Welcome back everyone. I am Cass Piancy.
I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Bennett
Tomlin. We're both dressed exactly the
same because we're recording one episode right after the other,
so no need to check in. We already know how we're both
doing. We are going to be talking about
something that I'm surprised we haven't addressed in the months
and months and months, years, I guess, now that it's been going
on. But we're going to be talking
about World Coin today, which is now officially released.
So I guess now is the time to discuss it.
If you're not familiar with World Coin, I'll just quickly
bring you up to the basics of it, which is to say that it is a
token associated with what are called the orbs.
And these orbs are iris scanning orbs.
Like literally orbs. They're about this big and you
put your face up to it and it scans your irises.
And in places outside of the US and a few other countries, you
get World Coin for it. You get this token for scanning
your eyeballs. I don't know if it's like 25
World coin, something like that, right?
You get some amount of world coin for scanning your eyeballs.
In the US you get nothing for scanning your eyeballs.
So that is a beautiful benefit for giving up your personal data
is that you get nothing. Why are they scanning irises?
This is a proof of personhood concept where they are proving
that you are a human being. This is by the same guy who
brought U.S. Open AI.
So the idea is that we need to start worrying about Ai's
ability to imitate humans, and we're going to need to come up
with some way quickly to counter this.
And the bet they're going with is iris scans.
I think I've got that pretty much right.
What did I miss? Bennett, go ahead.
Are you sure they're Iris? I thought they were retina.
It's iris scanning, I think. So yeah, as you mentioned,
there's these orbs. They scan your eyeball and then
they generate from that a key. This key corresponds to your
address in a cryptographic way. And it is all supposed to be
done in a way using zero knowledge proofs where you can
like where this can be revealed without necessarily revealing
you. And like you mentioned, the idea
they wanted to solve is various forms of Sybil attacks.
In cryptocurrency, this can sometimes be one person running
a lot of addresses. Or, as you mentioned, in the
future this might be a I agents pretending to be human.
In cases where we only want humans involved.
The problems with it are myriad. But I think what's what's
especially fascinating is some of the reporting that came out
when they first launched The Orb, where there were stories of
people being coerced. To effectively give up this
biometric data and we're being forced to effectively then
transfer the coins they were given to other individuals right
where the people who were giving up their identifying
information, we're not actually getting the supposed reward.
And that this that was one of the interesting dynamics when
they first launched these orbs. There's also been other issues
with this and the one that's concerned me the most that I
heard about it was and and we're specifically talking about
gaming the system here, both you and I.
The the one that I heard about was that Chinese investors or or
not investors. I don't know what the the term
is for this according to them, but people who, people who were
given the orbs to go scan eyeballs with them, The people
who were given that duty in China were going to places like
Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries bribing people
with, I don't know, something cheap, right, Like a cigarette
or whatever, right. Something that they could hand
out to thousands and thousands of people and in return they
were giving them nothing, right? They weren't giving them their
their data, they weren't giving them their coins.
There was there was number, there was number trade off here.
They were just fucking taking these people's data, harvesting
it for themselves and then able to accumulate thousands,
millions of world coin, whatever.
That's pretty scary. That is really unfortunate.
And but also again, none of this shocks me like none.
It never like, oh, people are going to be greedy and there's a
system that can be gamed. Wow, I can't believe this is
happening, but I think part of the issue that we're the reason
we're talking about these two examples for instance, is
because if it's so easily gamed by people right now, just greedy
people, why would you think this would be able to stand the test
of a very, very intelligent, hyper aware AI?
Or right like I am? I'm certain there are
considerations not being made for how this could be attacked
and destroyed. And broadly, like, let's imagine
we accidentally create Skynet, why wouldn't the like?
A I like you're saying go on Craigslist and post an ad and
take advantage of the people who show up, right?
Pay someone to go stand out there with the orb or whatever
and like, do whatever to try to inappropriately fool this
system. And broadly, is having an
address tied irrevocably to your biometric information?
That tracks your various interactions.
Really desirable. I understand the point of world
Coin is that these zero knowledge proofs may prevent
that information from being wrongfully exposed, But man, it
feels like you're putting a lot on that assumption.
Yeah. And I well, so and to be fair
here, I think a lot of the argument against what we're even
saying right now would be you're giving a lot of trust to all
sorts of people right now. Like you are trusting the
government with your Social Security number and other data
like important data, you're trusting your credit card
companies with or your banks with a bunch of important data
and and these these people have leaked data time and time and
time and time and time again. So you know, are we safer now
necessarily than with this thing?
I don't know. I don't know about that.
I mean. We're objectively worse, right?
Because those things still exist.
Those things will continue to exist.
This is in addition to that, oh, a new attack vector.
Sure. Yeah, sure.
But the the the goal and and and I don't know if this is still
one of the things that's mentioned with World Coin but I
know that there's like people who see this as like a way to
move forward with universal basic income or some other like
societal they they try to spin these projects as like a
societal value add right. That this would ultimately be a
good thing for society to have. And they'll spin that any way
they can, whether that's like you believe in Ubi or maybe
maybe you're scared of a I or, you know, whatever whatever it
is, they're going to fucking spin it so that you also believe
in this thing. And World Coin has been really
good at that. And I do see right now kind of a
there's certainly hype. I don't know how else to put it.
There's some hype going on with World Coin right now.
And I think one of the common refrains I've seen on like from
multiple journalists is this angle of like, well, I talked to
Sam Altman about World Coin and, you know, Sam seems like a good
guy. And I'm like OK, I.
I'm sorry. Oh, the guy with the with the
bunker and the guns. The guy with the guy with the
gun bunker. That's the good look regardless
though. Like I I'm not gonna You and I
both don't know Sam Altman and like to be quite honest.
I don't care to ever meet him. I don't care about meeting super
rich VCs who have bunkers and stuff.
It's not not not a concern or it's not a care for me.
It's not something you. Won't survive the AI apocalypse.
Yeah. The A I Exactly the A I
apocalypse. I won't.
Terminator will Take Me Out. But you know what?
That's okay. I'm okay with that.
Anyway. I don't care if he's a good guy
is my point. He could be the best guy.
And you know what they keep saying His intentions seem very
good. I I don't know why no one has
heard. Heard the phrase the the road to
hell is paved with good intentions.
That it is a phrase for a reason.
These generalizations exist because there's like his
historic you see it time and time again.
Lots of fucking creepy weirdos had the best intentions.
I don't like that. Doesn't matter what their
intentions were. What matters.
And this gets into a bit of what we were talking about with EA
too. But like this is actions speak
louder than words and you're making an up like the Panopticon
here. Why?
Why would I be like, oh, but he is nice though he's making the
panopticon, but he's like a very nice guy.
That's a kind of hilarious reference for you to make in
this case, because Sam Bankman freed personally said that his
like favorite philosopher was Jeremy Bantham, A utilitarian
philosopher who created the Panopticon, the Panopticon
believes. That the creation of a
Panopticon was the thing that would create a moral and just
society, right? Right.
Yeah, I know. I mean that.
I almost feel like a lot of the these, I feel like a lot of
these wealthy VC guys who are a lot of them are on board with
Worldcoin, for what it's worth, right?
They've partnered. I don't know who their partner
are they with A16Z? I feel like that would make
sense if they if they were funded by A16Z.
I don't know. I I don't know off the top of my
head broadly, I don't really. Think that it matters which VCs.
Pretend they like Sam Altman and Worldcoin.
They just want to make sure that next Time nailed it.
I fucking nailed it, dude. I knew it.
Oh yeah, a 16. I knew it led the round.
I knew it. It's it's they're so
predictable. They are so predictable.
I, I, I, I you know not to revel.
In either A16Z loves investing in Y Combinator people.
That's a tale as old as time, yeah.
Invested in the token offering and the VC rounds?
But they also love investing in fucking creepy crypto projects
too. And that is a that is, as long
as that's been happening, they have been leading those rounds
as well. I oh, I just can't stand them.
Yeah, good for them. They also are for For what it's
worth. I know this is off topic, but
there's a lot of discussion right now going around about a
16Z dumping their maker maker coins because yeah, they've
failed to do well with them and so now they're just market
dumping. Part of my point here is that
World Coin is getting invested in by A16Z and Multicoin Capital
and Jesus God, Khosla Ventures. All of these guys, they're not,
they're not investing in them because they believe in Ubi and
want to make the world a better place.
That's not why they're investing in World Coin.
They're investing in it because they want to make a fucking
buck. And the best people to make a
buck off of is retail backs. That's always the answer.
Well, and the other way to be confident you're going to be
able to capitalize on that. Is investing in someone who
you've already been able to capitalize on, like getting
liquidity from their things right?
So if someone's already been successful, it's way easier for
them to raise money, because VC's become convinced that like,
well, at the very least, we'll have a chance to sell this
before he totally burns it down, right?
Yep. It's also worth pointing out
that I don't. Neither one of us is calling
World Coin like a scam. It's not like a fraud.
I. Think it does.
Isn't describes I think exactly. Bad thing.
Exactly. We don't like the product.
We don't like who's involved in the product and we don't like
what they think is like the good things about it.
None of it seems like a positive to us and that's why we're
talking about it. It's not because it's a fraud.
It's not because it's a it's not it.
We're not making any any claims like that.
Yeah, I do think that the the excuse of like good intentions
and who knows and maybe some good can be brought with this.
It's just it's not good enough for me.
I don't like that. I don't like that as a as an
excuse. I think it's weak and and I
don't think this as you said I don't think this product like I
think it's a terrible product. I think it shouldn't exist as a
product and while I'm not hopeful that it disappears, I
I'm obviously I think it's important that you and I discuss
it and and voice our own personal opinion against this
thing that they're they're making all these broad claims
about. Two separate things I want to
add. 1 I personally hate it because I personally hate
innovation and innovators. Personally, I think they're bad
people, you know. And two, I do think it's going
to eventually fade to obscurity. I don't think World Coin solves
in a meaningfully better way. Any of the actual problems
people are encountering, they'll be.
Able to expand their network for as long as they're paying people
to give up their initial information.
But after that it will gradually die out, as most of these
products do, because most people don't actually want to use them.
And again, as we keep circling around, this doesn't actually
solve like a clear and pressing need for its users.
No, it doesn't. We forgot two of their most
important backers, 3. Arrows Capital and SPF.
They took money from all kinds of great folks.
I don't know, this project sucks.
The reasoning for it sucks. I don't trust the people
involved. I don't trust the people
investing in it. It has trouble written all over
it. Also, the reason it's not being
offered in the United States is because it would be in
unregistered security if they decided to do that.
And I think that's clear because they're not.
They're not giving away these coins in the in America, which
OK, fine. I guess they don't want to go
through the proper paperwork or whatever it would take to to
make this available to U.S. citizens.
I don't know what the trading policy is for it.
For American citizens, I'm sure you can hold it.
I mean where? Is it listed?
Well, yeah. Getting your hands on it is a
whole different story. We that probably does involve
some weird illegal shit, but whatever.
Who knows? Maybe you could just do P to P
That's not illegal. Having someone with some world
coin in a different place sell it to you wouldn't be illegal, I
don't think. Not.
A lawyer? I have no idea.
It's an it's just an interesting thought I'm I'm considering
right now because I I know there's going to be a lot of
Americans who are going to get their hands on it and I'm trying
to be like well they're not they're not violating any law
but maybe they're violating a law Just, you know, however
they're figuring out a way to get it.
Regardless though that's not the people I want.
I I I just wish like I don't know it seems like a lot of
people are pretty ready and willing to give up their their
biometric data for very little which I don't know There's I
guess there's other arguments here that I've heard.
You know, you give the government, you have to give
your government biometric data to get the whatever it's called,
like fast pass stuff for being at the airport, TSA pre-check.
And there's the other one, there's two different kinds.
There's TSA Pre-check and some other method and one of those is
eyeball retina scan I think. And one of them is another form
that like just just to be clear here, that provides like some
pretty sincere value. Like that is a quite a valuable
resource for a lot of people. If you're traveling all the time
being able to skip these big lines and do your thing, that is
a super valuable resource to them.
Definitely worth more than 25 made-up fucking coins on a
blockchain. I'll also add the stance that
our abuses are no worse than those of the United States
government. Perhaps not the best selling
point you can come up with for your private company.
Yeah. Fair, fair.
Fair, right? Yeah.
Hey, the Chinese government also collects all this information.
What's the big deal I mean? That would be the deal.
Yeah. Yeah, fair enough.
Anyway, yeah, this is, this is a pretty fast episode.
I don't think there's much for us to say.
We're not. We're not violently opposed to
them, to them, like existing as an entity.
We're not trying to convince people they're scamming you.
We just disagree with with why they exist and why they pretend
that they're important. I don't know.
Yeah. Anything else you'd like to add
about this project? The last thing I want to close
on is I think World Coin is a good example of the kind of
jargon washing that can happen. Will you take a bad idea
scanning people's eyeballs and giving them a Chuck E Cheese
token? And you run it through enough
buzzwords. AI, Biometric data verification.
Civil resistance, 0 knowledge proof, censorship resistant
transfers. By the time you've gotten
through all your buzzwords, people have forgotten that your
pitches will scan your eyeball and give you Chuck E Cheese
tokens. And there's a lot of projects in
cryptocurrency that do fundamentally that same trick.
They layer enough jargon and bullshit on top of the
fundamentally bad idea. That they hope enough people
will forget that it's a fundamentally bad idea.
And I think that's what Worldcoin is.
I think it probably does exactly what they say it does.
It's just not a thing we need anything doing.
Yeah. And a lot of our listeners have
actually been pointing out that Cascoin collects hair samples
from everyone who buys it, that we also take blood samples,
stool samples and like keep a host of other data about every
Cascoin holder. And I just want to point out
that it is not the same and Cascoin is like decentralized
and that that data, while it is sold on the open market and it
does have, it does have your name and address and all of your
all of your data like associated with you like attached to it.
It isn't like it's anonymous. That is important.
Like don't you want to get served good ads?
And that is what I want to close on.
Thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back soon.