World (formerly known as WorldCoin) project - the flagship initiative from Tools for Humanity

On Thursday, six stores across America opened their doors with a curious proposition: Come on in, let a metal orb scan your irises, and walk out with a new online profile that promises you're an individual human – and a few bucks in crypto for your troubles.

The US retail stores are the latest outgrowth of the World (formerly known as WorldCoin) project - the flagship initiative from Tools for Humanity, a startup co-founded in 2019 by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, along with Alex Blania and Max Novendstern.

World allows you to verify you are an actual person so that you can log into services that require the platform. It specializes in attempting to distinguish real humans from bots and AI-generated imitators. The idea being, if you're running a site or app – internet gaming or dating, say – and you really want to make sure each of your users are genuine individuals and not automated fakes, World provides that level of user identity and authenticity management.

Here's the catch: The most reliable way to do this, the startup argues, is with biometric scanning.

World's key components include the Orb (a glossy sphere that photos your iris and face), World ID (a blockchain-based so-called proof-of-personhood system), the World App (where users manage their ID and get access to services), and Worldcoin (aka WLD, A cryptocurrency distributed to users as a reward).

Unsurprisingly, regulators around the world have raised concerns about this whole idea of an upstart collecting and storing people's biometric data. South Korea fined the startup over $800,000 for privacy violations. Hong Kong ordered it to cease operations entirely, and Germany, Kenya, and Spain have initiated various legal actions against the firm.

But never mind all that - on to America! The upstart has now set up shopfronts in Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco, with its eyeball-scanning Orb devices. Since SF is also the home of Vulture West, we decided to pop in and have a look.

The store, nestled between Macy's and Louis Vuitton in the city's Union Square, is a tad ramshackle and barely painted. A wooden structure in the center of the room houses eight soccer ball-sized Orbs at varying heights.

World's San Francisco outlet ... The Apple Store it ain't

Here's how it works for us netizens. We'll assume you need to create (or anticipate creating) a verified-human profile on World that's required by an app or service you want to use.

First, you must download the World App, sign in, and after entering the store, wait as it links with a nearby Orb. The app tells you where to stand in relation to the sphere and how to position your head, and the scan of your eyes and face takes a few seconds to complete. That data is used to build a blockchain-based World ID unique to you based on your physically biometric info.

Specifically, that biometric scan is encrypted and sent directly to your phone to be converted into that unique identity token, after which the info is deleted on the Orb itself, the project says. As an incentive, the World app is credited with Worldcoins worth a little over $16 in real-world money. That token is then used later on when logging into things to prove you are a unique, genuinely real human.

Despite all the scrutiny, the startup claims to have 26 million people using its app around the world, with 12 million people having added their biometric data.

At a Wednesday event in SF, Altman and Blania officially launched the organization in the US – there have been trials around the world – and said the outfit wanted to have 7,500 Orbs - four times the total current installed base - in place across the States by the end of the year. The biz has set up a factory in Texas to pump out Orbs for America and the rest of the world, and is working on a miniaturized version to increase verification.

“I’m a very proud American, I think America should lead innovation, not fight it off,” Altman said at the shindig, which you can watch below.

At the gathering, Blania said the three areas the business will be concentrating on are gaming, online dating, and social media, mainly to eliminate bots masquerading as real people. World IDs can help assure people they are chatting to actual people online, he claimed. That said, it's not a panacea; we can think of some drawbacks.

World announced two partnerships during its US launch. A Visa-backed debit card will be issued later this year, and Match.com in Japan will be using World ID to reassure nervous daters.

During our store visit, an assistant said the amount of traffic for the Orbs had been very high, but