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Never heard of this "Worldcoin" thing before. From Wikipedia: > Worldcoin is an iris biometric cryptocurrency project From the Worldcoin website: > World ID

Never heard of this "Worldcoin" thing before. From Wikipedia: > Worldcoin is an iris biometric cryptocurrency project From the Worldcoin website: > World ID 2.0 > A more human passport for the internet. Eww. I appreciate cryptocurrency, but biometrics + crypto? Heck off.

quenix 3y ago
With Sam Altman from OpenAI spearheading it, no less.
- PheonixPharts 3y ago
  I was chatting with a few Chinese crypto people the other day, and the general consensus in that community seems to be that Worldcoin basically operates as an ATM for Sam Altman. He undoubtedly owns a considerable amount, and it doesn't matter if it's a long term successful so long in the near term it has a multiplying impact on his OpenAI work. If you look at the 1 year change in WLD you see that he's likely made a pretty sum from it already, especially since whatever amount of WLD he own was acquired at effectively zero cost[0]. The people I was chatting with shared a similar view to dogecoin and Musk. All either needs to do is drive up a little hype and in to time they have access to tremendous amounts of liquidity. 0. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/worldcoin-org/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/worldcoin-org/
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    Why aren't we taking it more seriously that our supposed world-leading founders and business people are simply running pump and dumb schemes with Worldcoin, Doge, and ETF/SPACs?
    - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
      It is hilarious to me how many of the twitter accounts who swore up and down crypto was the future are now shilling for AI instead. It's obvious they don't know or care very much about anything, they're just determined to keep riding hype waves and try to cash out.
    - PheonixPharts 3y ago
      It's sort of like the twist at the end of Soylent Green. The real twist isn't that "Soylent Green is people!" the twist is that you can see this with your own eyes, shout it in the street, but ultimately no one really cares.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        Do people not care, or do people not believe? My take on that movie wasn't that nobody cared, but that nobody believed the crazy-sounding man yelling weird-sounding things in public.
        tsunamifury 3y ago
        That can be one the same phenomenon.
        s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Why should anyone care? I certainly don't and find it curious that others have an interest at all. I have always viewed people arguing for or against crypto as equivalent to nerds arguing if batman or superman is better. Utterly irrelevant to me.
        tsunamifury 3y ago
        I think you have tragically and entirely missed the point.
      - 15457345234 3y ago
        I think a lot of people do actually care, but you'll never be able to determine that from the internet because on every social platform the discourse on every controversial issue is 1000 bot comments for every real comment. The vibe on today's internet when it comes to weird tech bros is 'we made this space, applaud us on it or leave it.' Many people have chosen option 2.
        3y ago
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Because while a few people find this an interesting surprise, more people have it fully priced in to their worldview, either (among some other possibilities) because they are active participants or because they are critics of capitalism from schools of thought where the incentive to an ubiquity of this kind of behavior is central to the critique. Its really mostly a surprising revelation to outer-circle initiates of the cult of capitalism, who have been indoctrinated in the public propaganda used for recruitment but are ignorant of the inner mysteries.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        This reminds me of the fact that basically no financial system tries to prohibit speculation, gambling, or risk-taking outright. Instead, institutions attempt to increase transparency and limit gambling with other peoples money. The availability of terrible high-risk investments and option to buy them is always present. IT is just rarely interesting to talk about.
      - tsunamifury 3y ago
        I think we can not just say “it’s because they’re stupid”. It fair to say I am very aware, I’ve worked in the largest tech companies in the world and I worked on the largest bank merger in the world. I see how the sausage is made… mostly. However the value systems that are created anew continue to shock me. Because when the wool gets pulled, and it always fucking does, the damage is shifted to those who “don’t care”
dorkwood 3y ago
People got scared when they started scanning thousands of people's eyeballs in Africa. It didn't matter that Sam Altman had a good explanation for doing it. Because cryptocurrency is involved, it must be bad, right?
- skullone 3y ago
  Lol what's this good explanation of scanning people's eyes?
  - shagie 3y ago
    Identity management. I want to give food or money to 1000 distinct people in some part of the world. How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)?
    - kemotep 3y ago
      But why is a crypto currency required? Biometrics like Apple’s Face ID reasonably identify the owners of a phone. Why not distribute managed iPhones with access to an account to wire money to or an app that displays a code that aid workers can use to identify that the right person got the goods? That phone or app could be set to only generate one code per aid delivery event and without a code you don’t get aid. Someone having multiple phones would be easy to identify as the aid worker would recognize they are back in line. I mean if your goal is to end fraud there seems to be several options that don’t require a blockchain or some custom eye scanning device. How does worldcoin solve the issue of a local abusing a position of power to direct everyone to transfer their funds to their account or with holding some other resource to force people to give them their aid?
      - gs17 3y ago
        Part of the idea is to expand it beyond those, so anyone can verify that a user is representing a distinct, real human. It's supposed to be privacy preserving, so you could use it in user registration to block bots without needing to request any real identifying information. Of course, you've hit on part of the issue here, it's not going to really prevent a lot of the fraud it's intended to.
Y_Y 3y ago
There are loads of stores in Spain offering to "create art" of your iris by taking a high-res scan and blowing it up to make a canvas print. They sprang up overnight a while back and as far as I know aren't fooling anyone.
- emptysongglass 3y ago
  Same in Copenhagen. I was wondering how in the world they were making money.
  - gs17 3y ago
    They're also in the US, but I don't think they're making WorldCoin accounts off of it (or using it to fake biometrics for other things). https://irisphoto.art/originalite https://irisphoto.art/originalite shows that iris photo art predates the coin by a long while. Some people just find the idea novel enough to pay for.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
I'm surprised that an HN reader hasn't heard of WorldCoin given how much Altman has been on HN recently. Prior to today you were a lucky person not to have heard of it. We need a corollary to https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ that celebrates blissful ignorance.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  To be honest, I tend to gloss over anything ending with 'Coin'.
zombiwoof 3y ago
it's sam altmans version of a chip in your brain
belter 3y ago
You can't even say kiss my a#%ss or he will run and scan it...

quenix 3y ago

With Sam Altman from OpenAI spearheading it, no less.

PheonixPharts 3y ago
I was chatting with a few Chinese crypto people the other day, and the general consensus in that community seems to be that Worldcoin basically operates as an ATM for Sam Altman. He undoubtedly owns a considerable amount, and it doesn't matter if it's a long term successful so long in the near term it has a multiplying impact on his OpenAI work. If you look at the 1 year change in WLD you see that he's likely made a pretty sum from it already, especially since whatever amount of WLD he own was acquired at effectively zero cost[0]. The people I was chatting with shared a similar view to dogecoin and Musk. All either needs to do is drive up a little hype and in to time they have access to tremendous amounts of liquidity. 0. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/worldcoin-org/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/worldcoin-org/
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Why aren't we taking it more seriously that our supposed world-leading founders and business people are simply running pump and dumb schemes with Worldcoin, Doge, and ETF/SPACs?
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    It is hilarious to me how many of the twitter accounts who swore up and down crypto was the future are now shilling for AI instead. It's obvious they don't know or care very much about anything, they're just determined to keep riding hype waves and try to cash out.
  - PheonixPharts 3y ago
    It's sort of like the twist at the end of Soylent Green. The real twist isn't that "Soylent Green is people!" the twist is that you can see this with your own eyes, shout it in the street, but ultimately no one really cares.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Do people not care, or do people not believe? My take on that movie wasn't that nobody cared, but that nobody believed the crazy-sounding man yelling weird-sounding things in public.
      - tsunamifury 3y ago
        That can be one the same phenomenon.
        s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Why should anyone care? I certainly don't and find it curious that others have an interest at all. I have always viewed people arguing for or against crypto as equivalent to nerds arguing if batman or superman is better. Utterly irrelevant to me.
        tsunamifury 3y ago
        I think you have tragically and entirely missed the point.
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      I think a lot of people do actually care, but you'll never be able to determine that from the internet because on every social platform the discourse on every controversial issue is 1000 bot comments for every real comment. The vibe on today's internet when it comes to weird tech bros is 'we made this space, applaud us on it or leave it.' Many people have chosen option 2.
      - 3y ago
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Because while a few people find this an interesting surprise, more people have it fully priced in to their worldview, either (among some other possibilities) because they are active participants or because they are critics of capitalism from schools of thought where the incentive to an ubiquity of this kind of behavior is central to the critique. Its really mostly a surprising revelation to outer-circle initiates of the cult of capitalism, who have been indoctrinated in the public propaganda used for recruitment but are ignorant of the inner mysteries.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      This reminds me of the fact that basically no financial system tries to prohibit speculation, gambling, or risk-taking outright. Instead, institutions attempt to increase transparency and limit gambling with other peoples money. The availability of terrible high-risk investments and option to buy them is always present. IT is just rarely interesting to talk about.
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      I think we can not just say “it’s because they’re stupid”. It fair to say I am very aware, I’ve worked in the largest tech companies in the world and I worked on the largest bank merger in the world. I see how the sausage is made… mostly. However the value systems that are created anew continue to shock me. Because when the wool gets pulled, and it always fucking does, the damage is shifted to those who “don’t care”

dorkwood 3y ago

People got scared when they started scanning thousands of people's eyeballs in Africa. It didn't matter that Sam Altman had a good explanation for doing it. Because cryptocurrency is involved, it must be bad, right?

skullone 3y ago
Lol what's this good explanation of scanning people's eyes?
- shagie 3y ago
  Identity management. I want to give food or money to 1000 distinct people in some part of the world. How do I make sure that 1000 distinct people do it and it's not just 100 people getting in the line 10 times each? What source of identity does everyone have (yes, there are exceptions) and on the more difficult to lose side (industrial accidents are more likely to damage fingers than eyes)?
  - kemotep 3y ago
    But why is a crypto currency required? Biometrics like Apple’s Face ID reasonably identify the owners of a phone. Why not distribute managed iPhones with access to an account to wire money to or an app that displays a code that aid workers can use to identify that the right person got the goods? That phone or app could be set to only generate one code per aid delivery event and without a code you don’t get aid. Someone having multiple phones would be easy to identify as the aid worker would recognize they are back in line. I mean if your goal is to end fraud there seems to be several options that don’t require a blockchain or some custom eye scanning device. How does worldcoin solve the issue of a local abusing a position of power to direct everyone to transfer their funds to their account or with holding some other resource to force people to give them their aid?
    - gs17 3y ago
      Part of the idea is to expand it beyond those, so anyone can verify that a user is representing a distinct, real human. It's supposed to be privacy preserving, so you could use it in user registration to block bots without needing to request any real identifying information. Of course, you've hit on part of the issue here, it's not going to really prevent a lot of the fraud it's intended to.

Y_Y 3y ago

There are loads of stores in Spain offering to "create art" of your iris by taking a high-res scan and blowing it up to make a canvas print. They sprang up overnight a while back and as far as I know aren't fooling anyone.

emptysongglass 3y ago
Same in Copenhagen. I was wondering how in the world they were making money.
- gs17 3y ago
  They're also in the US, but I don't think they're making WorldCoin accounts off of it (or using it to fake biometrics for other things). https://irisphoto.art/originalite https://irisphoto.art/originalite shows that iris photo art predates the coin by a long while. Some people just find the idea novel enough to pay for.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

I'm surprised that an HN reader hasn't heard of WorldCoin given how much Altman has been on HN recently. Prior to today you were a lucky person not to have heard of it. We need a corollary to https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ that celebrates blissful ignorance.

secondcoming 3y ago
To be honest, I tend to gloss over anything ending with 'Coin'.

zombiwoof 3y ago

it's sam altmans version of a chip in your brain

belter 3y ago

You can't even say kiss my a#%ss or he will run and scan it...