Sam Altman's eye-scanning Orb startup wants to hit a billion users. It's less than 2% of the way there. (www.businessinsider.com)

Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity is rolling out the Orb — a volleyball-sized metal scanner that reads irises to mint a cryptographic “World ID” intended to prove a user is human online. Backed by roughly $240M from major VCs and a PitchBook valuation near $2.5B, the startup ties World IDs to a blockchain (World Chain) and a native token (Worldcoin). Users who scan can access a World app, messaging, a wallet and receive Worldcoin; the company has verified ~17.5 million people, under 2% of its stated 1 billion-user ambition. Technical touchpoints: biometric iris templates, on-device verification via Orbs (each reportedly costing thousands), World ID usage fees for apps, and sequencer/transaction fees on World Chain. For the AI/ML community the project is significant because it proposes a scalable “proof-of-human” layer to combat AI-driven impersonation and bot proliferation — a growing concern as models become more humanlike. But the rollout exposes major friction: persistent connectivity and hardware costs, an unclear product/monetization fit beyond token distribution, complex corporate governance, and mounting regulatory and privacy pushback. Authorities in multiple countries have halted operations or demanded data deletion, while German and Chinese reviewers flagged security and national-security risks. The tech could reshape identity/anti-bot tooling if it overcomes consent, security, and legal barriers, but current regulatory headwinds and doubts about sustainable revenue make global scale—and meaningful integration with AI platforms—far from assured.