Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the Ethereum network, has published a long essay with his thoughts on the recently launched Worldcoin human identity verification system.
On July 24, Buterin tweeted his response to Worldcoin launched on the same day.
What do I think about biometric ID?https://t.co/yozo1buW24
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 24, 2023
In his articlealong with explaining Worldcoin and how it intends to work, Buterin addressed a larger concept in the Worldcoin token release discussion — proof-of-humanity.
Worldcoin, along with similar identity solutions such as Proof of Humanity, BrightID, Idenam and Circles, believe that as artificial intelligence (AI) advances, it will become increasingly difficult to differentiate between humans and machines.
Most of these systems that supply a token type like Worldcoin also see that human utility is being threatened by robots and therefore need a universal basic income.
Buterin writes that the combination of these factors creates the need for digital authentication of people. He claims that this proof-of-identity system is valuable for solving “anti-spam and concentration of power problems.”
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In addition, the Ethereum co-founder also emphasizes that if systems like Worldcoin continue to decentralize as promised, they will avoid “reliance on centralized authorities and reveal the minimum possible information.”
“Unless proof of personhood is resolved, decentralized governance will be much easier to capture by very wealthy actors, including hostile governments.”
Buterin also addressed the main concerns looming over these solutions, which he summarized into four main points – privacy, accessibility, centralization within the Worldcoin Foundation, and security.
On June 27th, Worldcoin had a small scare that cleared up immediately afterwards thousands of secure deployments speculation about an attack caused optimism.
Steve Dakh, a developer working on the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS), which is the network’s own service that creates, validates and revokes on/off-chain attestations, commented on Buterin’s post that systems like Worldcoin could be complementary with EAS.
I think Worldcoin can only be proof of identity using a protocol like EAS and other entities can decide whether they value these proofs or not.
— Steve Dakh (@stevedakh) July 24, 2023
In conclusion, Buterin said that there is currently “no ideal form of personality proof” and envisions three different approaches to the problem that could become a hybrid of each other.
He called for community accountability in the process of audits, checks and balances. Although he says he does not envy those tasked with designing and implementing such systems, his point is simple:
“A world without proof of identity seems likely to be a world dominated by centralized identity solutions, money, small closed communities, or some combination of the three.”
From July 14, a week before the system is launched, log in to Worldcoin World ID exceeded 2 million in less than half the time it took to reach the first million.
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