Sam Altman wants to scan the irises of eight billion people
Proof of identity, cryptocurrency, universal basic income – Sam Altman's Worldcoin project wants to be many things at once. At its centre: an iris scanner and many unresolved questions about data protection.
What is at stake
A silver sphere, about the size of a bowling ball, scans eyeballs. Café guests in San Francisco stop and stare. “What on earth is that?” Even in the tech-credulous Silicon Valley, the idea seems bizarre. Behind the sphere – called the “Orb” – stands Sam Altman, the man who ignited the AI boom with ChatGPT. His new project Worldcoin aims to scan the irises of eight billion people and build a world currency and a universal basic income on that foundation.
The story of the sphere
The Orb weighs 2.8 kilograms, looks like a miniature version of the Death Star from “Star Wars,” and conceals high-resolution cameras and sensors. The scan takes twenty seconds, a ring lights up, and a person’s identity is uniquely registered worldwide. More than two million people have already enrolled. Co-inventor is Bavarian entrepreneur Alex Blania, who drives the project forward alongside Altman.
The promise and the risk
The underlying logic: when AI systems can soon imitate humans with uncanny realism, the internet will need proof that a real person is on the other side – and that this person exists only once. At the same time, every registered person receives a starting allocation of Worldcoins, the project’s own crypto-token. The long-term goal is a universal basic income, funded by the economic productivity of AI. Altman thinks in dimensions usually found in science fiction.
What the regulators say
Germany is among the countries where Worldcoin launched early. Bavaria’s data protection authority has initiated an investigation; the financial regulator BaFin sees unresolved questions. Biometric data on this scale under private control is historically unprecedented. Altman’s team says the iris images are deleted after the scan and only a mathematical hash value is stored. Critics are sceptical. The debate around Worldcoin will continue for years – it has become a test case for what should be permissible in the AI age of digital identity.
I wrote the full piece for Handelsblatt.