Humanity's Biometric Technology: Ensuring Real Human Interaction

Humanity aims to build crucial tools for distinguishing real humans from AI, safeguarding democracy and social media integrity.

### Humanity: Building Tools for Human-Scale AI Verification
* 🤖  Simon, co-founder of Humanity, aims to address the challenge of **distinguishing between human and AI interactions**, particularly on social media platforms.
* 🌐  The company has already verified **6 million unique humans** through a biometric device distributed worldwide.
* 🔐  To address concerns about data privacy, Humanity uses **zero-knowledge proofs** and operates on a **self-custody model**, ensuring **fundamental privacy guarantees**.
* 🌍  Humanity has successfully worked with regulators in South Korea and Kenya, with **ongoing efforts in other countries**.
* ❓  Regulators' main concerns revolve around **data handling and technology operation**, which Humanity aims to address through **transparent communication and collaboration**.
* 💡  Simon believes the technology will be **critical for protecting democracy** and ensuring the **integrity of various online services**.
* 🎯  While Simon acknowledges the ambitious nature of the project, he remains focused on **increasing the probability of success over time**.

In Ashley Vance's very detailed Businessweek story, he talks about how when you describe the project to someone, it can sound nuts. And you were cited as saying that you think there's just a 5% probability that you will succeed. How'd you arrive at that number? I think it's just a very ambitious project, and I'm actually not. I talked about massive success, like a large percentage of the kind of people in the world actually setting up and verifying with our services. I think that's just low probability. I think we will increase the probability over time and do our best to succeed. But I think with every kind of very ambitious technology company, that's very what you're looking at. And just I just try to be realistic about that. Give us the elevator pitch of what success looks like. Alex Well, the problem is that you will solve. So, Simon, I started working on this company.

four and a half years ago, and one of the main ideas was, of course, that AGI and kind of general AI programs will continue. And so we started a company called Humanity with the simple goal of building tools for humanity scale that we think will turn out to be very, very important in a world in which AI will become increasingly powerful. And one of the problems that are very easy to understand is that on social media X, for example, it will be really, really hard to distinguish if you're interacting with a real human or if you're interacting with an AI. And we believe that this will turn out to be a very, very critical problem for our democracy, for many really think for many things that we care about, to protect many of our services against influence by and really make sure we only interface with humans. And so basically four years back, we thought about how that would work and

what technology we would need to build. And so that's what we did. We built a biometric device that we distribute all over the world, and we allow everyone to verify, and everyone being so far, 6 million unique humans, I think it is, and growing, verified by the Orb. But the issue here is how many of those humans actually understand what it is that they're giving you and why they're giving it. There is an argument that people are standing in line in Ecuador and in developing nations thinking they're just going to get rewarded with a little bit of money and giving over a lot of data that they don't really understand. How do you counteract that? Well, they don't. In fact, they don't give us anything. We don't store any data that the network gets to store any data. It's implemented in a self-custody way, and it uses what is called zero-knowledge proofs to give you truly

fundamental privacy guarantees. That's one. And second, I would argue that you don't understand most of the technologies that you're using. That's also not the point. I think you understand why you're doing it and what comes about for you. But I don't think you have to understand every detail about technology, and that would be my response. Alex, you've spent a lot of time flying around the world. We sent out men to countries trying to convince them if they place the ban on the technology to overturn it. You've had success in South Korea and Kenya. There are other countries where it stands. What is the concern that you hear most consistently from them? So we only actually had one. Ben And that is Hong Kong. We paused another in other countries to work with regulators, but that is what we expected. This is a very new technology, and there are many questions to be asked by

regulators. That is their job. So we really work with regulators and respond to the questions. And their main concerns are main questions is nothing that I think would really surprise you. It is what happens to the data, how does technology work and all of that, of course, in increasing detail. But we really happy to answer these questions and work with regulators around the world. Alex, we've just got a minute or so left. What is the benefits of humanity that you want to provide with this technology? Well, I think it I think it will turn out to be truly critical. I think services like social media, many things that we care about will otherwise be really hard to use or very easy to influence. And so I think for our democracy, for things that we care about, we will need such technology, and I hope we can contribute with that.

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Bloomberg Technology

Ambitious Project with a Realistic Outlook

The project's success probability is estimated at 5% due to its ambitious nature and the challenge of verifying a large percentage of the world's population.

The company's goal, Humanity, is to build tools for a world with increasingly powerful AI, aiming to solve the critical problem of distinguishing between real humans and AI on social media.

The founder believes that addressing this issue is vital for democracy and protecting services from undue influence.

A biometric device has been built and distributed worldwide, verifying 6 million unique individuals and growing.

There are concerns about whether these individuals fully understand the data they are providing in exchange for rewards, particularly in developing nations.

The device operates on a self-custody model and uses zero-knowledge proofs, ensuring that no data is stored by the network.

The Challenges of New Technology Adoption

Fundamental privacy guarantees are a key concern, and understanding every detail of the technology is not necessary for users.

The speaker has spent time convincing countries to lift bans on the technology, with success in South Korea and Kenya, but facing challenges in other regions.

Hong Kong is the only place where the technology was paused, as the speaker works with regulators to address the many questions surrounding this new technology.

The Role of Regulators and the Impact of Technology

Regulators play a crucial role in overseeing technology companies and addressing concerns about data usage and technology operations.

The company is committed to working with regulators worldwide and providing detailed answers to their questions.

The technology aims to provide critical services for social media and other important areas, ultimately contributing to the stability and influence of democracy.