Worldcoin’s eye-scanning ‘World ID’ is creepy

Love him or hate him, Sam Altman keeps moving forward. On Wednesday, the Open AI founder’s crypto-identity platform Worldcoin announced it was launching its own blockchain with the aim of accelerating the adoption of “World ID.” What I just described is the sort of thing that’s supposed to lead right-minded people to clutch their pearls in horror at Silicon Valley’s villainy. But hear me out: This World ID thing is probably something we should all get behind.

If you’re not familiar, Worldcoin is loosely tied to Altman’s OpenAI behemoth, and it’s been in the news a lot because its employees have been running around the world scanning people’s eyeballs (including Leo’s). The purpose of this is to create distinct biometric identifiers that let people prove they are human in a world where bots and other AI creations are creeping in. The World ID thus acts as a digital passport, letting you participate in various networks—including financial ones—and carry out transactions that require you to show your identity.

One reason we might as well get on board is because governments are already moving to impose some version of this. I recently spoke to Bain Ventures’ Matt Harris, who is one of the shrewdest observers of the crypto and fintech scene I know, and he had an interesting take on Altman’s eye-scanning project.

“The inspiration for WorldCoin, in my mind, is the government of India that set out to build a biometric database of every system,” Harris told me. “You can’t have commerce and payments without a centralized identity system, and now they have the most modern and least expensive payment system in the world.”

His remark came in response to my observation that the crypto world has been prattling about building blockchain-based identity solutions for a decade. I told Harris these plans never amount to much since it is the government—not some crypto startup—that has the final word over whether someone is who they say they are. (If you doubt it, try to use some crypto startup’s identity token to get a mortgage or buy a gun.)

He pointed out that the situation is different with WorldCoin, both because of how big it has grown and because governments are finally realizing it’s time to move on from paper Social Security cards. As Harris put it, “Governments aren’t totally stupid. They look at something that works and ask, ‘How do we co-opt for our own purposes?’”

While Harris says India is ahead of the curve with biometrics and identity, he referred to the country’s efforts as 1.0 and lamented that it is centralized—an arrangement that is ripe for hacking or tyranny. The better option is to deploy something like WorldCoin, which seeks to be totally decentralized—letting users enjoy the certainty of identity verification but without giving up their privacy. So long as WorldCoin’s tech claims are up to snuff (the jury is still out), governments that respect the freedom of their citizens should explore using it. Or as they used to say, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Jeff John Roberts
[email protected]
@jeffjohnroberts

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