(OPINION) Have you had your eyes scanned by “The Orb” yet? All it takes is just one trip, and once your biometric data is in the database you will receive some free money and a new “digital identity” that you will be able to use all over the Internet.
Doesn’t that sound grand? As you will see below, hundreds of thousands of people in Europe have already signed up. Those that have created Worldcoin intend for it to be “a new identity and financial network” that is owned by everyone on the entire planet. The following comes directly from the official Worldcoin website…
More than three years ago we founded Worldcoin with the ambition of creating a new identity and financial network owned by everyone; the rollout begins today.
If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online while preserving privacy, enable global democratic processes, and eventually show a potential path to AI-funded UBI.
That initial paragraph certainly sounds wonderful. But once you start digging a bit deeper you quickly discover the dystopian details of this scheme.
Once you sign up for Worldcoin, your new “World ID” will be issued to you. Ultimately, the goal is for the entire Internet to start using this new “World ID” system…
Worldcoin consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and, where laws allow, a digital currency (WLD) received simply for being human. We hope that, where the rules are less clear, such as in the U.S., steps will be taken so more people can benefit from both.
Needless to say, just offering a “World ID” is not going to motivate a lot of people to embrace this new system. So the founders are also offering free money to everyone that signs up where laws allow for such a thing. Ultimately, the goal is to “freely distribute tokens to all eight billion people on the planet”…
The goal is simple and modest: To create a system that will, eventually, freely distribute tokens to all eight billion people on the planet, as a form of universal basic income (UBI). But because the rise of AI will make it tricky to figure out who is human and who’s a digital fake, Worldcoin first needs to create a system that lets people — all people, across the globe — prove that they are in fact human beings.
The idea of a “universal basic income” certainly appeals to a lot of people out there. Especially the lazy ones. But if you want your free money, you have got to visit “The Orb”.
The plan is for “The Orb” to eventually scan the eyeballs of every single person in the entire world. Here is more from the official Worldcoin website…
You can now download World App, the first protocol-compatible wallet, and reserve your share. After visiting an Orb, a biometric verification device, you will receive a World ID. This lets you prove you are a real and unique person online while remaining completely private. As the global distribution of Orbs is ramping up, you can find the closest one and book time to be verified with World App and at worldcoin.org.
Worldcoin is an attempt at global scale alignment, the journey will be challenging and the outcome is uncertain. But finding new ways to broadly share the coming technological prosperity is a critical challenge of our time. We hope you’ll join us.
I don’t know about you, but I never plan to visit “The Orb”, and there is no way that I am ever going to allow these freaks to scan my eyeballs.
But it is imperative for all of us to understand that this is a very serious threat, because one of the guys heading up this project is also the CEO of the company that brought us ChatGPT…
If Worldcoin was the brainchild of some random crypto bro, maybe it could be laughed away as a delusion of grandeur. But the project has real intellectual heft.
It was co-founded by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT), who’s arguably the most central player in the development of AI. Altman suspects that the world will change forever if — or when — AI becomes so advanced that it achieves AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, meaning it truly surpasses the abilities of humans. (READ MORE)
