Quote:Opening the Orb: A look inside Worldcoin’s biometric imaging device

We’ll now take you through some of the most important engineering details of the Orb, as well as how the imaging system works. For security purposes, we will only explicitly leave out tamper detection mechanisms that are meant to catch intrusion attempts.

Removing the Shell

When removing the shell, the mainboard, optical system and cooling system become visible. Most of the optical system is hidden in an enclosure that, together with the shell, forms a dust- and water-resistant environment to enable long-term use even in challenging environments.

What you see is a device that has been refined through multiple prototype and design for manufacturing (DFM) iterations.



Mechanics

Once the shell is removed, the Orb can be divided into four core parts:

    Front: The optical system
    Middle: The mainboard separates the device into two hemispheres (note: its inclination is exactly 23.5°, equivalent to the inclination of the rotational axis of the earth)
    Back: The main computing unit as well as the active cooling system
    Bottom: An exchangeable battery




Battery

No battery we tried would last for a full day on a single charge. So we built a custom exchangeable battery based on 18650 Li-Ion cells—the same form factor as the cells used in a Tesla Model S. The battery consists of 8 cells with 3.7V nominal voltage in a 4S2P configuration (14.8V) with a capacity of close to 100Wh, which is a limit imposed by regulations related to logistics. Now there’s no limit to Orb uptime.



How the Optical System Works

Our early field tests taught us that the verification experience needed to be even simpler than we had anticipated.

To do this, we first experimented with many approaches featuring mirrors that allowed people to use their reflection to align with the Orbs imaging system. However, designs that worked well in the lab quickly broke down in the real world.

We ended up building a two-camera system featuring a wide angle camera and a telephoto camera with an adjustable ~5° field of view by means of a 2D gimbal. This increased the spatial volume in which a signup can be successfully completed by several orders of magnitude, from a tiny box of 20x10x5mm for each eye to a large cone.



The wide angle camera captures the scene, and a neural network predicts the location of both eyes. Through geometrical inference, we steer the field of view of the telephoto camera to the location of an eye to capture a high resolution image of the iris, which is further processed by the Orb into a unique identifier.

The lens  is optimized for the near infrared spectrum and has an integrated custom liquid lens which allows for neural network controlled millisecond-autofocus. It is paired with a global shutter sensor to capture high resolution, distortion free images.



The camera and the corresponding pulsed infrared illumination are synchronized to minimize motion blur and suppress the influence of sunlight. This way, the Orb creates lab environment conditions for imaging, no matter its location. Needless to say, the infrared illumination is compliant with eye safe standards (such as EN 62471:2008).

Image quality was the one thing we never compromised no matter how difficult it was. In terms of resolution the Orb is orders of magnitude above the industry standard. This provides the basis for the lowest error rates possible to, in turn, maximize the inclusivity of the system.

[The back of the mainboard]


The mainboard acts as a custom carrier board for the Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX SoM powering the Orb. Apart from the Jetson, the other major “plugged-in” component is a 250GB M.2 SSD. The SSD can be used to buffer images for voluntary data custody and image data collection. Images are irreversibly encrypted with a public key from the server such that, in the unlikely event of a compromised Orb, no data would be exposed. The contribution of data is optional and data deletion can be requested at any point in time through the app.

Further, a STM32 microcontroller controls time-critical peripherals, sequences power, and boots the Jetson. The Orb is equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and optional LTE to enable seamless connectivity as well as a GPS module to locate the Orb and prevent misuse. Finally, a 12 bit liquid lens driver allows for controlling the focus of the telephoto lens with a precision of 0.4mm.

The most densely packed PCB of the Orb is the front PCB. It mainly consists of LEDs. The outermost RGB LEDs power the “UX LED ring.” Further inside, there are 79 near infrared LEDs of different wavelengths. The Orb uses 740nm, 850nm and 940nm LEDs to capture a multispectral image of the iris to make the uniqueness algorithm more accurate and detect fraud.

Manufacturing of the latest generation of Orbs is already well underway in Germany, as well as their distribution to new Worldcoin Operators in cities around the world. In fact, they’ve already helped Worldcoin pass more than one million sign-ups—an important milestone on the way to providing universal access to the global economy.

Quote:Universal basic income (UBI) [note 1] is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a guaranteed income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment (i.e., without a means test or need to work). It would be received independently of any other income. If the level is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (i.e., at or above the poverty line), it is sometimes called a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it may be called a partial basic income. No country has yet introduced either, although there have been numerous pilot projects and the idea is discussed in many countries. Some have labelled UBI as utopian due to its historical origin.

1. Also variously known as unconditional basic income, citizen's basic income, basic income guarantee, basic living stipend, guaranteed annual income, universal income security program, or universal demogrant

Quote:The Worldcoin project is initiating an open and permissionless identity protocol called World ID. It empowers individuals to verify their humanness online while maintaining their anonymity through zero-knowledge proofs. Advancements in AI make it difficult to distinguish between AI and humans on the internet, highlighting a need for authentic human recognition and verification. To help address this, individuals can receive a future-proof unique human credential through a secure biometric device in a privacy-preserving manner. Importantly, this enables a path to AI-funded non-state UBI and the equitable global distribution of digital currencies. The project's early contributors have developed initial versions of a hardware device, a mobile client, and a deployment mechanism—all of which will gradually become decentralized. World ID will ultimately enable the protocol to be governed by the people, ensuring that the protocol benefits everyone.

The capabilities of AI are rapidly approaching those of humans and have already surpassed them in many niche areas. While the recent rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrates that these models are becoming increasingly versatile and seemingly also more “generally intelligent”, they feel a lot more intelligent because they perfected learning the primary interface with humans: language. Although it’s not immediately evident that this breakthrough will lead to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in the short-term, we now have models that are trained to perfectly mimic highly capable humans in digital interactions[1]. Some might argue that the age of AI has begun.

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Redistribute wealth created by systems in the age of AI: As AI advances, fairly distributing access and some of the created value through UBI will play an increasingly vital role in counteracting the concentration of economic power[7]. To ensure that each individual registers only once and to guarantee equitable distribution, a global proof of personhood protocol is needed.

Humanness in the Age of AI