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In a trendy area near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project THE WORLD celebrates its next evolution and rapidly expanding ambitions. And it started with Tinder.
Tools for the People (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced on Friday that it plans to integrate its verification technology into dating applications, event and concert ticketing systems, business organization, email, and other arenas of public life.
“The world is approaching very powerful AI, and it’s doing a lot of amazing things,” Altman said, speaking before a packed crowd at The Midway. “We’re also heading into a world now where there are more things being done by AI than by humans,” he added. “I’m sure a lot of you (have moments) where you’re like, ‘Am I dealing with an AI or a human, or how much of each, and how do I know?’
World (formerly Worldcoin) differentiates itself from most of its ID verification peers by offering the ability to verify that a real, live person is using a digital service while still protecting that person’s anonymity. There is some complex cryptographic alchemy behind this (something called “zero-knowledge proof-based authentication”). The result: The company created the so-called “human proof” tools, which are mechanisms that can verify human activity in a world full of AI agents and bots.
Its main tool for verification is a spherical digital reader called the Orb that scans a user’s eyes, converting their iris into a unique and anonymous cryptographic identifier (known as a verified World ID). It can be used to access World services, although users can also access the World app without one.
Altman kept his remarks brief on Friday (TFH’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Blania, was absent due to a last-minute hand operation, Altman said). He then turned over the majority of the presentation to the chief product officer of the World, Tiago Sada, and his team.
Sada explained that the World launched the latest version of his app (the last version Cebu launched at an event in December), with many new integrations for its technology.
The world has been preparing, for some time, to deploy a verification service for dating apps – in particular, Tinder. Last year, Tinder launched a World ID pilot program in Japan. That pilot was apparently a success because the World announced that Tinder will launch its verification integration in global markets —including the US The program integrates a World ID emblem into the profiles of users who have gone through its verification processes, thus confirming them as a real person.
World is also courting the entertainment industry by launching a new feature called Concert Kit, where musical artists can reserve a certain number of concert tickets for people verified by World ID. It is designed to ensure that fans are safe from scalpers who use it regularly automated ticket buying bots to dress the seats. The 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 – both of whom plan to use it for their upcoming tours.
The event was packed with many other announcements, including some aimed at businesses. A Zoom/World ID verification integration seeks to combat a perceived deep threat to business calls, and a Docusign partnership is designed to ensure that signatures come from real users.
The company is also working on several features to anticipate the Wild West of the web agent, including one called “agent delegation,” where a person can delegate their World ID to an agent to perform online activities for them. A partnership with authentication firm Okta has also been created a system (currently in beta) which proves that an agent is acting on behalf of a person. The system is set up so that a World ID can be tied to a specific agent and then, when the agent goes out on the web to operate for that person, websites will know that a verified person is behind the behavior, said Okta’s chief product officer, Gareth Davies, at the event.
For now, it’s done difficult for the World to measuredue largely to the verification process itself. For most of the company’s history, to get the gold standard, you had to travel to one of its offices and have your eyeballs scanned by an Orb – a rather inconvenient (not to mention weird) experience.
However, the World continues to take steps to increase the flexibility and incentive structure for verification. In the past, it offered this crypto assetsWorldcoin, to some members who sign up and distribute its Orbs large retail chains so users can authenticate themselves while they shop or drink coffee. Today the company announced that it is significantly expanding its Orb saturation in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company is also promoting a service where interested users can bring the World an Orb to their location for remote verification.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Sada also shared that the World tried to solve the problem of scaling by creating different levels of verification. The highest level is Orb verification, but below that, the World previously offered an intermediate level, which uses an anonymous scan of an official government ID through the NFC chip on the card.
The company also introduced a low level, or what Sada calls “low friction” – meaning low effort, I think, but also “low security” – which involves just taking a selfie.
Selfie Check, presented by Sada’s team during the event, is designed to maintain user privacy.
“Selfie is private by design,” said Daniel Shorr, one of TFH’s executives, during the presentation. “That means we leverage the local processing that happens on your device, on your phone, which means your images are yours.”
Selfie verification is obviously nothing new, and scammers have been around for a long time managed to cheat it. “Obviously, we did our best, and it’s like one of the best systems you’ll see for this. But it has limitations,” Sada told TechCrunch. Developers looking to integrate World services can choose from three different levels of verification depending on the level of security that is important to them, he said.
