Oh, man, where to even start with Sam Altman’s latest fever dream…
This thing from my nightmares is called the “Orb”
Thought it sounds like a good sci-fi movie in the making, it is a tech-gimmick of doom. It is a polished black sphere from hell that is masquerading as salvation.
And trust me, this shiny little orby-dorb does not want to fix the world though. It only wants to scan your eyeballs and whisper sweet nothings about crypto riches and universal basic income. And while doing so, it quietly builds the most extensive biometric database that humanity has ever seen.
In this little dystopian piece, I’ll dissect this mofo, as usual, one horrifying layer at a time.
To start with, this Urbi et Orbi scans your iris, yes, that unrepeatable, beautifully unique, biometric treasure which is embedded in your eyeball, and it gives you a friggin’ “World ID” in return, and oh yeah, seven silverlings of digital Judas tokens to pay you off for your betrayal to the hooman race.
The pitch is a tamper-proof digital identity that proves that you are not some shady AI troll bot who is making the metaverse a nightmare.
If it was only that, I’d be umm… ok, with it.
But behind the curtain, this is about stuffing as many irises as possible into a database, ostensibly to protect against fraud and help humanity.
Suuuure
Let’s just ignore the fact that uncle Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern, who are the brains behind this maleficent globulin, have investors like Andreessen Horowitz salivating over a quarter of all the Worldcoin tokens that they’re holding.
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`What exactly is the Orb
It is a sleek sci-fi-esque black sphere that comes straight out of Black Mirror.
It has a thermal imaging, a 3D camera, and ultra-high-resolution photography to scan your face, your body, and your iris.
They promise that the data won’t be stored, and just encoded as “hashes” distributed across university servers. As if that matters. Because collecting sensitive biometric data by a company, and outsourcing them to random academic institutions with no oversight body is a testament to ethical and secure behavior.
None. Nada. Zip.
I’m getting negative vibes all over.
The creators of the Orb spin this though as a solution to a crisis: AI’s inability to tell humans apart from bots. True, Captchas are annoying squiggly puzzles, and with AI, they are becoming as obsolete as your haircut, as AI gets smarter. And now the Orb enters the game, and it says, “No bots allowed”
But let’s be real, peeps… the long game isn’t about captchas or Zoom call verifications.
We all know that by now, if you’ve been paying attention.
It’s about creating a crypto-backed economy where your identity and, by extension, your literal eyeballs, become the currency.
Who are behind this eyeballing grift
Besides Altman’s OpenAI-adjacent halo of “credibility”, this mess is backed by the usual Silicon Valley suspects: a16z crypto, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, and Distributed Global.
Tools for Humanity is the company which Altman helped found, and that one handles the Orb tech and it oversees the Worldcoin project.
Worldcoin?
Oh, World you mean!
Worldcoin is now calling itself World. Their dream is to create a universal basic income and a utopian financial system (more of a scheme I think…). So when you get your eyeballs popped and digitized, all in the name of “keeping the trolls out”, you get a handful of cryptopian tokens (WLD) and of course a shiny World App wallet to keep them safe.
is the lovechild of Silicon Valley hubris and dystopian sci-fi, spearheaded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern. The pitch? A global digital ID system to prove you’re human in a world overrun by AI, all built around the Orb, a creepy black sphere that scans your iris to create a “unique” identifier while tossing you a handful of crypto tokens (WLD) and access to its shiny World App wallet. The dream? Universal basic income and a utopian financial system.
So far, they have scanned over 7 million irises worldwide. They have of course started in regions where they figured resistance would be futile.
Where did they start?
Developing countries, of course!
Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Kenya.
You know, them places where you get your cobalt, gold, and diamonds. And in this case, it’s the place where Big Tech rolls out its sketchiest experiments.
Authorities in Kenya, were probably paid too little, so they had to shut the operation down multiple times over “compliance” issues. France, Germany, Argentina, and Hong Kong have also raised red flags, and Spain and Portugal outright banned it. The Netherlands even recently sued the company Clearview AI for 30M Euro because they constructed an illegal database of facial images (including mine). And that is just baaaaaad.
🐐
But hey, no worries, Altman’s team just landed in Brazil. Because when regulators get too nosy, you just pack up your shtuff and move elsewhere. That just screams “digital ethics” now doesn’t it?
In Brazil, they have cozied up to regulators and sprinkled some charm (read: real money) around Brasília to push their eyeball-scanning agenda. And meanwhile, the National Data Protection Authority is giving the whole thing a serious side-eye. And rightly so, when a black orb wants to scan your retina for tokens, skepticism is quite a sensible thing to do.
The good, the bad, and the utterly terrifying
Okay, let’s play devil’s advocate for a second.
Could this thing actually solve a few problems. Well, as a consumer it’s not troubling me, so it is mainly for companies that have the hassle of combatting bots.
So, in theory it could solve some.
A secure, tamper-proof digital ID could combat identity theft and make online interactions safer.
Heck man, it could even enable a universal basic income via crypto distribution. And the that could potentially level economic disparities. Just imagine a world where everyone has access to digital currency, no matter where they live.
Sounds truly noble.
And my heart turned to mush when I heard about this universal basic income.
But there’s a little catch.
All that goody goodness comes at a staggering cost.
The price is your biometric data, your privacy, and your soul.
The narrative of “helping humanity” is so thin that it is practically transparent.
This is not about making the world a better place…
(all sing along with me, please: https://tinyurl.com/Make-the-world-a-better-place)
I’ll wait ‘till you’re finished. Meanwhile, I’ll gaze at this magnificent malevolent Orbus from the Netherworld
This project is about privatizing a core human function, which is identity. And once that identity is tied to an unregulated cryptocurrency controlled by a select few, the potential for abuse is off the charts.
So, I’ve said it.
Just imagine a future where your access to basic services depends on your World ID.
No scan? No entry.
Lost your tokens? Tough luck.
And don’t even get me talking about the potential for secondary uses of this data. Suuure, they promise not to store your iris images, but promises in tech are as flimsy as a startup’s NDA. If you ain’t got no proper oversight, this database will become a treasure trove for surveillance companies, tracking systems
…..and exploitation.
Ever heard of the social credits system in China? China’s social credit system where your behavior, online and offline, can boost or tank your score. And your score dictates if you can buy plane tickets or get a loan, or can’t even get aboard a train or walk in certain parts of town. It truly is Big Brother on cocaine, laced with steroids and a bitt of snuff. It is using surveillance tech to gamify obedience.
And it is turning everyday citizens into snitches and rule-followers out of fear. Of course, as in all communist systems of power, it promises to build trust. But it reeks of dystopia. It is punishing dissent behavior and it is rewarding conformity in a world where privacy is as extinct as the dodo.
Welcome to techno-hell
Have you ever watched the movie franchise Hellraiser?
The movie is about the twisted world of the Cenobites, which are sadomasochistic demons who can be summoned by invoking a mysterious puzzle box called the Lament Configuration. The film is about hellish dimensions, corrupt humans, and the hunt for forbidden sensations.
And here it is…
Well, not exactly. The original is a cube, but who’s counting.
Sam’s real Orb though is the non sci-fi, real harbinger of a dystopia where your eyeballs have become a commodity, and your identity is a product.
Sam and his crew want us to believe this is about solving humanity’s problems, but in reality, it’s a massive land grab for data, power, and profit.
So, should we be scared as hell?
Absolutely.
Because when Big Tech starts poking around your irises while preaching about utopia, it’s time to grab your pitchfork and say, “Not today, Satan”.
Signing off – Marco
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ♨️
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