Tools for Humanity, a startup co-founded by theoretical physicist Alex Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is hoping to become the foundation of trust online \u2014 by verifying that the people using the internet are actually people<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe idea of a user, the idea of a person, is not really part of the internet, and that’s the core problem,\u201d <\/strong>Adrian Ludwig, Tools for Humanity\u2019s chief architect and chief information security officer, told Freethink. \u201cIn the physical world, you can tell that you’re interacting with a person, and you don’t have these problems, so we started to think about whether we could take that physical world identity and have it work in the online world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tools for Humanity calls the solution it came up with the World Network, and a core element of it is a sphere-shaped device called the Orb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People who want to become verified members of the World Network need to visit a physical location hosting an Orb so that a camera in the device can scan their eyes, a process that takes about 10 seconds. The Orb converts the texture of their irises, which is even more unique to individuals than fingerprints, into a code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If it is a unique code \u2014 meaning one that isn\u2019t already in the World Network \u2014 the person is issued a World ID. This proof-of-personhood is stored in the World App on their smartphone, and the idea is that it can function like a digital passport, giving them a way to prove that they are a real, unique person online without having to reveal anything specific about who they are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe iris can be turned into a code that reveals no other information about you other than that you’re unique, and the Orb is able to analyze that you’re human,\u201d said Ludwig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n World IDs have myriad potential applications. A social media app could require people to share them in order to sign up, for example, ensuring that each user is a unique person. A website selling concert tickets could do the same thing, preventing bots from buying up all the good seats seconds after they\u2019re available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early testing of the Orb began in 2021, with a more official rollout beginning in 2023. Tools for Humanity has now launched the World Network in 23 countries, including the US<\/a> \u2014 since April, Americans have had the option of having their personhood verified by Orbs in six US cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I recently visited the San Francisco location, where I chatted with employee Marlon Gomez in the middle of a wooden structure containing eight Orbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs the technology develops, this is going to become more and more of a useful and necessary tool to distinguish us from computers, bots, scammers, and instances of fraud,\u201d said Gomez. \u201cI think the usability and necessity of this machine will continue to go up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA little bit of skepticism is healthy.”<\/p>Marlon Gomez<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Eventually, I walked up to one of the machines to get a closer look. At first glance, the Orb resembled a bigger, nicer version of a Logitech camera, similar to ones we had sitting on top of our computers in the early 2000s.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I was checking out the Orbs, several bystanders walked into the store to ask about how the whole thing works. Many of them ultimately decided against it and walked out. It\u2019s clear people are hesitant about the Orb, and I don\u2019t blame them \u2014 \u201cverifying your humanness\u201d does sound rather freaky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA little bit of skepticism is healthy,\u201d Gomez said, shrugging it off. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to educate the public and give them the confidence to research it themselves. We\u2019re a completely open source project.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To have any hope of significantly reducing fraud and restoring trust online, Tools for Humanity will need a lot<\/em> of people to overcome any initial skepticism they might have about the World Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This technology, as well as many other technologies, only really matters and only really is powerful if it gets to wide adoption, if a lot of people actually use it,” Blania said<\/a> during a keynote discussion at the IAPP\u2019s Global Privacy Summit in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To encourage trust in its network, Ludwig told Freethink that the images captured by an Orb are instantly deleted and user data is never saved. A person\u2019s World ID is only accessible on their own smartphone, and Tools for Humanity can\u2019t access any information regarding the sites where it\u2019s used to verify personhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those sites, meanwhile, don\u2019t get any information on the World ID user other than the fact that they are a verified human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe really do believe, in a pretty strong way, that the use of World ID reduces the privacy risk because you don’t need to have every single site retaining as much information as they’ve had to retain in order to fight the problem,\u201d said Ludwig. \u201cIt\u2019s actually less information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s certainly been confusing for regulators.”<\/p>\nAdrian Ludwig<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Creating the Orb in-house \u2014 rather than relying on an existing device \u2014 was also partially a trust-building move, according to Ludwig: \u201cTo be able to meet the uniqueness requirements, the security, and the privacy requirements, the only solution possible was to build our own hardware.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in case that\u2019s not enough to encourage adoption, Tools for Humanity also gives people who join the World Network the option of claiming 40 tokens of its Worldcoin cryptocurrency<\/a> (a total value of about $46 at the time of writing). <\/p>\n\n\n\n This token is central to the company\u2019s plan to make World a new kind of financial network<\/a> in addition to a system for verifying identity. As part of that, it recently announced a strategic partnership with Visa to release the World Card<\/a> \u2014 a debit card that allows holders to spend their crypto anywhere Visa is accepted.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to enticing individuals to participate in the World Network, Tools for Humanity also needs to convince government officials that it\u2019s trustworthy. Since launching the project, it has faced ongoing pushback<\/a> from regulators in certain nations, and Hong Kong has even banned the technology<\/a>, citing privacy and data security concerns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s certainly been confusing for regulators,\u201d Ludwig said. \u201cThere’s a belief that we must be retaining the images because they haven’t read the information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think a lot of it comes down to people becoming more familiar,\u201d he added. \u201cJust getting to the point where they realize, \u2018This is a problem\u2026that I encounter day in and day out,\u2019 helps them feel more comfortable with the idea that they need to do something to solve the issue, and then having people be more comfortable with the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of May, 27 million people had signed up for the World Network online, and more than 12 million had been verified as humans by Orbs. To help scale up verification, Tools for Humanity recently unveiled the Orb Mini<\/a>, a portable version of the Orb that looks like a smartphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company\u2019s goal is to deploy 7,500 Orbs across the US and verify 50 million people around the world by the end of this year. Helping it reach that goal will be the $135 million it recently raised<\/a> from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLook into the Orb<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The rollout<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Building trust<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Looking ahead<\/h3>\n\n\n\n