Sam Altman, the chief executive officer (CEO) of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, has launched a new cryptocurrency project called “Worldcoin.”
The new company’s main product is World ID, a digital passport that proves its holder is a human being and not an A.I. bot.
To receive a World ID, a person signs up to have their iris scanned by Worldcoin. Once the scan verifies that a person is a real human, it creates a World ID for them.
The Worldcoin project has amassed two million users from its beta period, and it is now scaling up operations, offering World ID verifications in 20 countries.
People who sign-up early for an eye scan get Worldcoin’s cryptocurrency token WLD.
The WLD crypto token saw its price rise in early trading upon its July 24 launch, hitting a peak of $5.29 U.S. from a starting price of just $0.15 U.S., according to cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Blockchains can store World IDs in a way that preserves people’s privacy and can’t be controlled or shutdown by any single entity.
Worldcoin says its World IDs are necessary in the age of generative A.I. chatbots such as ChatGPT, which was created by OpenAI and launched publicly last November.
Generative A.I. is so powerful that it increasingly blurs the lines between what is real and what is computer generated, including in videos, songs, images and written text.
OpenAI and Worldcoin are privately held companies. Their stocks are not traded on a public exchange.
