.
The Orb is the flagship device from Worldcoin, the crypto-meets-AI project co-founded by Sam Altman and Alex Blania. It’s a chrome and shiny device about the size of a bowling ball, and it uses a system of infrared cameras, sensors, and AI-powered neural networks to scan a user’s iris and verify that they are a human being. Worldcoin’s goal is to use AI to create wealth and distribute it fairly to all of humanity as a form of UBI, or universal basic income, in the form of a cryptocurrency. But how can we be sure we’re handing out the loot to a human, and not an AI-powered fake? The team thought about the problem and came to a wrenching conclusion: they needed to verify humanity with biometric data.
"We really did not want to do this," Blania says. "We know it’s going to be painful. It’s going to be expensive. People think it’s weird." But they thought it had to be done. The Orb was designed to evoke simplicity, and it works smoothly with the help of AI. The onboarding process is easily the most frictionless crypto onboarding experience, if you’re willing to overlook the whole scanning-the-eyeball thing.
"Privacy is a fundamental human right," reads the company’s privacy statement. The Orb handles all of its data processing on the device itself, and the default setting is to not capture data. Critics have raised concerns about the project, but Worldcoin insists that the Orb is not collecting biometric data from the eyeballs, or at least not unless the user explicitly allows it.
"The Orb is a physical manifestation of the AI-powered future, and it’s a future that’s both exciting and terrifying," says Blania. It’s a future that’s both a solution and a problem.