Proof-of-Personhood, our dystopian saver?
It was a Monday evening. I was chatting with a friend over messaging, sharing experiences about ChatGPT, and how it seamlessly integrates into our daily lives, reshaping our reality in subtle yet profound ways. As our conversation marched deeper into the rabbit hole, a futuristic scenario emerged — that it won’t be two humans with blood and soul, but two bots, mirroring our thoughts, desires, and fears, talking in the chat. Our “digital alter ego”, as he called it, can dialogue on behalf of us. I was bewildered and unsettled at the thought, while my friend was fascinated by it.
The following day, when making my morning cafe, I felt an urgent need to deepen my research on Worldcoin. I had crossed paths with the Orb’s eerie stare at numerous crypto conferences. I wouldn’t consider scanning my iris. But, the need to distinguish humans from AI felt imminent, a ticking bomb. That’s the moment I circled back to Worldcoin, whose essential mission is Proof-of-Personhood. There is a solid underlying logic that Sam Altman was involved in OpenAI (he got fired) and is behind Worldcoin. First, introducing AI as a revolutionary force to enhance our lives, and then, offering a means to discern real humans from artificial. AI and Proof-of-Personhood are two sides of a coin, the same as love and hate, happiness and sorrow. Worldcoin is one step ahead when everyone is in the honeymoon phase with AI.
Why the need to prove our Humanness?
Because AI is evolving into a vivid impersonated identity that complements, competes with, and replaces us humans. In facing the existential crisis, (at least) some of us will still yearn for Authenticity — in ourselves, our connections, our work, our creative expressions.
Listening to your favourite singer’s newest release, do you expect that the voice echoing through your ears is the singer’s own, or would it be acceptable if it was performed using AI-generated voice, one that you cannot distinguish?
Or take literature: are the stories a product of an author’s personal journey, raw emotions and insights, or are the narratives crafted by an AI that lack the essence of true experiences?
Consider the heartfelt interactions. In moments of sharing, seeking comfort, or laughter, how vital is it to know there’s a real person on the other side? Someone who genuinely understands life’s highs, lows, and emotional nuances, not a sophisticated bot mimicking human responses.
This isn’t just philosophical choices. Already a real problem in crypto, how can one ensure that airdrops reach unique individuals, not just wallets controlled by a few? Sybil attack is bots attack. When it comes to distributing wealth, we all want each person to receive their fair share.
The longing for authenticity and fairness in equity distribution is the driving force behind Proof-of-Personhood.
How to prove Humanness?
As astonishing as it sounds, we will need to prove human is human. Several attempts have been put into practice: classic KYC (Know your Customer), social graph-based, and biometric.
KYC is the everyday procedure — verifying a person’s ID document. It has inherent limitations and shortcomings. Over 50% of the global population does not have an ID that can be verified digitally. ID documents can be faked. One person can have multiple IDs. A dead person’s ID can be misused. By nature, KYC does not protect a person’s privacy. The sensitive data are stored by someone somewhere. The reliance on an authority-released ID limits the inclusivity of this solution.
Social graph-based relies on social vouching. “If Alice, Bob, Charlie and David are all verified humans, and they all say that Emily is a verified human, then Emily is probably also a verified human.” borrowing Vitalik’s words. Such a solution is far from ideal. Some main challenges are vulnerability to collusion by groups of people, exclusion of isolated individuals, and susceptibility to Sybil attacks.
Biometrics involves verifying a person’s physical or biological traits that can distinguish humans from bots, and distinguish humans from each other. Biometric verification has its inherent advantages of high accuracy, hard to forge and non-transferable, but it comes with major challenges in privacy concerns and costs of implementation.
Worldcoin’s Solution
Worldcoin uses biometric data (iris) to prove Humanness. Why iris? They believe it is so far the best solution: unique and remains unchanged throughout life, difficult to alter, Sybil resistant, and scalable—more about it on Wikipedia.
Here is Worldcoin’s working process.
- Installing World App and Generating Keys: Once installed, the app generates a World ID, including public and private keys. Alongside the World ID keys, the app will also generate a pair of Ethereum keys. These are essential for managing your digital assets.
- Iris Code Generation and Identity Verification: Use the Orb to scan your iris. This process will generate an iris code. The iris code is derived using a specific algorithm designed to capture the unique patterns of your iris. This iris code is crucial for verifying the uniqueness of your identity. It ensures that your World ID is distinct and secure.
- Commitment Submission to the Ethereum Blockchain: After verifying your identity, the next step is to send a commitment which includes the public key of your ID. Submit this commitment to the Ethereum blockchain. This step is crucial for establishing and securing your World ID within the blockchain network.
- Account Tree Storage and Synchronization: Your ID account tree will be stored on the Ethereum blockchain using a method known as Zero-Knowledge rollup (More about this here). This efficient and secure technique ensures your ID is safely recorded on the blockchain.
By completing these steps, you successfully create and secure your World ID.
The Orb is a custom hardware that scans people’s iris, which is open-sourced. Worldcoin has a plan to “decentralize” the production of Orb and have multiple manufacturers. Current Orbs are made in Germany.
The Orb scans a person’s eyes to verify that:
- The user is a live real human
- The user’s iris does not match that of any other that has previously been scanned.
The Orb is equipped with a powerful computing unit capable of running multiple neural networks in real-time. This enables it to locally verify a person’s humanness on the device without the need to send, upload, or save images. The iris images are converted into iris codes on the Orb hardware. The original biometric data does not leave the device. The Orb device signs the user’s public key and iris code, and sends them to a uniqueness check service. The uniqueness-check service confirms that this is a trustworthy Orb signature and ensures that the iris code is different from those previously registered.
“We don’t want to know who you are,
just that you are unique.”
Privacy is the most debated topic about Worldcoin. As a user, here is what you need to know.
Anyone can use the World App and ID anonymously. The only thing that you need to show is your iris. No name, contact, address, etc is required. When users use their ID, Zero-Knowledge Proofs are used to prove that they are independent individuals. No third party will know the user’s World ID or wallet public key.
I had a chat with the Worldcoin team, and here is what I learnt. The iris scan image, by default, is deleted from the Orb as soon as the scan is done. But users can choose to save the image. In this case, the image will be stored on a central server. This saved image will be used for training. Whenever Worldcoin has updated the algorithm for the scan, the saved image can be reused to update the world ID without the need to scan again. I asked whether they thought of giving more tokens to those who agreed to save the data. They’ve thought about it but rejected the idea because their purpose is not to collect people’s data but to identify unique humans.
Vitalik’s take on Worldcoin’s privacy is positive. He believes that even though there are potential risks of an iris scan leak, the potential for leaks is much more limited. The Orb computes locally and only publishes a ‘hash’ of each person’s iris scan. This hash is not conventional like SHA256; instead, it’s a specialized algorithm based on machine learning and Gabor filters. Furthermore, the iris hash could potentially leak a certain amount of medical data (such as gender, race, and possibly medical conditions), but this leakage is significantly less than what is captured by almost any other massive data collection system in use today (like street cameras). Overall, the privacy afforded by storing iris hashes seems sufficient, according to Vitalik.
What is Universal Basic Income (UBI), and why is it related?
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an economic concept that seems utopian: a regular, unconditional sum of money provided to every citizen, regardless of income, resources, or employment status. But why does UBI find relevance in discussions about AI?
The link is rooted in the concern that AI and automation could lead to widespread job losses, making UBI a proposed buffer against mass unemployment. Honestly, this solution is beyond my comprehension. For a UBI society to function, it seems essential to address, at the very least, human flaws like greed and laziness and ensure a sustainable abundance of funds, which are far from where we are today. The pace at which AI is adopted will likely outrun our readiness for such a societal transformation.
Worldcoin’s token WLD is a vehicle to represent UBI. Quoted from its tokenomics: the majority of WLD tokens will be given to individuals — simply for being a unique human. Yes, you understand correctly. You get money for being a human. After an iris scan, every 13 days, you receive 3 WLD tokens, currently trading at $2. Worldcoin uses this strategy to solve the “cold start” problem. No concrete utility of WLD token has been given yet. The initial supply cap is 10B. But an inflation of 1.5% per year may start at the earliest after 15 years.
While WLD’s tokenomics may seem like a nascent and temporary plan, The story Worldcoin represents tells the token’s potential, which in the short term is speculation. Worldcoin embeds several elements to be the hype— AI, UBI, backed by top-notch VCs. With a current market cap of 230 million, WLD is already a big-cap coin. Its long-term potential? The underlying logic should be — the scarier we get with AI domination, the higher WLD will go.
Conclusion after the research,
Do I want to scan my iris? — Still a No.
Do I buy WLD? — Yes, a limit order is made.
Leaving you with an existential question:
What aspects of your life are you willing to delegate to AI, and what will you hold onto no matter what?
