Worldcoin and its World ID launched this week. Another crypto project that I wouldn’t have paid attention to except it is run by Sam Altman, the CEO of Chat GPT. One of the main differences with this one is you have to “verify yourself as human” by getting your retina scanned by an “orb.” Well, as I live near San Francisco there is always a location to participate nearby with most things tech and this was no exception. I decided to give it a try as it promises that once verified you’ll have a “passport” which will allow you to use future web services run by AI. It is a bit dystopian, and could even be an episode of Black Mirror.
There were two locations, the Ferry Building as well as a random office building. I chose the office building because it had later hours. I took the BART in and it had been a while since I’ve ridden it. The trains are much nicer now but you can tell everyone is a little wary of each other given the terrible homelessness, drugs and crime situation in both SF and Oakland. Ridership has plummeted with work from home and it seems the San Francisco District Attorney just lets criminals go.
I made it to Montgomery just fine however and actually walked right past the building as there were no signs or anything, just a random door between retail businesses. It was a small entryway with nobody to greet you and a nonfunctioning security gate which I walked right past. In the small dead-end hallway I took one of two elevators up to the 3rd floor and saw a receptionist. I told her I was there for Worldcoin and the orb scan to which she replied “What?”
This certainly didn’t seem like an event run but the CEO who just unleashed Chat GPT, a product that along with its clones is changing the world. I repeated the request and the receptionist told me they were “on the couches over there.” I looked over toward a large room full of couches, a large tent and saw many tech workers banging away on their laptops. It took me a minute to find the Worldcoin sign.
There were three people on laptops but nobody receiving a scan. I had expected a huge line and there was nobody. So I walked up and a young woman greeted me and asked me if I were there for the scan.
The process took no more than 10 seconds and I then saw that I was a “verified human” in the app. She gave me a T-shirt with verified human on the front and Worldcoin on the back and that was it.
So far there isn’t much to be done in the app. It is just a wallet that contains a digital passport. The only thing it has done for me is to get me the “verified human” role in Discord that took some time to figure out. There are only 37 other verified humans which is also surprising as one would think this would be a project many would be jumping on. We were supposed to be able to claim a few Worldcoins as part of a Genesis grant but that claim button had issues in Android and then disappeared all together. Everyone is asking about this in Discord with the only answer that everyone will receive their coins once things get straightened out.
I’m wondering if this is the very beginning of an app that really is going to change everything, or just another crypto project that will seriously underdeliver (like almost all of them). I’ve been reading articles about how Twitter (now X) and others have tried to replicate the success of WeChat in China or even Line in Japan. These are apps that really do it all with no need for anything else. This is certainly what Twitter is trying to do and thus the rebrand, but I imagine World ID also has grand aspirations of the same.
In any case, it is provided a bit more excitement to the internet but that excitement will cease if the coins are not delivered and there don’t seem to be any uses for this new passport. Time will tell and I’ll keep my eye on it.
