After taking the world by storm with the release of ChatGPT, Sam Altman now wants to pay for your biometric data.
Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI has a pet project called Worldcoin which has been making headlines lately…mostly for the wrong reasons.
Here’s what lowdown of the hype around Worldcoin, how you can get some $WLD tokens and why you might want to think twice before jumping onto this bandwagon. First up:
Who is Sam Altman?
Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur best known as the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, the organisation that developed ChatGPT.
While working on OpenAI, Altman started thinking about the problem of identifying unique humaness and preserving privacy. Afterall, once AI start gaining traction, we will soon need system to identify between AI and humans.
These challenges lead to the development of Worldcoin.
What is Worldcoin?
Worldcoin is an ambitious cryptocurrency project that aims to become a global identity and financial network, even for the unbanked.
According to its whitepaper, if successful,
“Worldcoin could considerably increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online while preserving privacy, enable global democratic processes, and show a potential path to AI-funded UBI.”
How it works
To attain their objective, Worldcoin would first need to be able to identify individuals via what they term as “Proof of Personhood”.
Their solution?
Record images of people’s unique irises and issue a unique World ID for each iris (think of it like a passport…to your identity on the Worldcoin blockchain).
Worldcoin was launched on 24 Jul 2023. To get people on board, they are giving our Worldcoin tokens ($WLD) for successful scans.
“eligible verified users can claim 1 free WLD token per week with no maximum and the amount is consistent across applicable regions”.
The Worldcoin Orb
The process of scanning your iris is not as simple as taking a photo of your eye using your smartphone. Instead, you will need to locate one of Worldcoin’s propriety Orbs (an open iris scanner) in order to get your WorldID.
Fun Fact, there are two Worldcoin Orbs located in Singapore.
How do the orbs work (and what data does it record)?
Basically, Worldcoin relies on use of biometrics identifiers to differentiate you and me. Examples of biometrics identifiers include fingerprint, hand shapes, face shapes, retina and iris.
In Singapore, we already see the use of iris and facial biometrics at our Immigration Checkpoints.
Worldcoin is taking that one step further. They developed their own Orb technology to scan irises in accordance to the data they require.
The orb is an open iris scanner that will scan your iris, convert it into unique code and store that under your WorldID in Worldcoin’s global centralised database.
Wait…what happened the mantra of crypto being “decentralized”?
While the data collected now are centralized and encrypted, Worldcoin have shared that it will be move towards decentralization.
They would build on Ethereum using the Optimism stack, and protecting users’ privacy using ZK-SNARKs and other cryptographic techniques. Progressing from that, it will include a decentralizing governance of the system itself.
Worldcoin’s controversy: What’s the value of personal privacy?
The main controversy around Worldcoin is how they are enticing users to scan their iris in exchange for the $WLD token.
Get this: Worldcoin doesn’t have any functionality nor utility, except as a speculative token. However, its price had already dropped since its launch.
Worldcoin’s onboarding has taken off in African and Asian countries, instead of the US. In some of these countries, 1 $WLD could mean a significant income.
Heck, there have been opportunistic orb owners who would even pay people a small sum to stare into a round metal ball. I shared one such example that took place in an African nation in our FB group:
Should you scan your iris for $WLD?
Get free guaranteed weekly payout simply by staring at a shiny orb.
Sounds good right?
But at what cost?
And should you do it?
Before you take up the offer, I implore you stop and think for a moment. For the implications may be deep:
- How will your data be stored or used?
- How long will it take for Worldcoin to transition fully to a decentralized model?
- Will any governments or external authority be able to challenge Worldcoin and take over control of its database before they move onto the path of decentralization?
- Will Sam Altman become the world’s overlord?
So, will you trust a for-profit organization with your personal information?
And would you let Worldcoin scan your iris?
Let me know your thoughts below!
p.s. I hold occasional educational webinars with Dr Wealth to help equip investors with the fundamentals to invest safely (and profitably) in crypto. Join my next session here!
