Important Takeaways:

• Behold, the Orb: I can’t stop thinking about Sam Altman’s dystopian eyeball-scanning device
• You might think sobbing at a sold-out showing of the “Barbie” movie last weekend was enough proof you’re human. In 2023, people are also apparently getting their retinas scanned by shining chrome orbs to prove it.
• And yes, there are pictures.
• That’s because OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman trumpeted Worldcoin’s launch on Monday, an effort he co-founded years earlier with Alex Blania to “enable universal access to the global economy,” according to its website.
• The orbs, shiny sculptural spheres that scan the eyeballs of new members, seem to have become the company’s dystopian symbol. They help to provide users with “World IDs,” records proving a person signing up is human and not AI, with the goal of moving through the internet more easily and accessing digital currency, according to the company.
• Misgivings or not, some two million people have signed up already, according to Worldcoin, which has articulated a goal to address economic inequality through AI. (The company says it plans to give out a “new digital token freely to billions of people.”).
• It’s not clear yet if the tech can solve yet another complex, systemic problem in the blink of an eye. But the orbs are here now, beckoning to us all.

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