Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Requires Scanning Participants’ Eyeballs with a Silver Orb for Biometrics

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Today’s Highlights:

• 🌎Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Requires Scanning Participants’ Eyeballs with a Silver Orb for Biometrics🪙

• 💸Essence VC Raises $26M💰

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Requires Scanning Participants’ Eyeballs with a Silver Orb for Biometrics

Think of a world where humanness has to now be somewhat “confirmed” and “proven” due to the rampant spread of AI. As dystopian as it sounds, this has become the world we live in.

With the uncontrollable growth of AI, prompting campaigns to halt its development from organizations like The Future of Life Institute and Center for AI Safety, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Alex Blania have developed and launched their global cryptocurrency and digital ID project, Worldcoin, to ensure every person’s realness.

Human Safety and Identity

Altman and Blania founded their ambitious project in 2020 with hopes of creating a decentralized identity and financial network. The two founders believe that if successfully implemented, Worldcoin could not only become a scaleable and reliable solution to distinguish humans from AI but increase economic opportunity, eventually leading to AI-funded UBI*, though it is unclear how Worldcoin would make this work.

Being one of the signees of the Center for AI Safety’s “Statement on AI Risk” letter, it is apparent that Altman views AI as an entity that could pose a risk to society and shows why Altman would go forth with this project.

*UBI: Universal Basic Income, a government program in which every adult citizen receives a set amount of money regularly.

According to Altman and Blania, they have found a way to facilitate global identity processes while preserving every identity’s privacy all at the same time with Worldcoin.

Worldcoin presents individuals participating in the project with a private digital identity the founders call World ID, acting as a “proof of personhood.”

How is Worldcoin implementing this?

Crypto Eyeball-Scanning

Worldcoin's identification process requires participants to download the World App, a crypto wallet developed by Altman and Blania's company, Tools for Humanity. Every participant can receive 25 digital/cryptocurrency tokens, referred to as WLD, through airdrop, after scanning their eyeballs with a silver Orb, Worldcoin's biometric verification device. The verification device is meant to prove that every participant is a real and unique person online, and this is how they obtain their World ID.

Worldcoin received a pretty significant amount of funding, totaling about $250 million, with the support of backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Reid Hoffman. This funding has led to the release of about 150 orbs operational around the globe, across over 30 different countries, with 2 million people already signing up. Still as ambitious as when they first started this project, Altman and Blania plan to have 1,500 orbs active by the end of 2023.

Regulatory Concerns

Though Worldcoin is a US-based company, most of the 2 million people signing up to be part of Worldcoin are placed in Europe, India, and Southern Africa. This may be due to the fact that Worldcoin’s WLDs are currently not being offered to US citizens due to regulatory concerns, a fact pointed out by Blania during a “Bankless” podcast interview.

When asked by the “Bankless” host, David Hoffman, regarding Worldcoin’s token distribution, Blania refused to address the question due to regulatory uncertainty in the US. This withholding of information has become a cause for concern among investors and the crypto community, and Worldcoin’s credibility has since been questioned.

Though this is the case, the crypto community and investors are still positively awaiting clarification from the Worldcoin team, hoping that open dialogue, transparency, and trust will transpire.

Funding News

Essence VC Raises $27M

Venture capital firm Essence VC has raised $27 million during its third funding, with Cendana Capital as the anchor investor. The firm is led by entrepreneur and advisor for San Francisco-based Bessemer Venture Partners Timothy Chen, who aims to back early-stage startups in the tech industry with his firm.

The Seattle-based VC funds companies working on technical and data infrastructure, software development tools, and artificial intelligence in their earliest stages, even before releasing their products.

After previously raising $7 million in its second funding and $1 million in its first, Essence VC has funded startups with checks ranging from $250,000 to $700,000 in a variety of locations, including Texas-based Jasper AI, a data-compounding startup for marketing AI models.

Though big tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have also been investing heavily in infrastructure tools and generative AI products, Chen believes that smaller startups can still compete by focusing on specific use cases, and will continue to assist early-stage startups with pre-seed funding following the $27 million raised.

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