The “Orb,” an open iris imaging device, is being used to confirm a person’s World ID. (Source: Worldcoin)

Biometric Orb, Universal Basic Income Part of Altman’s Worldcoin Vision

Most of our neighbors and friends have heard the rumors about the AI apocalypse that is being driven by ChatGPT and GPT-4 and others. While most of us aren’t exactly sure how much longer we have as a species, one of the founding fathers of ChatGPT is moving ahead with other ideas.

Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI was one of the 1100 signatories of the recent letter requesting the industry take a pause on generative AI and other chatbots.

More than 1,100 high-tech executives coders and others, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, have signed an open letter that was posted online calling on “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

And according to futurism.com, that didn’t happen. But what did happen is Sam Altman continued working on an idea that might be the basis for UBI. UBI is Universal Basic Income, which Altman believes can be supplied to every person on earth with cryptocurrency. But first, you must show him your eyeball.

 From BlockChain to Worldcoin

Even though some of the conspiracy theorist groups have already been trumpeting a warning about this and other digital money systems, the idea Altman has been raising funds for is sound.

Worldcoin is a decentralized open-source protocol supported by a global community of developers, economists and technologists committed to expanding participation in and access to, the global digital economy. It is intended to become a public network, with ownership by everyone, and to be globally and freely distributed to people, for both utility and future governance, just for being a unique individual. Now doesn’t that sound positively marvelous in some ways?

Global Eye Scans

The idea is to scan the iris of every person on Earth to file centrally.

Founded in 2019 and made public in 2021, Worldcoin has kept a pretty low profile compared to OpenAI, particularly since the launch of ChatGPT. But it’s nevertheless captured the attention of investors, said three people familiar with the fundraising to the Financial Times.

As outlandish as the whole idea sounds, it’s apparently gaining at least some steam. Fortune reported in March that roughly 40,000 people are getting their irises scanned with the company’s orb-shaped device. But at that rate of scanning, it will take quite a while to image the eyeballs of approximately 8 billion people believed to be on Earth currently.

But with the track record of success Altman has shown in the past, it is safe to say his Worldcoin idea, while off the wall, might just solve the inequality problems that keep growing in every country globally.

read more at futurism.com