Worldcoin’s The Orb: Utopian Future or Dystopian Nightmare?

Note from the author: As the situation evolves, the information in this article may have changed when you read it. This article does not represent the opinion of this newspaper in any way and is merely a statement of facts.

Silicon Valley has a new potentially game-changing system, the Worldcoin Protocol, that officially launched its operations weeks ago. They use a metal silver sphere, “the Orb,” to scan people’s irises to verify their human identity. It may seem like something out of a Mission Impossible movie, though in a realistic sense. After its launch, it has stirred lots of controversy. So today, we’re looking at this hype to get one’s eyeballs scanned and what the critics and supporters think about the project.

The Orb in the centre of all this is a hand-sized sphere used to scan and convert a person’s iris patterns and data into a digital code, dubbed a unique “World ID.” Tools for Humanity (TFH), a global tech company established to accelerate the transition toward a juster economic system, operates this open-sourced protocol. The hype around it has gotten stirred by the fact OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) CEO Sam Altman co-founded TFH. People get 25 Worldcoin cryptocurrency tokens for scanning their eyeballs, which equals roughly 400 Chinese Yuan. Well then, what are the objectives of this project?

The first aim is to verify that people aren’t bots. That may seem absurd, as humans and robotic humanoids have a lot of physical differences. However, that isn’t as much the case online. In the ever-advancing world of artificial intelligence and chatbots like ChatGPT, it is getting harder to identify humans from bots, as chatbots can very well mimic human speech and pass various skill tests. The idea of Worldcoin is to create an identification system and database of iris scanning to verify human identity, where solely one’s iris patterns can prove they are themselves and not some clever imposter. It seems like Sam Altman is dealing with both sides of the AI world, the development of better artificial intelligence and precautions against it.

The second target of Worldcoin is not as straightforward as the first. It has to do with providing a universal basic income to everyone and giving people a chance to profit from the AI boom. As referenced before, people receive roughly 400 Chinese Yuan in Worldcoin cryptocurrency tokens for their eyeball scans, which is a decent amount. The iris scans also serve as an identification means to ensure that people don’t claim their share more than once.

Why is iris scanning in the first place? They could have gone with facial recognition technology like the Face ID Apple uses on its phones or the more traditional fingerprint authentication. The answer is simple: The chances of two people having the same iris patterns are virtually impossible, while facial and fingerprint scans are easily trickable. For example, an iPhone’s Face ID cannot differentiate between the faces of identical twins. However, iris patterns are unique, even for identical twins, so it is almost impossible to trick an iris scanner. The chances of two people having the same iris pattern are estimated to be 1 in 10 to the power of 78. For context, even if all the humans that lived on Earth had their irises scanned, it is still unlikely two people had matching iris patterns. That makes iris scanning virtually fool-proof and is why Worldcoin chose it over other identification means.

Despite Worldcoin seeming like the utopian high-tech future everyone has been waiting for, it is currently getting investigated for how it handles users’ data. Worldcoin claims that biometric data is being deleted from its systems as soon as they get converted to a string of digital codes representing the image. But the data could get sold to third parties or used for surveillance. Also, critics have called out the entire operation dystopian and related that free crypto got used as bribery targeting developing countries. There have been investigations in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France into the legitimacy of the operations. Kenyan authorities raided the Worldcoin warehouses there, prompting Worldcoin to shut its “orbing” operations in Kenya.

So what do you think about the Worldcoin Protocol? Would you exchange your iris data with a private company for some money? Leave your thoughts in the comments. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and remember to subscribe to not miss out on the latest.