In the northern part of San Francisco there is a house on a hill. The property is separated from the road by vine-covered concrete, and amenities include a spa and a James Bond-style garage with a car turntable. It’s where the biggest tech power players gather to take a look into the future. And this humid February evening was no different.
Twenty crypto enthusiasts flocked to the large room in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home. Altman presented an update from Worldcoin, his identity verification startup. The company hopes to create a registry of everyone in the world by scanning their eyeballs with a silver, cantaloupe-sized ball. Altman envisions billions of people using these unique digital identities to receive a universal basic income.
One of Worldcoin’s chromed devices had been dismantled on a table and its mechanical innards lay spread out next to the hors d’oeuvres. Investors and friends looked into the telephoto lens of another sphere. click. They were in the system.