Sam Altman wants to scan your eyes with this orb to verify your humanity

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A startup co-founded by OpenAI CEO and founder Sam Altman has launched its eyeball-scanning orbs in the United States.

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The startup behind the odd-looking orbs is called Tools for Humanity, and it's pioneering the World Human Verification project, which it unveiled on Wednesday. The idea behind the project is to produce a device called an Orb that is able to scan the irises of an individual and assign a verifiable identification profile, putting that identification profile on the blockchain to verify that you are, in fact, human. Yes, that is right, Sam Altman's co-founded startup wants to verify your humanity with a device. But why?

The use is quite practical, as World intends to create digital "proof of human" tools which it believes will be useful in the future, since AI will eventually become so sophisticated it will be difficult to distinguish humans from AI agents on the internet. The idea is that World will create a WorldID with the gathered unique IrisCode from an individual, and with that, users will be able to log in to various platforms and services, including Minecraft and Reddit.

Tools for Humanity retains access to some of the user data to ensure user biometrics isn't being duplicated, but the company said the majority of the personal data it collects will be decentralized, anonymized, and allegedly impossible to reverse-engineer. World has already rolled out in Latin America, South America, and Asia, but has now entered the US, with six locations in Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami, and San Francisco being opened up for iris scanning purposes.