Company pays to identify your iris – 07/31/2023 – Ronaldo Lemos

The creator of ChatGPT wastes no time. Last week, Sam Altman officially inaugurated the Worldcoin project. The proposal is as simple as it is ambitious: to create a unique digital identity for each person on the planet. For this, the company will pay about US$ 20 for each person who voluntarily identifies himself in its system.

Identification takes place through a picturesque device called The Orb. It’s a silver sphere with a camera and eye-reading sensors that looks like something out of an episode of “Black Mirror.” The person brings the sphere close to their face and it then scans their eyes, obtaining an image of their iris. All this linked to an application on the cell phone, which starts to store the cryptographic keys that can be used from then on as a digital identity.

Through the application, which also works as a cryptocurrency wallet, the person identified will also be able to receive his US$ 20 in the form of virtual coins. In Japan, there were reports of queues of people looking to sign up on the first day (the company claims it already has more than 2 million identified). In other countries, the interest was small, with empty seats.

São Paulo, for example, has four places listed where it is possible to register through an Orb, most of them in regions close to Faria Lima. Everyone had totally free scheduling appointments in the coming days and weeks. So far no queues (or interest) in Brazil.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that Orb operators receive about US$ 3 per person they sign up.

In creating Worldcoin, Sam Altman and his 29-year-old partner, Alex Blania, attempt a triple jump. First, they are betting that the growth of artificial intelligence will lead to the need to pay some kind of basic income to people who lose their jobs. But how and to whom to pay? Worldcoin proposes to be the channel, certifying the identity of the recipient and at the same time creating a cryptocurrency and an application through which payment can be made.

The third part of the jump is that Worldcoin is committed to solving one of the most difficult problems in the contemporary world: the creation of a digital identity. Most countries have failed to create a true digital identity. Among the exceptions are Estonia and India. Sam Altman’s company wants to step into exactly that vacuum. As most governments have been unable to do, he will do it for them.

The accusations against the project are numerous: neocolonialism, threat to privacy, centralization. Or even, a simple trick to launch a new cryptocurrency with a humanitarian veneer, but with the potential to be only speculative to fatten the pockets of its creators and managers.

It is also worth mentioning that there are other projects for creating a global digital identity that promise to pay their users, such as Proof of Humanity, created by Chilean Santiago Siri.

Nonetheless, Altman’s project poses a crucial challenge. If Brazil and other developing countries do not sort out their digital identities themselves, they will be vulnerable for others to do so. If they are not prepared for the consequences of artificial intelligence, they will also be jumping into the abyss.

Reader

It’s over Neglecting the issue of digital identities and artificial intelligence

AlreadyProjects like Worldcoin, Proof of Humanity, BrightID, Idena, Circles and others trying to create digital identities

It’s comingCriticisms and concerns regarding privacy, security and centralization

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