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There seems to be two things going on here: 1. World ID - a database of retina information about people. 2. Worldcoin - a cryptocurrency aimed at incentivizin

There seems to be two things going on here: 1. World ID - a database of retina information about people. 2. Worldcoin - a cryptocurrency aimed at incentivizing people to give over this data. Rather than rehashing a debate about cryptocurrency that's already well-trodden, it's worth looking at what's new here: their iris scanning tool as a way of validating a user's uniqueness. This is already a well established problem domain, companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple struggle to verify that users are unique (with an account or multiple accounts tied to a single human). 4chan blocks the ip addresses of bad users, many services require a phone number to sign up, some sites have tried requiring a credit card, Facebook I believe uses the social graph to figure out how likely an account is to be real. Apple, Microsoft, and Google all use some combination of biometrics and telemetry data to authenticate users. I've noticed more sites requiring government ID (see LinkedIn's verification process). I'm not seeing any obvious advantage that World Id will have over these existing systems. Also any time biometric data comes up it's worth pointing out that if your biometric data gets stolen unlike a password there's no easy way to change it.

k__ 3y ago
Gitcoin Passport tries to leverage existing solutions.
istinetz 3y ago
>I'm not seeing any obvious advantage that World Id will have over these existing systems. * it's more universal; not all the world are americans, using american systems. Good luck using a social graph, phone number or credit card for verification of somebody from Papua New Guinea. Or for somebody who is otherwise off the grid. * if it works, it's less prone to hacking, since you control the points of registration, and you can verify that a physical human being is there to scan their retina
serial_dev 3y ago
> I'm not seeing any obvious advantage that World Id will have over these existing systems. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but you don't see the obvious advantage because you are looking for the obvious benefit from the perspective of a user. Having a database of international retina information (which is practically an immutable property), spending history, and connections graph, is probably invaluable to intelligence agencies, oppressive regimes (or, you know, just simply "regimes" as they are all oppressive to some degree when the opportunity comes, as the covid years taught us), big tech/pharma, military industrial complex, news organizations and other arms of the ruling class.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Permanently accurate maps are always of interest no matter what the scale. Retina databases are also the identity framework of choice for global identity and payments. There is no more valuable graph database than one secured by unchangeable and immutable PII. I see it that way. Not a great look for the guy, but I think smart people often launch their experiments under the cover of stupid pretenses so they only have to lean into what gains traction. Why commit to experiments -- just test it and see if it works. If it fails, cool idea and tried it. If it succeeds, one of the most valuable data platforms for AI… you said it and you’re spot on imo.
lmm 3y ago
> Rather than rehashing a debate about cryptocurrency that's already well-trodden, it's worth looking at what's new here: their iris scanning tool as a way of validating a user's uniqueness. No it isn't. That's exactly what they want you to do - get distracted by the (alleged) tech and pay no attention to the scam behind the curtain.
drexlspivey 3y ago
So am I supposed to go buy an iris scanner to be able to access some websites? If I do can’t I hack it to make it output a different fingerprint?
captainmuon 3y ago
Why not just let everybody make multiple accounts? Spam? We need to remove the incentives that make people send spam. If there is universal healthcare nobody would bother selling viagra online. Harrasment? We need to work on reducing sexism in general. And so on. I feel that sometimes the direction where technology "wants" to go points us to a better society. Fighting it and preserving the status quo leads to a lot of difficulites. The techno-optimists of the 90s had a good point. If we imagine a world where almost every service is free, has an API, and little restrictions, the society that allows that is going to be much nicer than if everything is behind a paywal, controlled and sanitized, and cryptographically verified.
- yreg 3y ago
  I don't care about multi-accounting, but I care whether the other users on a platform are human or if 99% of them are bots.
  - captainmuon 3y ago
    My point is, why do people set up bots? They are probably trying to get money. Looking at it naively through a system designer's goggles: Fixing it at the platform level by verifying if a user is human or not is fixing it at the wrong level. It's just a band-aid. We should instead fix it at the societal level so that nobody has the incentive to set up a decieving bot.
    - yreg 3y ago
      I can't see eliminating all desire to lie, spread disinformation, propaganda, scam people, astroturf, manipulate opinions, cheat at videogames and so on WORLDWIDE being feasible at all this century, perhaps ever. Ending all wars and conflicts forever is one of the many prerequisites. Somewhat-AI-resistant techniques to prevent bots from overrunning a platform seem at least feasible.
- jt2190 3y ago
  Multiple accounts don’t help when you’re moving money, because you need to trust that you’re moving money to the right person, and verifying even a single account is difficult. Making everything free doesn’t solve this since we still have to move goods to people who need them without fear that they go to scammers instead.
jt2190 3y ago
> 4chan blocks the ip addresses of bad users, many services require a phone number to sign up, some sites have tried requiring a credit card, Facebook I believe uses the social graph to figure out how likely an account is to be real. Apple, Microsoft, and Google all use some combination of biometrics and telemetry data to authenticate users. I've noticed more sites requiring government ID (see LinkedIn's verification process). IP addresses, phone numbers, government IDs are all forms of outsourcing the problem of identity verification to another organization (IANA, phone company, Social Security Administration in U.S.) so we should ask if those organizations will continue to be able to effectively distinguish real humans from AÍ-powered bots armed with the ability to “deep fake” any person, using whatever tools and techniques those organizations have today. The implications seem staggering: AI bots that can collect your social benefits, withdraw funds from your bank, open lines of credit in your name. The modern economy might not be able to function if this happens. From another article: > The company’s identity technology will be important in a world where artificial intelligence raises new questions of what’s human and what’s not on the internet, [Tools for Humanity co-founder and CEO Alex] Blania said. It’s also an example of the overlap between the crypto and AI industries. https://archive.is/k5j6j https://archive.is/k5j6j
pk-protect-ai 3y ago
>> World ID, Worldcoin This will be banned in EU instantly.

k__ 3y ago

Gitcoin Passport tries to leverage existing solutions.

istinetz 3y ago

>I'm not seeing any obvious advantage that World Id will have over these existing systems. * it's more universal; not all the world are americans, using american systems. Good luck using a social graph, phone number or credit card for verification of somebody from Papua New Guinea. Or for somebody who is otherwise off the grid. * if it works, it's less prone to hacking, since you control the points of registration, and you can verify that a physical human being is there to scan their retina

serial_dev 3y ago

> I'm not seeing any obvious advantage that World Id will have over these existing systems. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but you don't see the obvious advantage because you are looking for the obvious benefit from the perspective of a user. Having a database of international retina information (which is practically an immutable property), spending history, and connections graph, is probably invaluable to intelligence agencies, oppressive regimes (or, you know, just simply "regimes" as they are all oppressive to some degree when the opportunity comes, as the covid years taught us), big tech/pharma, military industrial complex, news organizations and other arms of the ruling class.

happytiger 3y ago
Permanently accurate maps are always of interest no matter what the scale. Retina databases are also the identity framework of choice for global identity and payments. There is no more valuable graph database than one secured by unchangeable and immutable PII. I see it that way. Not a great look for the guy, but I think smart people often launch their experiments under the cover of stupid pretenses so they only have to lean into what gains traction. Why commit to experiments -- just test it and see if it works. If it fails, cool idea and tried it. If it succeeds, one of the most valuable data platforms for AI… you said it and you’re spot on imo.

lmm 3y ago

> Rather than rehashing a debate about cryptocurrency that's already well-trodden, it's worth looking at what's new here: their iris scanning tool as a way of validating a user's uniqueness. No it isn't. That's exactly what they want you to do - get distracted by the (alleged) tech and pay no attention to the scam behind the curtain.

drexlspivey 3y ago

So am I supposed to go buy an iris scanner to be able to access some websites? If I do can’t I hack it to make it output a different fingerprint?

captainmuon 3y ago

Why not just let everybody make multiple accounts? Spam? We need to remove the incentives that make people send spam. If there is universal healthcare nobody would bother selling viagra online. Harrasment? We need to work on reducing sexism in general. And so on. I feel that sometimes the direction where technology "wants" to go points us to a better society. Fighting it and preserving the status quo leads to a lot of difficulites. The techno-optimists of the 90s had a good point. If we imagine a world where almost every service is free, has an API, and little restrictions, the society that allows that is going to be much nicer than if everything is behind a paywal, controlled and sanitized, and cryptographically verified.

yreg 3y ago
I don't care about multi-accounting, but I care whether the other users on a platform are human or if 99% of them are bots.
- captainmuon 3y ago
  My point is, why do people set up bots? They are probably trying to get money. Looking at it naively through a system designer's goggles: Fixing it at the platform level by verifying if a user is human or not is fixing it at the wrong level. It's just a band-aid. We should instead fix it at the societal level so that nobody has the incentive to set up a decieving bot.
  - yreg 3y ago
    I can't see eliminating all desire to lie, spread disinformation, propaganda, scam people, astroturf, manipulate opinions, cheat at videogames and so on WORLDWIDE being feasible at all this century, perhaps ever. Ending all wars and conflicts forever is one of the many prerequisites. Somewhat-AI-resistant techniques to prevent bots from overrunning a platform seem at least feasible.
jt2190 3y ago
Multiple accounts don’t help when you’re moving money, because you need to trust that you’re moving money to the right person, and verifying even a single account is difficult. Making everything free doesn’t solve this since we still have to move goods to people who need them without fear that they go to scammers instead.

jt2190 3y ago

> 4chan blocks the ip addresses of bad users, many services require a phone number to sign up, some sites have tried requiring a credit card, Facebook I believe uses the social graph to figure out how likely an account is to be real. Apple, Microsoft, and Google all use some combination of biometrics and telemetry data to authenticate users. I've noticed more sites requiring government ID (see LinkedIn's verification process). IP addresses, phone numbers, government IDs are all forms of outsourcing the problem of identity verification to another organization (IANA, phone company, Social Security Administration in U.S.) so we should ask if those organizations will continue to be able to effectively distinguish real humans from AÍ-powered bots armed with the ability to “deep fake” any person, using whatever tools and techniques those organizations have today. The implications seem staggering: AI bots that can collect your social benefits, withdraw funds from your bank, open lines of credit in your name. The modern economy might not be able to function if this happens. From another article: > The company’s identity technology will be important in a world where artificial intelligence raises new questions of what’s human and what’s not on the internet, [Tools for Humanity co-founder and CEO Alex] Blania said. It’s also an example of the overlap between the crypto and AI industries. https://archive.is/k5j6j https://archive.is/k5j6j

pk-protect-ai 3y ago

>> World ID, Worldcoin This will be banned in EU instantly.