Worldcoin is an ambitious project that seeks to achieve universal basic income (UBI) by giving tokens to all eight billion people on the planet. To do this, they invented a physical device called “The Orb” that can scan your eyeball, allowing people to prove that they are in fact human beings. Co-founded by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the project has real intellectual heft and is backed by the belief that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) could unlock wondrous leaps of productivity, which could confer financial benefits to the world. Worldcoin’s goal is to launch a currency by giving ownership to every human being, and as a result, give them world ID and access to decentralized financial tools. The Orb is used to verify identity, as it is the best way to solve the problem of proving a unique human being amongst a billion people.
It sounded absolutely ridiculous, admits Alex Blania, co-founder and CEO of Worldcoin. But back then I thought, well, [if this fails] I can always go back and get another job, so why don’t I actually try it?
The goal of Worldcoin is to launch a currency by giving ownership to every human being, explains Blania. And as a result, give them world ID and give them access to decentralized financial tools.
At first, we really did not want to solve identity, because the idea itself was so ambitious, says Blania. But we realized that there’s just no way around it.
Many of the systems that are live today will get quite challenged in a world of [improving AI], says Blania. It’s going to be very easy to fake things on the internet. Asking someone to do certain tasks, like CAPTCHA, or a more complicated form of CAPTCHA, will eventually break. You fundamentally need to bridge to the physical world, and measure what it means to be a human. And that’s why The Orb.
We are not using the data for any other purpose than to verify that you are a human being, clarifies Rebecca Hahn, Chief Communications Officer for Tools for Humanity (Worldcoin’s parent company). We are not using it for any other purpose. We are not selling it. We are not using it for marketing. We are not using it for any other purpose than to verify that you are a human being.