00:00 A grand vision, beginning with an orb, who sees you for who you are.
00:07 When the hardware works anyway, we're trying another one.
00:15 Now it's up and running.
00:17 A WorldCoin refresher.
00:19 First one shows the app, then the orb does an iris scan to verify humanity.
00:24 I guess I've passed.
00:27 I get a world ID that would let me log on to apps and websites anonymously.
00:32 In exchange for the iris scans, users receive crypto tokens worth around 40 US dollars.
00:40 Unless you're in the US, where crypto tokens aren't handed out due to "regulatory uncertainty."
00:47 So I guess I'm leaving with nothing today.
00:51 Tools for Humanity, the company behind WorldCoin, says the tech's ability to distinguish real
00:56 and unique identities could also one day be applied to universal basic income programs
01:02 in an AI-dominated world.
01:08 First we will have to go from the jobs of today to the jobs of tomorrow, and that will
01:12 be a little bit of a bumpy transition.
01:15 And it'll be very important that we're able to support people around the world during
01:18 that transition with experiments like UBI, universal basic income.
01:22 And so to be able to do UBI, you need to be able to get money to people, but you also
01:26 need to make sure that people only claim that money once.
01:30 But since its launch a month ago, a host of issues has beset WorldCoin, the most famous
01:35 being Kenya's suspension of the project over privacy concerns.
01:40 And things have hardly improved since.
01:43 Questions around ethics and privacy linger.
01:45 And critics say WorldCoin has yet to answer them satisfactorily.
01:49 The first thing I think I want people to understand is exactly who is going to be harnessing their
01:55 data.
01:56 The second thing is I have some questions I would like to ask about security.
02:00 The orb that they're asking people to use is a piece of hardware that could have security
02:06 flaws that we're not aware of.
02:09 Like a question I would have, can an orb operator access that data through a back door or some
02:15 other thing, a savvy orb operator might be able to figure out a hack into the orb to
02:20 get the data before it's deleted.
02:23 Since WorldCoin launched, more than two million people around the world have gotten their
02:28 irises scanned, taking it on trust that the technology is functional and secure.
02:34 But unless they can convince governments everywhere of that, the grand vision of WorldCoin will
02:39 remain just that, a vision.
02:41 [laughter]
02:42 [end of transcript]
02:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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