Welcome to the Orb: Altman’s Vision for a Verified Humanity

Sam Altman has a problem. His ChatGPT unleashed AI bots across the internet. Now he wants to scan your eyeballs to prove you're human.

The OpenAI CEO launched his biometric verification startup World in six US cities this month. The company plans to deploy 7,500 eye-scanning "Orbs" across America by year-end, starting in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco.

Here's the pitch: Stare into a chrome sphere the size of a beach ball. It scans your iris in 30 seconds. You get a "World ID" proving you're human and $40-42 worth of Worldcoin cryptocurrency. The biometric data gets encrypted and sent to your phone, then deleted from the device.

Altman created the technology flooding the internet with convincing AI content. Now he sells the solution to distinguish humans from bots. It's like an arsonist selling fire extinguishers.

"We needed some way for identifying, authenticating humans in the age of AGI," Altman said at the San Francisco launch event in April. "We wanted a way to make sure that humans stayed special and central."

The Bot Problem Gets Real

The timing isn't accidental. AI systems now generate content so realistic that telling human from machine becomes nearly impossible. Researchers from the University of Zurich found that AI-generated comments on Reddit were up to six times more successful than human-written ones at persuading unknowing users to change their minds.

On social-media platforms like X and Facebook, bot-driven accounts rack up billions of views on AI-generated content. In April, the foundation that runs Wikipedia disclosed that AI bots scraping their site were making the encyclopedia too costly to run.

Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania warns the internet faces massive disruption. "The Internet will change very drastically sometime in the next 12 to 24 months," he told reporters. "So we have to succeed, or I'm not sure what else would happen."

Privacy Theater

World claims its system protects privacy through clever engineering. The Orb converts your iris scan into a 12,800-digit numerical code, creates derivative codes that can't be traced back to you, then deletes the encryption keys. Even World can't link the stored data back to your identity.

But the privacy promises contain a catch. Once you scan your iris, derivative codes remain in the system forever. European regulators in Germany called this out, declaring the Orb posed "fundamental data protection issues" and ordering the company to allow full data deletion. World appealed.

Chief privacy officer Damien Kieran defends the approach: If people could truly delete their data, they could claim cryptocurrency rewards repeatedly or circumvent security measures. The company maintains it doesn't store personal biometric data - just anonymized codes.

Critics aren't buying it. Privacy advocates note that once biometric data enters any system, it creates permanent vulnerabilities. Unlike passwords, you can't change your iris patterns if they're compromised.

Follow the Money

World has raised $244 million from venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures. The total market value of all Worldcoins in existence hovers around $1.2 billion, though most coins aren't in circulation and the price swings wildly.

The crypto incentive drives adoption. Some 75% of all Worldcoins are set aside for humans to claim when they sign up, or as referral bonuses. The remaining 25% are split between Tools for Humanity's backers and staff, including Blania and Altman. "I'm really excited to make a lot of money," Blania admits.

Since launching internationally in 2023, World has verified 12 million people across 26 million app users. The company found early success in developing countries where cryptocurrency rewards carry more purchasing power.

Beyond Identity Verification

World isn't stopping at human verification. The company announced partnerships with Visa for a debit card that lets users spend Worldcoin anywhere Visa is accepted. Match Group will integrate World ID into Tinder in Japan to combat dating app scams. The company also partnered with Stripe for online payments and added prediction betting through Kalshi.

A new "Orb Mini" device launches in 2026 - a handheld scanner with two camera "eyes" that looks more like a smartphone than a sphere. The company is building a factory in Richardson, Texas to manufacture Orbs for the US market.

Trump Clears the Path

World avoided the US market for years due to regulatory uncertainty. Several countries banned or restricted the service. Brazil and Hong Kong blocked Worldcoin features. Kenya imposed a year-long ban after finding the company violated local data regulations. Spain and Portugal put in place temporary restrictions.

The Trump administration's crypto-friendly policies cleared the path for US expansion. Blania attended a $1 million-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, crediting the president with relaxing crypto regulations. "Given Sam is a very high profile target," Blania said, "we just decided that we would let other companies fight that fight, and enter the U.S. once the air is clear."

Notably, World won't operate in New York State, though the company hasn't explained why.

The Bigger Picture

Altman's vision extends beyond bot detection. He originally pitched World as infrastructure for universal basic income - a way to distribute AI profits to humans as automation eliminates jobs. That message has shifted. Altman now talks about "universal basic compute" instead, giving everyone access to powerful AI rather than redistributing money.

The system also enables "human-authorized" AI agents. Users can delegate their World ID to bots, allowing AI systems to take actions online on their behalf while maintaining human accountability. This suggests World's mission may be expanding beyond proving humanity toward becoming the infrastructure that enables AI agents to proliferate with human oversight.

Early adoption remains slow. Few online platforms currently support World ID, leaving little to entice users beyond free cryptocurrency. Many people find the concept unsettling - like something from a dystopian TV show.

In Seoul, where World operates 250 Orbs targeting one million Korean users, elderly visitors line up for the cryptocurrency reward. But many younger users express skepticism. "Your iris is uniquely yours, and we don't really know how it might be used," said 75-year-old Cho Jeong-yeon, who declined to scan her eyes despite the financial incentive.

At a San Francisco event, tech workers showed similar wariness. "I don't give up my personal data easily, and I consider my eyeballs personal data," one attendee told reporters.

Even supporters acknowledge the project's strange optics. Trevor Traina, a Trump donor and former US ambassador who now serves as Tools for Humanity's chief business officer, admitted he did "a colonoscopy on this company" before joining.

Altman himself seems uncertain about mainstream adoption. "I can see [how] this becomes a fairly mainstream thing in a few years," he said in an interview. "Or I can see that it's still only used by a small subset of people who think about the world in a certain way."

The company aims to verify 50 million people by the end of 2025, with an ultimate goal of signing up every human on Earth. That's an ambitious target given the slow uptake so far and growing privacy concerns.

World also faces questions about Altman's dual role. During the San Francisco event, skeptics pointed out that by running OpenAI, he's fueling the problem World aims to solve. It's a convenient position: profit from creating AI systems that flood the internet with bots, then sell the biometric solution to tell humans apart.

When pressed about this conflict, Altman gets defensive. He now downplays the "bot apocalypse" framing he originally used to pitch the company, instead focusing on the positive uses of human verification.

The shift in messaging reflects broader changes at World. The company has moved away from talking about universal basic income toward building financial services. It's less about solving humanity's problems and more about capturing market share in the emerging human-verification space.

Why this matters:

• Altman profits from both sides of the AI authenticity problem - creating systems that generate fake content while selling tools to verify real humans.
• If World becomes internet infrastructure, one company could control access to online services based on biometric compliance, raising questions about digital freedom and surveillance.