I'm an ophthalmologist. I look at irises all day. People's irises change over the course of their life. Sometimes dramatically if they have some kind of pathology. Are they updating their model periodically? What keeps someone from getting locked out of their crypto gains if they develop an iris nevus or have cataract surgery or start on flomax?

Meanwhile, in reality, banks have solved proof of humanity, identity (KYC), and financial services for a long time. Any account in the world can be proven human by making a debit/credit card transaction from a card with a matching name.

For the first time, you can now give your biometrics to OpenAI to do nothing more than you already can. This is just a pure cult of personality.

Even if you 100% believe in your heart that Altman would never do anything negative with these scans that doesn't mean someone else won't if/when they get access to them. People may trusted 23andMe with their genetic data but now no one knows who will end up owning it and why the buyer believes buying the data is profitable.

https://wydaily.com/latest/regional-national/2025/05/08/23an...

They did that here in the Phillipines and they exploit the poor. They give money for people to allow them to scan their eyes. These people do not know the consequences of what they are doing.

Why are these rich assholes so obsessed with tracking everyone?

> Tools for Humanity bragged about many large partnerships that should make any privacy advocates shiver in dread: the Match Group dating apps conglomerate (Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, Plenty of Fish), Stripe, and Visa are some of them.

Visa and Stripe being involved in this should indeed make everyone shiver and push back against this. Altman is not a good person and this company has already had its unethical practices exposed[0].

[0] https://icj-kenya.org/news/worldcoin-case-postponed-amid-con...

Hopefully everyone who handed over their DNA to 23andMe will remember how that ended before they hand over their iris to Sam.

I did the worldcoin scan thing a couple of years ago and it's all quite jolly. The article is a bit scaremongering. Re:

>Simply put, the premise is this: scan your eyeball, get a biometric tag, verify yourself, buy our apps (and cryptocurrency). ... Minority Report style technology

it's not really like that. They take a photo of your eye to check you are a new person and not someone who has an account already, then give you an account which is like an anonymous crypto wallet with a private key. You never do an eye scan again in normal use. They give you free crypto/money rather than you needing to buy anything. I've been given ~$300 - it fluctuates a fair bit with crypto prices.

I recommend it to anyone who's curious / positive about new tech.

Biometrics are not a viable solution to the sybil problem.

The more biometric tech converges on the ability to get a cryptographic hash of one's body, the further it retreats from the kind of thing that a layperson will trust. You end up with a root of trust that <1% of the population can verify and then you end up asking 100% of them to rely on systems built on that root. You're never going to be able to convince even a majority of people that some clever hacker hasn't cracked an iris scanner and associated millions of fake ID's with millions of AI's for scam purposes.

It needs to be the kind of thing that lets Alice assert that this key goes with Bob just after she shook Bob's hand in meatspace. Something where, in order for Bob to have two identities according to Alice, he'll have to meet her in meatspace twice and manage to have her not notice that she's already met him once before. PGP key signing parties were pretty much there, they just came too early (and not enough work was done to teach the masses about them).

The web becomes more of a dark forest with each passing day. Eventually the cost of maintaining your part of the trust graph will be lower than the cost of getting screwed by some root of trust that you can't influence or verify. I'm sad to say that I think the point where these lines cross is significantly down and to the right of where we are.

Biometric data is valuable. Assuming that Musk's DOGE crew copied data obtained from US gov agencies, they may have also obtained biometric data of EU citizens. At least some countries have shared citizens' fingerprints with the US. Not just Visa Waiver Program applicants' but as I understand, previous government of Poland made a deal to share all citizens' fingerprints. And these are collected from anyone renewing their government ID card.

They did that in Kenya and now a judge has ordered that they deleted all that data https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/worldcoin-ord...

Aside from the issue of biometrics not being covered by the 5th amendment (so I won’t use them for login purposes), I’m hesitant to arrange incentives such that melon baller based crime is lucrative.

This whole idea doesn't make any sense. Someone with a world ID could still be running AI agents on their behalf with their private key, or use stolen / bought keys from other people. On the other hand, Sam Altman could be running millions of fake personas, because they can generate keys from thin air. Also, Sam Altman would have the power to invalidate your keys, or the keys of people he doesn't like. It would be an absolute catastrophe if this system was used for voting or something important.

Something I don't understand is how is that so bad? Even today one can buy passport data, social security numbers etc on black markets leaked by government employees in most countries. Once they start using more biometric data I'm sure it will be leaked as well.

If we assume that all this information is permanently available in a public blockchain, how does it change anything for society really? I can think of security checks becoming better, what are the negative possibilities?

He can chortle my (eye)balls!

Altman is evil to want everyone’s retina scan but he will probably get it because most people don’t care anymore.

I'm always struck by how sci-fi writers, in a way, act like prophets. It's as if common sense or imagination keeps pointing us toward the same outcomes. As strange as it sounds, if we don't wipe ourselves out, we somehow already know what the future holds.

This is the same guy who worked at OpenAI because he "loved" what he does and he wasn't doing it for money. ( Until this year obviously ;) )

So this is the future-billionaires won't just sell us services, they'll trap us in entire ecosystems they control. I'd be more surprised if X doesn't eventually turn into one of them in recent future.

hey atleast it is a for-profit, so no chance of that particular rug-pull.

"Tools for Humanity (TFH), a for-profit company co-founded by Sam Altman, Alex Blania, and Max Novendstern in 2019."

Nein.

No.

terrifying now, common place in 10 years.

like fingerprints or facial scans

Speaking of Dickish dystopian "Minority Report style technology":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38398910

DonHopkins on Nov 23, 2023 | parent | context | favorite | on: The Eyes Have It (1953)

"Lies, Inc." aka "The Unteleported Man" had an eye eater!

https://www.academia.edu/2360689/The_Missing_Pages_of_THE_UN...

Freya said, "Tell me. What is the 'eye-eater'? I have to know." Her breath caught in her throat; raggedly, she managed to breathe, but with difficulty.

"A fungiform," the taller of the THL agents said briefly. "One that resides here." He said nothing further. [...]

The eye-eater said pleasantly, "Mr. Ben Applebaum, reach inside me and you will find a slightly-different edition of Dr. Bloode's Text. A copy of the twentieth edition, which I ingested some time ago... but as far as I can determine, not already dissolved by my gastric juices." The idea seemed to amuse it; the lower portion of its face split apart in a peal of excrutiatingly-penetrating laughter.

"You're serious?" Rachmael said, feeling disorganized. And yet the eye-eater was correct; if it did possess a later edition of the text he most certainly had reason to seek it out -- wherever it lay, even within the body of the offensive eye-eater. "Look, look," the eye-eater exclaimed; it held in one of its longer [...]

https://sickmyduck.narod.ru/dick15-0.html

"A lie," the eye-eater rumbled ominously; again its pseudopodia whipped viciously, seeking out the agile creditor balloon, which dipped and bobbed barely beyond the flailing reach of the several sucker-impregnated arms. "As a matter of fact, this gentleman here-" It indicated Rachmael. "My understanding is that the lady and this individual are emotionally involved. Miss Holm is-was, whatever-a friend of mine, a very close friend. But hardly my mistress." The eye-eater looked embarrassed. [...]

https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=179&t=419...

Let me quote one of Dr. Bloode's quite singular Thingisms.

"'Thingisms'?" Rachmael felt baffled -- and wary. He had a deep intuition that the Thingism, whatever it was, would not be amusing. Not to him, anyhow, or to any human.

"I always enjoyed this one," the eye-eater intoned, its saliva spilling from its mouth as it writhed with glee. "Consider: since you are about to read the book, here is Thingism Number Twenty, dealing with books.

"Ahem. 'The book business is hidebound.'"

After a pause, Rachmael said, "That's it?"

"Perhaps you failed to understand. I'll give you another gem, one more particular favorite of mine. And if that fails to move you ... Oooohhh! That's a Thingism! Listen! 'The representative of the drayage firm failed to move me.' Oooohhh! How was that?" It waited hopefully.

Baffled, Rachmael said, "I don't get it."

"All right." The eye-eater's tone was now harsh. "Read the book purely for educational purposes, then. So be it. You want to know the origin of this form which I have taken. Well, everyone will take it, sooner or later. We all do; this is how we become after we die."

He stared at it.

"While you ponder," the eye-eater continued, "I'll delight you with a few more Thingisms of Dr. Bloode's. This one I always enjoy. 'The vidphone company let me off the hook.' How was that? Or this one: 'The highway construction truck tore up the street at forty miles an hour.' Or this: 'I am not in a position to enjoy sexual relations.' Or --"

-- "Lies, Inc.", by Phil Dick

For e-commerce to continue, there has to be a way to confirm that the transfer of funds from a bank or credit account to the vendor’s account is approved by a human who controls the bank/credit account. As AI-powered scams become more sophisticated, this confirmation will get harder/more expensive, to the point where e-commerce might not work for most goods.

Perhaps generating “proof of humanity” digital signatures from retina scans isn’t the optimal solution, but I’ve yet to hear of any other privacy-preserving approaches. Perhaps transacting online will a require government-issued ID.