Sam Altman pitches world ID to bankers as AI threatens traditional identity systems

Sam Altman pitches world ID to bankers as AI threatens traditional identity systems

Laura Harris

• At a U.S. Federal Reserve conference, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promoted his iris-scanning digital ID system, World ID, as essential to combating AI-driven fraud in banking and finance.
• Altman warned that AI has already rendered voice, face and other biometric authentication methods ineffective, urging immediate adoption of new identity technologies.
• Developed by Altman's company Tools for Humanity, World ID verifies users via iris scans and stores their identity data using blockchain, aiming to distinguish real humans from AI bots online.
• The project has faced international regulatory pushback over surveillance risks, data retention, lack of transparency and potential erosion of individual autonomy.
• When asked about AI making decisions misaligned with societal norms, Altman deflected, heightening skepticism about the safety and accountability of his digital identity vision.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is now taking his controversial iris-scanning identity project directly to the financial sector, framing his World ID system as a necessary bulwark against a coming crisis of AI-driven fraud.

Speaking at a U.S. Federal Reserve conference on banking regulation on July 22, Altman warned that artificial intelligence has already rendered most existing authentication methods obsolete and the financial industry is dangerously unprepared.

"AI has fully defeated most of the ways that people authenticate – all of these fancy, take a selfie, wave or do your voice or whatever," Altman said. "I am very nervous that we have a significant impending fraud crisis."

Altman then proposed World ID – a biometric identity platform that verifies users by scanning their irises and then stores that verification using blockchain infrastructure. Developed by Tools for Humanity, a company Altman co-founded, the system has been marketed as a solution to a fundamental problem created by AI itself: telling humans apart from machines in a digital world increasingly shaped by synthetic media and impersonation.

He then emphasized in front of central bankers and financial regulators the urgency of adopting new tools to stem fraud in global financial systems. "A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication. That is a crazy thing to still be doing. Like, AI has fully defeated that," Altman said.

Altman's remarks laid out a broader worldview in which AI is both unstoppable and dangerous, capable of breaking security systems faster than institutions can react. At the same time, he painted an enthusiastic vision of a future in which artificial intelligence becomes the most transformative force since the internet, predicting a world of "intelligence too cheap to meter" and hinting at eventual progress toward fully functional humanoid robots. (Related: ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman launches dystopian eyeball-scanning "orbs" across six major cities in the U.S. )

Altman's proposal was met with deep skepticism, citing concerns over biometric surveillance, data retention and the normalization of invasive identity practices.

"The idea of tethering one's digital identity to a biometric scan raises major questions about surveillance, data retention and individual autonomy. Despite the privacy promises, regulators across several countries have already challenged the project on issues related to consent and disclosure, and in some cases, issued suspension orders," Ken Macon wrote in his article for Reclaim the Net.

During the question and answer, one participant even asked how Altman would respond to fears that AI could begin making decisions or drawing conclusions that conflict with societal norms or democratic values. After spending more than 30 minutes praising the revolutionary potential of AI, Altman deflected. "This is deeply outside my area of expertise," he replied.