Back when Worldcoin was sending its Orbs around the world, OpenAI (and Worldcoin)’s Sam Altman wasn’t on very many casual radars. Now the apparent crypto company has rebranded, but its aim of scanning as many human faces as possible hasn’t changed.
Instead of free cryptocurrency that never materialised (do those initial folks have a case to plead?), the World Orb promises online security. It’ll still harvest biometric data, of course. Nominally on behalf of Tinder, Zoom, DocuSign, and er… Ticketmaster, having a World ID will tell these platforms that you’re really human. Pay no attention to what’s happening to your facial map and retinal data behind the scenes.
Orb of power
It’s certainly a better idea than ‘scan face, (maybe) get free money’. Tools for Humanity, the group driving this project, requires that World ID users physically scan their features and eyes at one of the company’s hardware units. These are located, for the present, in Japan and the States, plus other, vaguer, locations. Once that’s done, a companion World ID app lets users input their ID into compatible apps.
One of these is set to be an online dating app, Tinder. Those users will have a “verified human badge” added to their profiles, which gives you some idea of how tough digital dating is getting. They’ll also get five free boosts on the platform for using this sign-in method. It’s a small price to pay to hand Sam your facial data, right? If you need another reason to stick your face into one of roughly 11,000 Orbs, it exists.
Zoom will use the company’s tech, and so will DocuSign. These implementations will supposedly verify that you’re talking to a real person instead of an AI-powered deepfaked bot. What’s stopping the human from logging in and immediately swapping in a digital clone isn’t explained.
Another function, Concert Kit, will reserve event tickets for real, human users. It’s a nice idea, in theory, since it kicks scalper bots in the nuts. But unless the system is wholly confined to ‘verified human’ sales, it’s more of a talking point than anything really useful. Plus, if we ever get to this point, it’ll mean entertainment fans are forced to become Orb supplicants first.
