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Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Crypto Project Officially Launches (bloomberg.com)
37 points by flyaway123 on July 24, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 35 comments


A few days ago OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT driven verification with their discord of 1.7M people, threatening to kick everyone who does not connect their accounts. Now Worldcoin is here to add identity to their web of integrations.

How long until Worldcoin verification is a req to use ChatGPT? Can almost bet identity is going to be a big part of the "safety" push they are lobbying for. Obligatory "safety" is not moderation and moderation should not be censorship.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/06/10/business/tech/a...

China should play a key role in shaping the artificial intelligence guardrails needed to ensure the safety of transformative new systems, OpenAI Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said.


Can't have an A.I. dystopia without thought police, and a Ministry of Truth, and those fall apart without a nice surveillance apparatus.


> “Crypto is hopefully a label that will get dropped over the coming years anyways, and it’s just essentially the technology that you use to build certain products,”

"We don't like our scam to be put with other scams under common, people might figure it is is scam too fast"


This idea needs to die in the womb.


So it kills the host.



This submission contains unapproved thoughts, so it dropped like a rock.


Yeah its yc right. Sam has to approve


Love seeing the posters for this, plastered across the decaying facades of abandoned buildings on Mission St, amidst the ragged people and "street vendors". It seems like a fitting place to advertise the project.


Another Silicon Valley power trip. What happened to wanting to solve a problem really well, like building great cars or better microprocessors? These days everybody wants to be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk and have a grand vision for how people live their lives with technology.

One big problem here is that ChatGPT is a great advancement, but the AI problem is far from "solved". I know this project is a few years old already, but it looks like the wrong moment for Sam Altman to spread himself thin.


But Sam Altman doesn't have a hint of vision. He just vaguely waxes poetical about how "the price of intelligence" is going to go down and then... what exactly? What's so interesting that's going to happen? He has no idea. His endeavors aren't driven by any kind of articulated vision. Probably uses a cop like "well things after the Singularity are unpredictable!!" Oh so that means they're going to be good, right? Right?


It’s not lack of vision but rather his experience in grifting

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt


I'm sure this coin will just soar in value and be really different from the thousands of others and achieve world adoption. Buy in now lest ye be consumed with FOMO.


I lack the FOMO gene.


Another shitcoin designed to separate fools from their money.


This project has always been beyond sociopathic. Scanning retinas with an orb, it’s beyond absurdity.

An example of late stage capitalism.

Also read this:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi...

I’m bummed to see this guy also runs OpenAI.

I’ve decided not to use GPT for this reason no matter what the consequences may be.


It seems ironic to make this statement on news.ycombinator.com: you do realize that Sam Altman was also president of Y Combinator some time, right?

It's interesting how eye scanning seems so Orwellian and potentially oppressive even though the intention was to use it to support an extremely leftist goal (universal basic income).


Yes I know who Sam Altman is and Worldcoin is just another VC scam as they own everything and become monopolists.

The leftist rethoric is just a ruse that many HN readers fall for.


"yet you participate in society. curious!"

I wouldn't trust claims about ending world hunger from VC/cryptobros/AI hype expertes/etc.


The measure must fit the goal. It would also be wrong to want to end world hunger by killing all starving people.


I'm launching an AI Automation Agency, so not using openai is almost impossible, but I'm betting and hoping that competition and especially open source and customized models become more apt at cutting down the market control that openai has.

I see custom/open models being the future for corporations anyways as adhoc/private solutions will be more ideal than sending all corporate data through an api.


The only thing I see is a ton of silicon being wasted on ML (I refuse to call it AI) which in turn consumes vast amounts of energy, causing tons of CO2 emissions, that aren't incorporated in the true cost of ML services.

I think people are really missing the bigger picture and we don't think why we are doing all of this. If we automate things with ML, I'm going to make the case it was probably a bullshit task to begin with.


What's the danger of scanning the retina with orb vs scanning your finger prints with iPhone? It's not clear to me


Hypothesis:

There is a visceral reaction to having light shone in your eyes and imagining light being shone in your eyes.

There is a perception of danger to the eyes from scanning vs danger from finger print scans.

Also on a more emotional level, eyes are seen as the place where true emotion is shown.

“Look into my eyes and tell you aren’t lying”

Having your eyes scanned therefore feels more intimate, meaning a higher barrier to acceptance.


Apple has a somewhat proven track record on privacy (if only because it's one of their biggest selling points)

Sam Altman has a track record of saying we should protect hate speech otherwise the Bay Area is worse than China.


That just reads very very delusional to me.

Is this again we're very rich people are so disconnected from the world that they don't see the issues?

At least this stuff further adds to the decentralized nature of Blockchains.

Now everyone uses their own Blockchain at least when you read how many new projects add to this.


So this Sam Altman is just another snake oil salesman?


This is true for the whole VC HN stuff anyway.

“Palo Alto” by Malcolm Harris should be mandatory reading for the HN crowd.


Really disappointing. I thought this guy had built a really useful product in ChatGPT, but now that he comes across as just another crypto grifter, I wonder how much of ChatGPT euphoria was of substance and how much was just hype.


https://archive.is/hejHt

Non-paywall link


and for some reason archive.is doesn't work on my MacBook


it's a problem with private relay, works if you turn it off


cool, Can we say HN is crypto friendly now ?


I would say worldcoin ranks somewhere slightly above monkey nfts, slightly below dog coins round these parts.

Sam Altman himself ranks very very slightly above the Sam Bankman Fried


wow lol. I had a chuckle at this




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