In a trendy place near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and the rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder.
Tools for humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, on Friday announced plans to integrate its verification technology into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems, business organizations, email and other areas of public life.
“The world is moving toward very powerful AI, and this is doing a lot of wonderful things,” Altman said, speaking to a packed crowd at The Midway. “We are also heading towards a world where there will be more things generated by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure many of you (have had moments) where you wonder, ‘Am I interacting with an AI or a person, or how much of each, and how do I know?’
World (formerly Worldcoin) distinguishes itself from many of its identity verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, living human being is using a digital service while protecting that person’s anonymity. There is a complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The result: the company is creating what it calls “proof of being human”, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world full of artificial intelligence agents and robots.
Its main verification tool is a spherical digital reader called Orb that scans the user’s eyes and converts their iris into a unique, anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a Verified Global ID). This can then be used to access World services, although users can also access the World app without one.
Altman kept his comments brief Friday (TFH co-founder and CEO Alex Blania was absent due to last-minute hand surgery, Altman said). He then handed over much of the presentation to World’s chief product officer, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that World was releasing the newest version of its app (the latest version was released at an event in December), along with a host of new integrations for its technology.
World has been preparing, for some time now, to roll out a verification service for dating apps, particularly Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a Global Identification Pilot Program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because World announced that Tinder would launch its verification integration in global markets, including the United States. The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus authenticating them as a real person.
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where music artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for humans with verified World ID. This is designed to ensure that fans are safe from resellers who often use automated ticket buying bots to devour seats. Concert Kit is compatible with major ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, and the company is promoting it through partnerships with 30 Seconds to Mars and Bruno Mars, who plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was filled with many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. TO Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to combat an alleged deepfake threat to business calls, and a partnership with Docusign is designed to ensure signatures come from authentic users.
The company is also working on a number of features in anticipation of the wild west of the web agent, including a so-called “agent delegation,” in which a person can delegate their global ID to an agent to carry out online activities on their behalf. A partnership has also been created with authentication company Okta. a system (currently in beta) which verifies that an agent is acting on behalf of a human. The system is set up so that a global ID can be linked to a specific agent and then when the agent goes to the web to operate on that person’s behalf, websites will know that a verified person is behind the behavior, Okta chief product officer Gareth Davies said at the event.
Until now it has been difficult for the world to climblargely due to the verification process itself. For much of the company’s history, to get its gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyes scanned by an Orb, a rather uncomfortable (not to mention strange) experience.
However, World has continually taken steps to increase the ease and incentive structure for verification. In the past, he offered his crypto assetWorldcoin, to some members who registered and distributed their Orbs on large retail chains so that users can verify themselves while out shopping or having a coffee. Now the company announces that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company also promoted a service where interested users could have World bring an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that World has tried to solve the scaling problem by creating different levels of verification. The highest level is Orb verification, but below that, World has previously offered a medium level, which uses an anonymous scan of an official government ID via the card’s NFC chip.
The company also introduced a low-level tier, or what Sada called “low friction” (meaning low effort, I guess, but also “low security”), which involves simply taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, which the Sada team introduced during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“The selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means we maximize the local processing that happens on your device, on your phone, which means your images are yours.”
Selfie verification is obviously not new and scammers have been doing it for a long time. he managed to fake it. “Obviously, we do our best and it’s one of the best systems you’ll see for this. But it has limits,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World services can choose from three different verification levels depending on the level of security that is important to them, he noted.
