世界币更名为“World”，强调人工智能基础设施层和人类身份验证

萨姆·奥尔特曼 (Sam Altman) 的加密货币项目世界币 (Worldcoin) 正在更名为“世界”(World)，该项目通过扫描人们的虹膜来换取分配的数字代币

Sam Altman’s cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, which scans people’s irises in exchange for an allotment of digital tokens, is rebranding as “World,” the company announced Thursday.

山姆·奥尔特曼 (Sam Altman) 的加密货币项目 Worldcoin 周四宣布，该项目将更名为“World”，该项目通过扫描人们的虹膜来换取分配的数字代币。

The company initially launched with the goal of providing a universal basic income, using a basketball-sized biometric reader called an orb to collect the iris data in exchange for a one-time payment of the company’s WLD cryptocurrency. But since the AI frenzy touched off by ChatGPT—made by Altman’s other company OpenAI—Worldcoin parent Tools For Humanity has leaned hard into human ID verification: In a future world in which AI is everywhere, we need a system to prove that people are humans, and not bots.

该公司最初推出的目标是提供全民基本收入，使用篮球大小的生物识别阅读器（称为 orb）收集虹膜数据，以换取一次性支付该公司的 WLD 加密货币。但自从 ChatGPT（由 Altman 的另一家公司 OpenAI 制造）引发人工智能狂潮以来，Worldcoin 母公司 Tools For Humanity 就开始大力投入人类身份验证：在人工智能无处不在的未来世界，我们需要一个系统来证明人们是人类，而不是机器人。

Once people get their eyes scanned into the orb, they are issued a “World ID,” which verifies their “proof of personhood” within World’s system. The idea is that people could verify they are not bots without giving up any other identifying information.

一旦人们的眼睛被扫描到球体上，他们就会获得一个“世界ID”，以验证他们在世界系统中的“人格证明”。这个想法是，人们可以在不放弃任何其他识别信息的情况下验证自己不是机器人。

“Worldcoin as a name just doesn’t work anymore,” CEO Alex Blania said on stage during an event in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Altman touted the newly rebranded World as an infrastructure layer for AI, helping “humans and agents to send resources back and forth” and communicate with each other.

“世界币这个名字已经不再有效了，”首席执行官亚历克斯·布兰尼亚(Alex Blania)在旧金山的一次活动中在台上说道。与此同时，奥特曼将新更名的世界吹捧为人工智能的基础设施层，帮助“人类和智能体来回发送资源”并相互通信。

The name change underscores the challenges the company faced as it sought to define itself and its business, as first reported by Forbes last year. “We don't seem to have quite nailed that yet. Which is fine—it's hard and it's really new,” Altman said at a May 2022 companywide summit, according to audio obtained by Forbes. “Once we've internally decided the direction we want to go—and I think there's still multiple opinions there—once that is said, and if that really resonates with people, then things can really catch fire.”

正如福布斯去年首次报道的那样，更名凸显了该公司在寻求定义自身及其业务时所面临的挑战。 “我们似乎还没有完全确定这一点。根据《福布斯》获得的音频，Altman 在 2022 年 5 月的全公司峰会上表示：“这很好，这很难，而且确实很新鲜。” “一旦我们在内部决定了我们想要走的方向——我认为仍然有多种意见——一旦说出来，如果这真的能引起人们的共鸣，那么事情就会真正火起来。”

A former Worldcoin employee told Forbes last year: “Definitely the new DNA of the company is the whole identity thing. They no longer say they are a crypto company.” Dropping the word “coin” from the name also comes at a time when the cryptocurrency market has lost some of its luster, after the fall of disgraced crypto exchange FTX.

一位前 Worldcoin 员工去年告诉《福布斯》：“毫无疑问，公司的新 DNA 就是整个身份。他们不再说自己是一家加密货币公司。”在名誉扫地的加密货币交易所 FTX 倒闭之后，加密货币市场失去了一些光彩，而从名称中删除“硬币”一词也是如此。

The company made several other announcements at the event, including a new version of the orb, with a white coating instead of its original metallic chrome. World also said it will allow people to use its app to have their eyes scanned on demand, with an appointment where an orb would come to them “much like a pizza you have delivered,” said Rich Heley, the company’s chief device officer. World also said it will set up orb-scanning stations at retail spaces, including coffee shops and convenience stores, around the world, starting on Thursday. The company said it has already opened “premium verification experiences” where people could get eye scans in boutique spaces with staff to answer questions, in Mexico City and Buenos Aires.

该公司在这次活动中还发布了其他几项公告，包括新版本的球体，其采用白色涂层而不是原来的金属铬。 World还表示，它将允许人们使用其应用程序按需扫描眼睛，预约后就会有一个球体来到他们身边，“就像你送来的披萨一样”，该公司的首席设备官里奇·赫利(Rich Heley)说。 World还表示，将从周四开始在世界各地的零售场所（包括咖啡店和便利店）设立球体扫描站。该公司表示，它已经在墨西哥城和布宜诺斯艾利斯开设了“高级验证体验”，人们可以在精品店进行眼部扫描，工作人员可以回答问题。

Even before its launch, World has been mired in controversy. Privacy experts worried about the potential exploitation that could come with exchanging biometric data for crypto. In 2022, BuzzFeed News reported that the company was testing its orbs in countries in the Global South, with low income users upset because they traded their iris readings for their share of a cryptocurrency that took years to launch. Orb operators, contractors that do the scanning and who typically come from low income backgrounds, had also felt they were put in harm’s way, harassed and arrested by local authorities, while facing missed payments from World and shifting performance targets.

甚至在推出之前，《世界》就已经陷入了争议。隐私专家担心用生物识别数据交换加密货币可能会带来潜在的利用。 2022 年，BuzzFeed News 报道称，该公司正在南半球国家测试其球体，低收入用户感到不安，因为他们用虹膜读数换取了一种花了数年时间才推出的加密货币。 Orb 操作员是进行扫描的承包商，通常来自低收入背景，他们也感到自己受到了伤害，受到地方当局的骚扰和逮捕，同时还面临着 World 拖欠付款和绩效目标不断变化的问题。

Since World’s founding in 2019, Altman’s star has risen astronomically. He’s become one of the most powerful people in technology, thanks to the success of OpenAI and ChatGPT. But Tools For Humanity has so far been a small player in Altman’s empire. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it raised $6.6 billion, the largest venture capital fundraising round of all time. By comparison, Tools for Humanity raised $150 million last year (and a total of $240 million to date at a valuation of $2.47 billion, according to Pitchbook) — still impressive, but nowhere near the eye-popping figure of its sister company.

自2019年《世界》成立以来，奥特曼的明星地位如天文数字般上升。由于 OpenAI 和 ChatGPT 的成功，他已成为技术领域最有影响力的人物之一。但迄今为止，Tools For Humanity 在奥特曼的帝国中只是一个小角色。本月早些时候，OpenAI 宣布筹集了 66 亿美元，这是有史以来最大的一轮风险投资。相比之下，Tools for Humanity 去年筹集了 1.5 亿美元（根据 Pitchbook 的数据，迄今为止总计筹集了 2.4 亿美元，估值为 24.7 亿美元）——仍然令人印象深刻，但远不及其姊妹公司令人瞠目结舌的数字。

At the event, Altman echoed comments he made to employees at the closed-door 2022 summit, emphasizing the importance of scaling the platform to create a large network. “One joke that I use sometimes is, when in doubt, scale it up,” he said Thursday. “We want to see what happens when we do this at mass scale.”

在活动中，Altman 呼应了他在 2022 年闭门峰会上向员工发表的言论，强调了扩展平台以创建大型网络的重要性。 “我有时用的一个笑话是，当有疑问时，扩大规模，”他周四说道。 “我们想看看当我们大规模这样做时会发生什么。”