Worldcoin: Unraveling the Controversial Aspects of Sam Altman’s Startup

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin startup has garnered significant attention in the world of cryptocurrency, promising to distribute universal basic income (UBI) through its unique method of biometric identification. However, amidst the excitement surrounding the venture, a closer examination raises concerns about its feasibility and the potential ramifications. In this article, we explore the controversial aspects of Worldcoin, shedding light on why some view it as a bad and questionable idea.

1. Centralization Concerns:

Worldcoin’s reliance on biometric identification raises red flags regarding centralization and user privacy. The use of biometric data as a means of identification can lead to a concentration of power and control in the hands of a few, compromising the principles of decentralization inherent in blockchain technology.

2. Security and Data Vulnerability:

Biometric data is highly sensitive and poses security risks if mishandled or breached. The storage and management of such data require robust security measures to protect users from potential identity theft and other cybersecurity threats.

3. Ethical Implications:

The concept of linking universal basic income to biometric identification raises ethical questions about the surveillance-like nature of the system. Critics argue that it may lead to a loss of personal autonomy and expose vulnerable individuals to potential exploitation.

4. Technological Feasibility:

Implementing a global biometric identification system on a blockchain at scale presents significant technical challenges. The complexities involved in accurately verifying identities across diverse populations and regions may hinder the project’s practicality.

5. Socioeconomic Disparities:

Worldcoin’s approach assumes universal access to biometric identification, which may not be feasible in regions with limited technological infrastructure or marginalized populations. This approach risks exacerbating existing socioeconomic disparities.

6. Dependency on a Select Few:

Worldcoin’s reliance on individuals physically traveling to distribute UBI raises questions about the accessibility of the benefits, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized communities. Such a system may inadvertently exclude those who face geographical or mobility constraints.

7. Regulatory Hurdles:

The use of biometric identification for a universal basic income program is likely to encounter significant regulatory hurdles and privacy concerns. Navigating the complex web of legal frameworks and data protection regulations may hinder Worldcoin’s implementation.

While the concept of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin startup has generated intrigue and excitement within the cryptocurrency community, it is not without its detractors and controversies. The centralization concerns, security risks, ethical implications, and technological feasibility pose significant challenges. Moreover, the potential exacerbation of socioeconomic disparities and regulatory hurdles add to the skepticism surrounding the project’s viability.

As the cryptocurrency landscape continues to evolve, it is essential to approach new ideas and ventures with a critical and cautious mindset. While the ambition to provide universal basic income through innovative means is commendable, it is crucial to thoroughly address the concerns and ramifications before embarking on such ventures. As Worldcoin progresses, it must navigate the intricate web of challenges to demonstrate its viability as a responsible and impactful initiative in the world of cryptocurrency and social welfare.

Technological Governance: Token Benefits (Encouraging Good Behavior)

It’s quite a mouthy title, to be sure, but the idea in and of itself is actually fairly straightforward. People work best under positive incentive structures, but setting up those structures in such a way as to encourage people to use them without abusing them is tricky. The benefits to cryptocurrency tokens though, is that you can pretty much put any restriction one could imagine on them.

I was considering the problem of roadside trash, and how much of a blight that it is, both aesthetically, but more importantly, ecologically. Part of me just wanted to pull over on the highway, grab a trash bag out of my car, and pick up some of the debris. However, I was presented with a number of reasons why it just wasn’t super feasible, the largest of those being that I did not have a trash bag in my car. Among others though were the sheer inconvenience of trying to pull over to park on the side of a busy, traffic-laden highway, and the one that caught myself off-guard, I had no tangible incentive, other than vague notions that my actions would “help save the environment”. However, that last reason, the lack of tangible incentive, gave me an idea. A cryptocurrency token, distributed to citizens, that had a unique property, it could not be used by the individual who receives it. A bizarre idea, to be sure, but here is the gist of how such a currency token would work.

These “Samaritan” tokens would be connected to contracts on the blockchain, which would be created by citizens. These contracts would include things like roadside trash pickup, park maintenance, or other issues that citizens desire to have taken care of. Citizens could place a “bounty” on the task, which would be searchable by location. Multiple citizens can place bounties on the task, raising the value of the task, until someone accepts the contract, and performs the work. They would then provide proof-of-work in some appropriate form (most likely photos from the contract location), and then the people who placed the bounty (some percentage or numerical threshold) would release the funds to the person who performed the work. With the tokens transferred, the individual would be able to use the tokens for anything the main governmental currency would buy.

So, what would be some of the benefits of such a type of token be? The first is that it facilitates community change from the ground level. People in communities see the needs of their communities most closely. This creates a sort of market for public works, which would be able to be undertaken by an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization, with the greatest needs in the community rising in value, to the point where it would attract the attention of those who could complete the task. The cleanup of a particular street, for example, may raise $20-50 before it becomes worth it for someone to take the contract. An pothole, on the other hand, that a city has neglected, or has been unable to fill, though, because of what it requires to fix, and depending on the severity of people’s annoyance with it, may reach hundreds of dollars before it is taken care of. The other beauty of such a system is that these numbers may be reached through the annoyance of a few people a little bit (hundreds of people putting up small bounties), or by a large annoyance by a few (a handful of people putting up $100 or more bounties).

This model is somewhat a reflection of the flexibility of the gig economy, but with the government as the issuing entity. These contracts could also be applied to privatized tasks, such as providing cleaning service for someone. Each task would be the equivalent of a tax-funded small-scale gofundme campaign. A benefit of this is that tax payers would actually see the benefits of their tax dollars at work, this would also help areas with a lot of general labor that is unused, and would be a boost to the un/under-employed. Another benefit to such a system is that it would highlight areas that need more general laborers, and would also highlight areas that need a lot of work. Areas that need a lot of work, but with little available labor would have contracts that could reach such high bounties that they could attract labor from surrounding areas, or even distant areas, which could help revitalize some communities.

Of course, there are some potential drawbacks to such a system. The first is that tax payers could end up paying more for some services than they would if those services were just performed by government maintenance on some level. This is certainly possible, though the point at which some people will perform those tasks is a lower threshold than others. This would lead one to believe that , so long as the labor efforts were not 100% coordinated, that there would be equilibrium prices that would come about for certain tasks, based on willingness to perform them, the needs of the individual, etc. Since also there would be the ability for anyone to take the contract at some point, it would be difficult for forces to extort money out of the system, unless they had a monopoly on labor. Even then, these projects would include things like, “planting trees in the local park”, or “cleaning up the streets”, “help so-and-so with their lawncare”, “host a local hobbyist group”, or other acts that aren’t necessary to continue running society. There could be some instances of trying to cheat the system that could occur, such as trying to create contracts within a family, to then give the contract to another family member. The problem with such an idea is that this could happen, but since the contract would show up to compete with the entire labor market, the amount would either be small and insignificant, or the project would be snatched up by an outside force. Even in a more complex situation, for example, a group of construction workers/families, who put their tokens into a project to fix a road or sidewalk, and then take that work themselves, yes may get the benefits of their own tokens, but they of course would also need to complete the work (assuming that they were not the only contributors to the contract), meaning that the area would get the benefit of the contract being completed anyways.

Of course, the benefit to attaching the proof-of-work and the contracts to a blockchain is also that it becomes much easier to investigate and suss out fraud in such a system, as pretty much anyone would be able to find that contract, and would be able to verify that the contract had been valid in the first place, then that the work was actually completed as stated. This reduces the amount of fraud and the scale of corruption possible under such a system.

As for how much should be actually given to citizens each month to allocate to these tasks, and what should be done about benefits that are unused over long periods of time, those are problems for a system that is more seriously considering the proposal, and would need to be based on the amount that individuals would receive in other benefits. However, a number around $100/month in current year terms would probably have enough distributive force to allow for this to work on at least small-scale projects, as would be appropriate for the general labor projects that these would likely cover.

What do you think? Would you clean up your streets if your neighbors paid you to? Would you use such a benefit? See anything I missed? Tell me what you think.

Basic Income As A Tool for Population Control

I am a huge fan of Basic Income, and I am going to write about it a lot, as it has the potential to cushion the blow to capitalism that will occur from the dramatic amount of automation that is going to occur incredibly rapidly in a number of vulnerable sectors of the economy. With that said, however, such a policy will have societal impacts, and could be used by governments to control populations. I intend to outline how different methods of basic income distribution would allow for a government to control populations and population density.

The first way that a government can use the tool of basic income to adjust populations would be to adjust the amount given for ages. By giving a family basic income for children, you can encourage population growth, as it would allow for people to more  easily care for children, and by increasing the amount that a family gets per child, you can further increase the amount of encouraged population growth, as the need to provide additional income per child to support the family becomes less necessary. Inversely, by not providing credit for children under 18, it will change the incentive structure for individuals, making it more economically preferable to share an apartment, or a house with other adults in a communal situation, discouraging people from having children in favor of adding the basic incomes of other adults together to create a more comfortable living situation for those involved.

Let’s put some numbers to it to make it a little more clear. Say each person 18-64 was provided with $1000 a month for basic income. A 2-bedroom apartment in my current city of Denver can cost anywhere from $1100 a month to around $1600 a month, though there are extreme cases outside of that range. 2 individuals could live in a place together, cheaply, and with part-time income outside of that. With a child credit, that bedroom could feasibly be used for a baby, even on a low income and be provided for comfortably. Without this incentives for children though, the much more likely option is that 4 adults would pool their resources, providing a household basic income of $4000 a month, and leaving over $2000 each month in unused basic income for covering other costs, or to use to spend, save or invest, to say nothing for each individual’s other sources of income. Even if each individual in the household earns the current poverty line in income, around $12,700 a year, this would still translate into a household income of around $96,000.

It’s easy to see how some people would use the ability to live on their own barely scraping by, but having the space and privacy to themselves, but how others who value privacy a little less would be attracted to the reduced costs of communal living, and with more extreme examples, such as with a 3 or even 4 bedroom living quarters creating very-high density population areas, where you could have up to $8000 in basic income a month, with rent amounts much lower proportionally.

There are ways to adjust this a little, if a government wants to adjust the locations of its population centers or to encourage migration from one part of the country to another. Basic income allows for greater freedom of movement, but additionally, allows the government to shift people in a more desirable way.

Say there is an area where growth has been stymied and the governing body wants to increase the growth rate. By increasing the basic income amount for the area, say up to $1100 a month, that small increase should attract people from other areas, where the amount is lower. An area that has experienced too much growth on the other hand, where perhaps living conditions have worsened, perhaps too high of a population density, too much pollution or smog, or simply not enough room to continue growing at its current rate, can be counteracted by this same method. Either the funding for the surrounding countryside can be increased to encourage people to move to more sparse regions, or in more extreme cases, the amount of income could simply be reduced in that area, even only a small amount lower, such as $900 a month, though this would likely be met with some discontent.

This potential for control is an important factor to keep in mind when considering policy decisions around basic income, as well as its potential for abuse in more controlling regimes. Basic income has the potential to radically free up resources in an economy, to drive innovation, and buffer society against the impacts of technology, but will come with its own set of dangers and potential pitfalls if not considered carefully.