Sam Altman is doing another big infrastructure push with World (previously Worldcoin) — the universal human verification system.

We had journalist Billy Perrigo on to chat what’s what with World. Is Sam Altman just providing a solution to a problem that he himself caused with OpenAI? Do we really need human verification, or is this just a way to side-step the AI content watermarking issue?

Further reading & resources:

• The Orb Will See You Now by Billy Perrigo
• The ethical implications of AI agents by DeepMind

Computer Says Maybe Shorts bring in experts to give their ten-minute take on recent news. If there’s ever a news story you think we should bring in expertise on for the show, please email [email protected]

Perrigo is a correspondent at TIME, based in the London bureau. He covers the tech industry, focusing on the companies reshaping our world in strange and unexpected ways. His investigation ‘Inside Facebook’s African Sweatshop’ was a finalist for the 2022 Orwell Prize.