Keep the pupil as the code of the eye

U digital world the hardest thing is to be human. You can understand this very philosophically, there would be a lot of room for deep analysis, but in this case it is a simple fact. Even before artificial intelligence bots pretended to be real people wreaking havoc on the internet. The most expensive was in marketing, the most unpleasant and painful on dating sites.

Now, at the source of digitization, in San Francisco, a new initiative is being launched. The technology that allowed us to be anonymous and multiple is beginning to bring us back to ourselves, Systems are being developed that identify a unique human being in the way that it does, for example, our unique national ID number. Just more precise.

A startup called Tools for humanity, where one of the founders is Sam Altman, the first man of OpenAI, designed the World platform that collects our biometric data and enables verification whenever necessary, within the system of its users. Let's simplify. In six locations in the US, they have installed their devices where you can take a picture of the pupil of your eye, like when you apply for an ID card. That recording creates a unique anonymous code, the so-called WorldID, which is entered into the application you previously installed on your mobile phone. From then on, you use these data to identify yourself on all sites that have accepted this type of recognition, that is, that have entered the World system. Recognition is instantaneous, it is enough to look at the camera on your phone and by comparing it, it will be confirmed or denied that the person on the other side is alive and exactly the one who is presenting himself.

Identification of this species already exists, of course. Every country collects biometric data on its citizens when it issues them documents. But countries are not ready to share it or to enter into global systems, so that data remains unavailable. In the case of World, the user voluntarily registers, counting on the advantages that the identification brings him. And they are not small.

As mentioned at the beginning, one of the problems marketing companies are running into is bots and artificial intelligence. No matter how good a test you create to determine whether you're communicating with a human or a machine, some machine will solve it and instead of real consumers, you'll be analyzing bots and getting a completely distorted picture of the market's needs. On the basis of which you then invest huge funds in some project, pinning all your hopes on that research.

It's even worse with, also mentioned, dating sites where you come across a "soulmate", actually a bot that intends to sell you something or somehow deceive you, although the biggest pain comes from the knowledge that you communicated some of your intimate feelings with a machine.

World has already been accepted by more than 15 million people in the US and that number is growing. But there is no less doubt about the quality and security of this application. Some of the first users say that the startup did not give very comprehensive answers to many questions related to possible misuse of data. Otherwise, the data from the machine that captures your eye is immediately deleted, your unique code remains only in the application and World claims that your biometric data, once entered into the application, is no longer stored anywhere. The code itself is meaningless unless it matches the user's pupil.

The idea is interesting and could be very useful. For example, if social networks accept World, anyone who adds it to their profile will take responsibility for their behavior. It would cost us some freedom to say things, but it would allow us to enter some better spaces for communication, which could be extremely useful when it comes to work. Or elections. Sam Altman thinks this system would seamlessly identify voters and enable very fair remote voting. They just need to add an option to blink if someone forces you to vote against your will.