The ChatGPT guy wants to scan your eyeball with an orb. What could go wrong?

Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT, has co-founded a cryptocurrency project called Worldcoin, which is currently scanning people’s eyeballs using an orb, and digitizing their irises for use as identification. As of this podcast’s release, over 1.8 million people have had their irises scanned in exchange for the promise of receiving some Worldcoin in the future (despite the currency not yet being in existence), some local currency, or small gifts.

Jacob Silverman, co-author of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud and host of CBC podcast The Naked Emperor, says  we should be skeptical when those within Silicon Valley claim altruistic or humanitarian motives. “Crypto typically speaks towards ideas of decentralization and disrupting existing power structures, but I think we’ve seen that in practice it doesn’t often do that, or [it] sometimes replicates existing power structures,” says Silverman.

So why does Worldcoin want to scan your eyes? And what does the venture say about the future of digital currency?

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