One evening last month, a crowd of cryptocurrency
enthusiasts gathered at an art gallery in downtown Manhattan. They were greeted
by a scene from science fiction.
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At one end of the room was an open bar. Across from it stood
a loose array of gray pedestals, arranged like a futuristic Stonehenge, each
displaying a metal sphere about the size of a bowling ball.
The event was a launch party for Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency
project created by Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, and the crypto company he
co-founded, Tools for Humanity. As music thrummed in the background, guests
congregated around the shiny orbs, which looked like a cross between a giant
eight ball and HAL 9000, the rogue computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
The gathering was a small step in what Tools for Humanity
claims will be a world-changing project: to scan the eyeballs of all 8 billion
humans, and then use that one-time ID to offer small allotments of
cryptocurrency to support them in a world upended by artificial intelligence.
Every Worldcoin orb contains a camera designed to record
images of a person’s irises. The orbs convert those scans into bits of
numerical code, which are supposed to serve as a new type of digital ID. In the
short term, Tools for Humanity plans to generate revenue by offering its
iris-based system as an alternative to security technologies such as CAPTCHA,
the photographic test that is used to sort humans from spam accounts.
Ultimately, Worldcoin’s backers envision a grander plan to
protect people from AI advances that they claim will eliminate millions of
jobs. They are promoting the orbs as a possible foundation for universal basic
income, a welfare system in which everyone receives guaranteed payments, and
argue that iris IDs will help distinguish real people from robots.
To skeptics, the prospect of a privately owned crypto
company’s handling the biometric data from billions of people sounds like a
recipe for dystopia, with echoes of the 2002 Tom Cruise film “Minority Report.”
But Tools for Humanity has raised $115 million this year from venture capital
investors, even as funding for crypto has dried up during a downturn in the
industry.
Tools for Humanity is part of a growing array of crypto
firms trying to latch on to the hype around AI to propel digital currencies
back to relevance after a miserable 18 months of market crashes and
bankruptcies. Its project also shows how powerful figures such as Altman are
seeking to profit in a tumultuous period, creating moneymaking ventures to
mitigate the negative effects of AI, even as they aggressively develop the
technology.
As Tools for Humanity has gained prominence, its marketing
tactics and iris-scanning techniques have raised alarms. Last month,
authorities in France and Germany said they were investigating Worldcoin’s data
collection practices. On Wednesday, the government of Kenya ordered Tools for
Humanity to stop conducting scans, blaming a “lack of clarity” in its handling
of sensitive information.
“They’re asking us to believe them, to trust them,” said
Andrew Bailey, a crypto expert at Yale-NUS College, a collaboration of Yale
University and the National University of Singapore. “I don’t think I should
have to trust anyone like that when it comes to sensitive information.”
A Tools for Humanity spokesperson said the company had
designed Worldcoin to “protect individual privacy” and would work with
governments to meet regulatory requirements.
Despite the concerns, dozens of crypto fans showed up last
month at the Canvas 3.0 gallery in Manhattan to celebrate Worldcoin’s launch.
In many places, users receive a small allotment of crypto tokens when they sign
up for an iris scan — essentially free money. But Tools for Humanity isn’t
offering tokens in the United States, citing the legal uncertainty around
crypto companies.
None of the guests seemed perturbed. And they were
relatively blase about the potential for an orb-fueled surveillance state.
“Privacy doesn’t even exist anymore,” said Lawrence Yan, a
25-year-old who works in the crypto industry, as a server offered him a cracker
smothered in hummus. He was willing to have his irises scanned “for the meme,”
he said.
As Worldcoin has embarked on a marketing blitz, its backers
have trumpeted more than 2 million sign-ups — a long way from 8 billion, but a
lot of irises nonetheless. Last month, Altman claimed that the orbs were
scanning new eyeballs every 8 seconds.
“We had a huge, huge surge in demand,” said Alex Blania, CEO
of Tools for Humanity. “Long lines in front of orbs. So long that it was hard
to handle in some parts of the world.”
Much of the scrutiny has focused on Worldcoin’s potential
privacy risks. On its website, Tools for Humanity says the orbs don’t store iris
data. When people are scanned, the website says, they receive a unique ID
secured by complex cryptography, while any images are deleted. With wide
adoption, Worldcoin IDs could help social media platforms distinguish between
humans and bots, Blania said.
Eventually, the firm wants to distribute 50,000 orbs
worldwide — at the moment, only a few hundred are in circulation — and amass
billions of sign-ups, enough to form the basis of a universal basic income
system.
The profits of the emerging AI revolution may ultimately
have to be “redistributed with society,” Blania said. “What Worldcoin does is
it gives everyone, not just people in Europe or the United States, an identity,
and it gives them a way to be economically reachable.”
But as the company has expanded globally, it has faced
criticism for its marketing. Before its official launch, Tools for Humanity
sent contractors, called “orb operators,” to collect iris data in developing
countries. Some of those contractors used deceptive techniques to solicit
sign-ups, according to investigations last year by BuzzFeed News and MIT
Technology Review.
And for all of Altman’s talk of an equitably distributed
currency, Tools for Humanity has said about one-fourth of its new digital
coins, known as WLD, are already earmarked for venture investors and other
company insiders.
Blania compared Tools for Humanity’s rollout problems to the
challenges facing firms, such as Uber, that operate large networks of
contractors. He said that the company had instituted “standard quality control
measures” for its workforce and that the token allocations were necessary to
raise funds from investors.
“I would love that number to be lower, but it is what it
is,” he said.
At the event in Manhattan, a stream of curious onlookers
mingled with Tools for Humanity representatives, who wore white T-shirts
emblazoned with the words “unique human.”
As music blasted, a couple walked over to an orb podium to
speak with the orb operator about his experiences manning the new frontier of
digital identity. He hadn’t been on the job for long, he told them, but was
already getting strange questions. A new user had recently asked what would
happen if “someone took off my face and put it in front of the orb?” he said.
Then the conversation turned to the unfortunate plight of
“the eyeless.” A freshly scanned guest wondered, from an accessibility
perspective, how people who didn’t have eyes would fit into the new world
order. The orb operator nodded solemnly. “That’s a very valid concern,” he
said.
None of these potential issues stemmed the flow of sign-ups.
Isaac Cespedes, a 32-year-old software developer, spent much of the night
weighing the pros and cons of offering his biometric data to a startup.
“My crypto trader friend — I just messaged him,” Cespedes
said. “He thinks it sounds scammy.”
By the end of the evening, though, Cespedes was lining up to
be scanned.
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