Sam Altman’s Worldcoin startup will identify people in the era of AI instead of cryptocurrencies

The Worldcoin startup, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has announced a name change to World. The word “coin” disappeared from the name as the company decided to leave the cryptocurrency market and now intends to focus on creating devices for identifying people. Along with this, the startup introduced a new iris scanning device called Orb.

Image source: World

Let us recall that in July 2023, the cryptocurrency startup Worldcoin began providing services around the world and globally launched a cryptocurrency of the same name, which can only be used after the user confirms his identity. The centerpiece of the project is the Orb sphere, which is designed to scan the user’s eyes to confirm their identity and distinguish them from robots. It seems that cryptocurrency has not gained popularity, and now the startup has decided to refocus.

World said in a statement that the company intends to use Orb to provide identification services, as this task will become increasingly important as artificial intelligence technologies develop and the ability to imitate people expands. “Humanity now faces a new existential question: How will humans and AI coexist,” the company said in a statement.

World, led by Alex Blania, will continue to work towards creating devices for scanning the iris of the eye for biometric identification. According to reports, the new Orb model uses the Nvidia Jetson Compute Module. At the same time, it announced the start of sales of Orb devices, which can be used to identify people online.

The human identification service itself, called Deep Face, according to World, should solve the problem of deepfakes created with the help of AI, and will also offer “a powerful new way to combat fraud.” As part of the event dedicated to the rebranding and presentation of the new device, it was announced that the startup would give Orb to everyone present.