Are You Worried About Worldcoin?
Since Facebook/Meta failed the Libra/Diem digital currency, no crypto project has sparked as much fear and hype as Worldcoin. The biometrics-based Proof-of-Human project co-founded by Open AI founder Sam Altman.
A lot of people seem excited about this project. Worldcoin promotes it as a means to empower humanity in light of the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. Its solution for proving the uniqueness of personality aims to distinguish humans from fake robots and support a fair distribution of all AI-generated money.
In the minutes after the Worldcoin mainnet launched on Monday, tokens were dropped on 250,000 people who had their eyes scanned with one of the Worldcoin spheres. Altman tweeted this week that 2 million people have signed up to have their irises scanned. This happens at a rate of about one person per eight seconds.
Jeff Wilser, a Washington Post journalist, visited Worldcoin’s Berlin offices and gave a detailed account of the creation and launch of Worldcoin. He also revealed that the CEO is a total novice in the world of logistics and regulation.
This project has upset many. Many people are upset about this project.
David Z. Morris, our own David Z. Morris, did an excellent job of highlighting the critic’s perspective. Morris acknowledged in a recent column that Worldcoin’s ambitions for universal basic income could be beneficial, but also noted that Altman and his co-founders “found a way that makes this attractive premise seem completely dystopian.” Morris warned of the dangers of having a central body collecting retinal prints. He also pointed out that the $5,000 per bullet price tag and the logistical challenges of distributing it around the world ridicule plans for a “universal” launch. Morris also said that the word ”sphere” was ”creepy” and implied ”the eye of Sauron”, Foucault’s panopticon and Saruman’s palantir.
On the other hand, there are investors like Jake Brukhman. Brukhman is a Coinfund partner and investing in Worldcoin 2021. Brukhman, a partner at Coinfund, predicted on AskFX TV that the project will attract billions of people to cryptocurrency and the benefits it brings. Brukhman, Altman and other Worldcoin supporters dismiss privacy concerns, pointing out that the company’s devices and servers do not store raw human data. Instead, they convert the scans into unique hash codes that cannot be accessed.
Vitalik Buterin’s blog post was more cautious but still balanced. He praised Worldcoin for its commitment to privacy and the sophisticated technologies it uses to protect user data. He highlighted “four main risks” associated with the project. Noting that a centralized system cannot guarantee the security of people’s personal information. He said it was impossible to say whether a “back door” or a way to gain access to the data was built into the hardware or the sphere.
I’m kind of in the middle.
Despite Vitalik’s claim that perfect privacy is impossible, I think fears of biometric data breaches are overblown. At least the threat they pose is no greater than that of other privacy threats. We store much more data on iPhones with similar on-device encryption protections. And don’t forget that all crypto exchanges are required to collect “Know Your Customer” (KYC), i.e. identifying information about their customers.
I worry about the company’s centrality and the false incentives it will create. Why should a private company be responsible for UBI? Doesn’t this create a sense of dependency among the poorer recipients? What is the purpose of this token? Worldcoin is promoting its Software Development Kit for developers as a way to create an ecosystem of AI-powered decentralized applications.
However, one gets the impression that the project is designed for speculative enthusiasm, which in turn is fueled by enthusiasm around him is fueled a high-profile project and its founder. This creates an exit for token holders who are early and exposes investors to the risk of losses after launch. The WLD token actually saw sharp declines over the week. Many people are upset with the tokenomics behind Worldcoin’s launch, which limits the total supply of coins in circulation. The whole thing seems like a money grab. It’s not a good idea to profit from something as important as a person’s identity.
It just underscores a statement I’ve made in the past, which is the lessons we can learn from Web2 to help us navigate this new AI age. We have known for years that AI can destroy us. The risk is that if we cede control of these technologies to a few powerful corporations motivated to deploy them in proprietary “black box” systems for profit, they will quickly move into dangerous and human-damaging territory like the Web2 platforms.
The Worldcoin project could have at least one positive result. The Worldcoin project draws attention to the need for some kind of proof of humanity that can fuel the many interesting projects that aim to give people more control over their identity in the Web3/AI age. It could be that the answer to proving authentic humanity and evolving it lies in bridging our “social graph” online relationships, interactions, and authorized credentials through Decentralized Identity (DID) or initiatives like the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP). capture is part of Project Liberty. It could be a biometric solution like that developed by Worldcoin, but with a less corporate, more decentralized structure. It is obvious that we must do something.
Take this example. AI bots are already creating digital female characters that look so real they can be used in pornographic videos. OnlyFans customers consider these women to be real achievers. Pornography is something you don’t particularly appreciate, and you might think men who are gullible or desperate fall for it. Think about what that means for the performers.
OnlyFans, or more specifically the direct-to-patron model it’s based on, has received a lot of criticism. However, sex workers praise it for providing performers with an environment to make money on their terms. What options do they have if they can’t prove they’re human and an army of fake bots are edging out them for their clients’ money? What if they had to return to prostitution on the streets, where they could easily prove they were human but faced the risk of violence from pimps and customers?
In the digital age, everyone deserves dignity. To achieve this, we need to find reliable solutions that distinguish humans from machines while protecting our privacy and most important personal data.
