The is-he-is-he-not-CEO-of-OpenAI Sam Altman’s Tools For Humanity’s Worldcoin cryptocurrency made headlines this week for the integration of its World ID system into multiple apps.

Most of these aren’t first-party login paths, like the “Login with Google” options. All but three are (for now) third-party integrations and bots using already-existing APIs that hook in to some application or service to verify the ‘human-ness’ of someone.

Worldcoin’s announcement made no mention of that distinction, but they cryptically say that “the community has developed World ID Apps integrations” in their blog post. Barring three built presumably as first-party support, Worldcoin developers are the ones making them.

Minecraft’s app isn’t a partnership with Mojang or Microsoft, it’s a Java plugin hooking into the API of a highly-popular plugin called LuckPerms (which is #3 in server plugins on the SpigotMC website). LuckPerms is a permissions handling plugin for server owners to more easily delegate access to privileges in a server.

According to the SpigotMC page, the plugin is created by someone named penryn. The source code is closed, but he tweeted that it would be open-sourced.

(Neither Tools For Humanity nor penryn responded to questions.)

SWinxy’s view

The creation of Worldcoin is an admission by Altman et al that generative AI is going to really cause havoc in the world. It’s founders were aware that what AI people were creating was going to be extremely detrimental to the internet.

In a blog post from March, Worldcoin admits that “advancements in AI make it difficult to distinguish between AI and humans on the internet”, a problem that Altman’s OpenAI is purposefully furthering.

The maximalist and accelerationist position will not let AI development slow down or add limits to their systems. Rather, people are building a new system that is to alleviate pressure, though it’s not by much. ChatGPT and Midjourney are flooding an internet and society that wasn’t built to handle it.

The solution isn’t to hamper AI progress by ensuring the lack of destructive capabilities. No, it’s to move to a cryptocurrency that validates your personhood for anyone who wants to verify it. I’m a tad cynical.