The puzzle of proving you’re a person

Increasingly difficult captchas used to prove that a person on the internet was indeed a person. 

But now it’s not as straightforward as retyping a string of illegible letters. (Is that a “g” or a “q”?)

Allow the Orb to see you

Tools for Humanity’s Orb is a reflective sphere designed to replace easily beatable verification systems like captchas, per CNN.

• It scans you and decides whether you’re human (but, like, in a cool way).
• It’s so strict that a CNN reporter’s contacts triggered a failure.
• It generates a “WorldID” for individuals that, in theory, could be used to verify your humanity across the web.

There are some catches: The Orb only works if WorldID is widely adopted, and it’s not even available in the US yet.

But that’s OK, because international users on the World app can (what else?) buy and sell “Worldcoin” cryptocurrency — which seems like the real point.

Other startups…

… are putting the humanity back in digital interactions, like the aptly named Human.org (a hell of an SEO win there).

• Human.org has raised $7.3m to develop a “trust infrastructure” for AI.
• It includes separate blockchain-backed “digital passports” for humans and AI.
• There’s also an app, naturally, but this would also depend on widespread adoption in order to mean anything.

Until this all gets nailed down, let’s operate on the honor system. If you’re a human reading this, say “I am human.”