Remember Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and subject of Cheesiest Picture Ever?
Yeah, that guy. Well, while searching for something else, I ran across this post, and, to save the reader the time of clicking the link, and quote the quote from that post, an observation by Annalee Newitz:
Take Worldcoin, which at first glance seems like a serious company. It is the brainchild of Sam Altman, an influential Silicon Valley investor, who raised more than $25 million for the firm’s launch in October. The company admits that only 3 per cent of the world’s population currently uses a cryptocurrency, but aims to change that. How? Well, this is where it gets odd. Worldcoin will give “as many people as possible a share of a new currency”. Anyone who wants a Worldcoin can have one – as long as they are willing to look into “the Orb”.
That’s right, Worldcoin’s big technical advance is that it has created a shiny, silver ball about the size of a grapefruit called an Orb. You gaze into it, a camera inside takes a picture of your eyes and – poof! – now you have a Worldcoin in your app. Of course, the company also has a picture of your irises.
Like your fingerprint, each of your irises is a unique biometric attribute that can be used to identify you any time you look into a camera. On its website, Worldcoin has strange pictures of “Orb operators” asking people to gaze into shiny balls on a farm in Indonesia and on the streets of unnamed cities in Sudan and Kenya. The vibe is reminiscent of those edge-of-the seat moments in a horror film when something horrible is about to happen to the protagonist. You want to scream: “Don’t look into the Orb!” [“2021 was the year cryptocurrencies went completely off the rails,” Annalee Newitz, NewScientist (18 December 2021, paywall)]
Have any readers stared into a big silver orb?
When individuals have access to so much energy as we do, and the results of centuries of thinking, and are obsessed with making money and, perhaps more importantly, climbing the social ladder, well, we get folks like this running around.
Remember when he was fired and most of OpenAI declared they’d follow him into Hell to Microsoft? I suspect he’s quite the charmer, too. And for those not keeping up with personnel movements at OpenAI:
In November 2023, OpenAI’s board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him, but reinstated him five days later after negotiations resulting in a reconstructed board. Many AI safety researchers left OpenAI in 2024. [Wikipedia]
Gotta love that last sentence. Sheesh, I feel like a gossip.
