Sandro Herbig

Founding Team @tfh_technology supporting @worldnetwork. Cofounder @merge. Prev. Deep Learning / Theoretical Physics @ Max Planck Institute / Caltech.

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

1/ Proof of Human is becoming increasingly critical. In the limit democracy and human agency depend on it.

But building Proof of Human is unexpectedly challenging.

FaceID doesn't prevent one person to fabricate human presence for thousands of AI agents.

Government ID based Proof of Human is a surveillance risk and only 1b out of 8 billion people have verifiable IDs.

An anti-surveillance and effective Proof of Human that actually empowers people requires new technology [paper linked in thread] 🧵

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

Congrats @eddylazzarin !!

[Chris Dixon @cdixon]

https://t.co/FwZLru9liV

[Daniel Shorr @realDanielShorr]

https://t.co/8byYwNDZN5

[Sam Altman @sama]

feels like a good time to seriously rethink how operating systems and user interfaces are designed

(also the internet; there should be a protocol that is equally usable by people and agents)

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@signulll and eventually high bandwidth BCI will make interacting with the new computer even more fun and intuitive

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@nacho_meme7 @iluminatibot Why? :(

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@DecentraSuze Another way to frame it is: cars are getting invented and we are inventing the seatbelt and are open sourcing it. Detailed secret masterplan how to make it beneficial for people here:

https://t.co/uWy39taTDS

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@privacy_guides Another way to frame it is: cars are getting invented and we are inventing the seatbelt and are open sourcing it. Detailed secret masterplan how to make it beneficial for people here:

https://t.co/uWy39taTDS

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@TedBrownLiberty @TFTC21 That’s a serious concern with proof of human yes! This is exactly why we are working on World ID—to prevent this from happening. More details on how we think about making this happen:

https://t.co/uWy39taTDS

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@Nocsm1 @TFTC21 The good news is it can be recovered and the stolen credential can be deactivated. It is also possible to make the credential person kind and prevent others from using it. See section 4.4 “authenticating proof of human”

https://t.co/uWy39taTDS

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@mykebass @TFTC21 The idea is to prevent exactly that from happening. Not privatized but decentralized.

https://t.co/t0MzrlhEXW

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

World ID is very private and designed to be decentralized. Couldn't agree more that those properties are critical. Nobody should be in control of it.

Why iris is needed and details on decentralized computation of uniqueness: https://t.co/nvn0FW0IrD

More on decentralization: https://t.co/vSJCQsJuIR

Tech stack is open source:
https://t.co/etRNwsLMdJ

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

This is a serious challenge yes! The good news is that’s it is more solvable than it seems. If you only have one that makes it dangerous to rent it out. Similar to how you wouldn’t give away your passport. More details in this paper in section 3 “common concerns” subheading “Proof of human black market”

https://t.co/nvn0FW0IrD

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

World ID is very private and designed to be decentralized. Couldn't agree more that those properties are critical. Nobody should be in control of it.

Why iris is needed and details on decentralized computation of uniqueness: https://t.co/nvn0FW0IrD

More on decentralization: https://t.co/vSJCQsJuIR

Tech stack is open source:
https://t.co/etRNwsLMdJ

[TFTC @TFTC21]

World, Sam Altman's digital identity project, just unveiled World ID 4.0, what the company calls "full-stack proof of human" infrastructure.

The partner list: Tinder, Zoom, DocuSign, Shopify, Okta, AWS, and Vercel.

Altman opened by saying we're heading to a world where AI generates more content than humans. Pantera Capital says we've already crossed that threshold. World's answer is an iris-scanning device called the Orb that creates a unique cryptographic ID proving you're a real person. 18 million people across 160 countries have already verified.

Tinder is rolling out "verified human" badges in the U.S. after a Japan pilot. Zoom built a feature called "Deep Face" that verifies the person on a video call isn't a deepfake. DocuSign is adding proof-of-human checks to digital signatures. Shopify is enabling verified-human commerce.

The most significant announcement is AgentKit, infrastructure that lets AI agents carry cryptographic proof they're acting on behalf of a verified human. Okta built an agent delegation system on top of it.

The problem World is solving is real. The question is whether a centralized iris-scanning identity layer controlled by the same person whose company helped create the problem is the right answer.

Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. He built the flood. Now he's selling the ark.

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@rahullak Back door to what? There is nothing of value to be hacked. There are only encrypted fragments distributed across nodes.

https://t.co/HVDXAOQf3t

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

@abdulazeem_s There is no proof pool to query! Only SMPC with encrypted fragments.

https://t.co/HVDXAOQf3t

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

World ID is very private and designed to be decentralized. Couldn't agree more that those properties are critical. Nobody should be in control of it.

Why iris is needed and details on decentralized computation of uniqueness: https://t.co/nvn0FW0IrD

More on decentralization: https://t.co/vSJCQsJuIR

Tech stack is open source: https://t.co/etRNwsLMdJ

[Tiago Sada @tiagosada]

Lift Off was a big moment for World

bad bots are tearing the internet down, and proof of human is going mainstream

long way to go, but we've come a long way

[Pantera Capital @PanteraCapital]

We're reaching an inflection point where AI generates more information than humans.

Distinguishing agents from humans is a critical moat for trust online.

@sama explains why @worldnetwork built World ID with a goal of preserving the human layer of the internet.

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

People can add their NFC-enabled passport & MNC card to World ID. Proving age in a privacy preserving way already possible on Tinder in Japan. Other credentials are in the works. No central database. If global state would be required for something then AMPC can solve it in a way that there's no central database that can be compromised. So for most applications I can think of, World ID is infrastructure that can solve this and reduce the ocurrence and severity of data breaches.

[Sandro Herbig @sandroherbig]

World ID solves this—there is no central database to compromise.

Privacy will only become more important with the cost of impersonation going down (due to cost of compute and intelligence going down).

[Bastion @BastionMediaFR]

🔴🇫🇷 𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗘 𝗜𝗡𝗙𝗢 — Le portail ANTS, qui édite cartes d’identité, passeports et permis de conduire, a été victime d’une CYBERATTAQUE entraînant une fuite de données, confirme le ministère de l’Intérieur.

Jusqu’à 19 MILLIONS de Français pourraient être concernés par cette fuite massive liée à une faille technique sur la plateforme.

Les données potentiellement compromises sont particulièrement sensibles : nom, prénom, e-mail, adresse, date et lieu de naissance, numéro de téléphone, ainsi que des informations confirmant l’identité des personnes.

(Sources : Le Parisien / @seblatombe)

[World @worldnetwork]

“Humans should have a right to exceptional privacy and security, and our tools must measure up without compromising on the powerful features our users expect.” – @realDanielShorr at last week’s Lift Off

Read our blog to learn more about World ID 4.0