World co-founder Sam Altman
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Worldcoin, Sam Altman’s cryptocurrency project that scans people’s irises and trades them in exchange for an allocation of digital tokens, shall be renamed “World,” the corporate said Thursday, as it really works to define its purpose and scope to expand.
The project originally began with the goal of making a universal basic income through the use of a basketball-sized biometric reader called “Orb” to gather iris data in exchange for a one-time payment of the corporate’s WLD cryptocurrency. But for the reason that AI frenzy sparked by ChatGPT – developed by Altman’s other company OpenAI – Tools For Humanity, the corporate that manages the World project, has turn into deeply committed to verifying human identities: In a future where AI is all over the place, we want a system to prove that individuals are people and never bots.
Once people’s eyes are scanned into the sphere, they’re issued a “world ID card” that verifies their “personhood” throughout the world system. The idea is that individuals can confirm that they aren’t bots without revealing other identifying information.
“Worldcoin as a name just doesn’t work anymore,” CEO Alex Blania said on stage during an event in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Altman touted the newly renamed world as an infrastructure layer for AI that “helps people and agents send resources back and forth” and communicate with one another.
The name change underscores the challenges the corporate faced because it sought to define itself and its business, as first reported by Forbes last yr. “We don’t seem to have quite got it right yet. “That’s fine — it’s difficult and it’s really new,” Altman said at a company-wide summit in May 2022, in keeping with the audio Forbes. “Once we’ve decided internally what direction we want to go – and I think there are still different opinions – once that’s said and if that really resonates with people, then we can really get started.”
A former Tools For Humanity worker shared Forbes last yr: “The new DNA of the company is definitely the whole identity thing. They no longer say they are a crypto company.” The removal of the word “coin” from the name also comes at a time when the cryptocurrency market has lost a few of its luster following the demise of disgraced crypto exchange FTX.
The company made several other announcements on the event, including a new edition of the ball with a white coating as an alternative of the unique metallic chrome. World also said it could allow people to make use of its app to have their eyes scanned on demand, with an appointment where a bullet would come to them, “similar to having a pizza delivered.” said Rich Heley, the corporate’s chief device officer. World also announced it could arrange orb scanning stations in retail stores, including cafes and convenience stores, around the globe starting Thursday. The company said it had already opened “premium verification experiences” in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, where people could get eye scans in boutique spaces while staff answered questions.
Even before its release, World was mired in controversy. Privacy experts have been concerned in regards to the possible exploitation that would include exchanging biometric data for crypto. In 2022 BuzzFeed News reported that the corporate was testing its Orbs in countries within the Global South, leaving low-income users upset because they traded their Iris readings for his or her share of a cryptocurrency that took years to launch. Orb operators, contractors who perform the scanning and who typically come from low-income backgrounds, also felt they were being put in danger, harassed and arrested by local authorities, while also coping with missed payments from World and shifting performance targets were confronted.
Since founding World in 2019, Altman’s star has risen astronomically. Thanks to the success of OpenAI and ChatGPT, he has turn into probably the most powerful people in technology. But Tools For Humanity has thus far been a small player in Altman’s empire. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced that it had raised $6.6 billion, the biggest enterprise capital funding round ever. By comparison, Tools for Humanity raised $150 million last yr (and a complete of $240 million thus far, in keeping with Pitchbook, at a valuation of $2.47 billion) – still impressive, but removed from the eye-popping number its sister company.
At the event, Altman reiterated comments he made to employees on the 2022 closed summit, emphasizing the importance of scaling the platform to create a big network. “A joke I use sometimes is, when in doubt, zoom in,” he said Thursday. “We want to see what happens when we do this at scale.”
