OpenAI announced this confidentially on Monday applied for IPOmarks what could become one of the defining public offerings of the decade. And then there’s OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s other company, Tools for mankindaccording to the news, he is making layoffs Business Insider. TechCrunch has reached out to the company for confirmation.
You can get to know Tools for Humanity better through a screening project known as the World and a creepy silver orb-related device that wants to scan your eyeballs. The idea is that the company will be able to verify people’s identities using unique iris scans, helping to separate human activity from bot activity in an increasingly automated world, which Altman, co-founder and chairman of Tools for Humanity, is building on. The company will also use these scans to verify people’s identities to support trading of its cryptocurrency, Worldcoin.
These vague, questionable ambitions were enough collect money a worth $2.5 billion From investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital and other funds backing blockchain companies. But now the company is reporting reduction as it struggles to generate revenue.
Like companies in the US TinderZoom and Docusign partnered on Altman’s side project. Internationally, he met with Tools for Humanity regulatory and ethical concerns. For example, people in Kenya, India and Hong Kong were offered the equivalent $50 in Worldcoin in exchange for their biometric data. Kenya later banned World from operating in the country, citing privacy and financial concerns; Meanwhile, the South Korean company was fined 830,000 dollars allegedly violated local privacy law.
Who would have thought? People don’t like giving their biometrics to a startup in exchange for $50 worth of cryptocurrency.
