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What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

vitalik.ca

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Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#21

Post by turtles3 »

schaefer wrote: post #8
eli wrote: post #2

It's rare to find a technology that's so creepy & exploitative, yet also so fundamentally without utility.

The technology isn’t creepy or exploitive. That’s us. Humans.

This is a 'guns don't kill people' argument, which historically has been a bit more complicated than that. Humans are not context-free actors independent of their environment - our environment shapes us. And the argument here is that this technology would create an environment that would have a tendency to bend us into a shape we may not like.

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#22

Post by xvector »

kstrauser wrote: post #18

I think that’s dead on arrival in the US. Having been raised in a conservative evangelical church, there’s the notion that in the “end times”, this kind of thing (referred to as the “mark of the Beast”) would be required to buy and sell goods, at the cost of eternal damnation for getting the mark. The linked webpage is nightmare fuel for the many tens of millions of Americans in such churches. Everything about it is…

> What exact problem does this solve?

Voting on a decentralized platform. Decentralized governance and decentralized UBI in general.

> Also also, sucks if you’re blind, I guess.

Blind people tend to have irises. Even when both eyes are missing - the article mentions other ways to verify proof-of-personhood (at the expense of privacy compared to iris scans.)

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#23

Post by pstorm »

I have only read about Worldcoin from comments on Hackernews so I was surprised by such a balanced take on it from Vitalik. I'm not necessarily in favor of it now, but it doesn't seem quite as evil as I had previously believed. I'm not ready to scan my iris or anything, but I'm pretty interested to see how this will go.

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#24

Post by kstrauser »

xvector wrote: post #13
eli wrote: post #2

It's rare to find a technology that's so creepy & exploitative, yet also so fundamentally without utility.

Meh, it sounds creepy, but the article goes into detail on why the iris hashes are sufficiently private. I suspect the media and uninformed commenters will far overblow concerns about this, without actually learning how it works and why it's private enough.

You can be informed on the subject and still think this is an awful idea.

Even if I took their word that it’s “private enough”, it’s still a world-scale project to solve a vague problem with a broken-on-the-face-of-it-literally gimmick.

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#25

Post by notahacker »

simbolit wrote: post #5

"a decentralized proof-of-personhood solution" Why and how is Worldcoin able to prove 'personhood'? Just spend five second thinking about if that is really what this is about. Why this phrasing?

In theory, the biometric data collected and hashed is unique to a particular person, and therefore non-matching hashes of biometric scans validates that 57 accounts represent 57 unique people rather than one person signing up with a lot of different monikers, email addresses or phone numbers or bank cards

Like a social security number, except relying on the worthlessness of the handout "currency" and other perks to defend against subversion instead of the long arm of the law....

The particularly awkward phrasing is inevitable in a subculture that already has "proof-of-work" and "proof-of-stake" and claims that the proof doesn't reveal your "identity". Of course, the reality is that most people won't feel the need to prove their "personhood" to a VC backed crypto startup by getting their eyeballs scanned, not even for daily handouts of tokens with no purchasing power

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#26

Post by hinkley »

turtles3 wrote: post #21
schaefer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology isn’t creepy or exploitive. That’s us. Humans.

This is a 'guns don't kill people' argument, which historically has been a bit more complicated than that. Humans are not context-free actors independent of their environment - our environment shapes us. And the argument here is that this technology would create an environment that would have a tendency to bend us into a shape we may not like.

If you'd like to ask anyone in the Human Factors space for literature on this topic they'd be happy to load you up with so many books it'll break your arms.

Not to mention philosophers.

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#27

Post by lesuorac »

kstrauser wrote: post #18

I think that’s dead on arrival in the US. Having been raised in a conservative evangelical church, there’s the notion that in the “end times”, this kind of thing (referred to as the “mark of the Beast”) would be required to buy and sell goods, at the cost of eternal damnation for getting the mark. The linked webpage is nightmare fuel for the many tens of millions of Americans in such churches. Everything about it is…

> Having been raised in a conservative evangelical church

What's their stance on Usury [1]? I have no doubt that if say tax credits were tied to having World Coin as opposed to a SSN that they would end up going along with it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#28

Post by kstrauser »

xvector wrote: post #22
kstrauser wrote: post #18

I think that’s dead on arrival in the US. Having been raised in a conservative evangelical church, there’s the notion that in the “end times”, this kind of thing (referred to as the “mark of the Beast”) would be required to buy and sell goods, at the cost of eternal damnation for getting the mark. The linked webpage is nightmare fuel for the many tens of millions of Americans in such churches. Everything about it is…

> What exact problem does this solve? Voting on a decentralized platform. Decentralized governance and decentralized UBI in general. > Also also, sucks if you’re blind, I guess. Blind people tend to have irises. Even when both eyes are missing - the article mentions other ways to verify proof-of-personhood (at the expense of privacy compared to iris scans.)

> Voting on a decentralized platform.

That begs the question, presuming that voting on a decentralized platform is good.

> Decentralized governance and decentralized UBI in general.

I can parse those words, but I don’t see how they’d depend on the widget from the article.

> Even when both eyes are missing - the article mentions other ways to verify proof-of-personhood (at the expense of privacy compared to iris scans.)

“Privacy for the normal people!” Oh, I can’t imagine that starting a firestorm (and for good reason).

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#29

Post by hinkley »

kstrauser wrote: post #18

I think that’s dead on arrival in the US. Having been raised in a conservative evangelical church, there’s the notion that in the “end times”, this kind of thing (referred to as the “mark of the Beast”) would be required to buy and sell goods, at the cost of eternal damnation for getting the mark. The linked webpage is nightmare fuel for the many tens of millions of Americans in such churches. Everything about it is…

Use your guide dog as your iris scan!

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.

Re: What do I think about biometric proof of personhood?

#30

Post by evbogue »

What this technology needs to succeed is some kind of scary worldwide disinformation plot that scares everyone into adopting it.

I don't think the Internet filling up with AI spam is scary enough, we need to dream bigger on this one.

Whatever the plot is, I think people should remain indoors while it's going on and watch their televisions or iPhones.

Next, we could make people scan their eyeballs before they eat at restaurants, go to the gym, or perhaps even visit the mall or ride the subway. We could have a greeter at every door who points the orb at you before you go in. This will create jobs, and also drive up the price of stanchions and someone can at least profit from that.

Finally in a few years we could relax the restrictions because the human population will be accustomed to KYC before every transaction.

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