When people talk about tokenization of everything, in most cases their minds go to something like:
- real estate
- art
- music/film/broadcast/podcast industry
- gaming
- software
- sports
- services
- etc.
I guess fewer realized the tokenization of everything may start with the tokenization of everyone. In various forms and stages of this process.
Like it is often the case, a tool, a process, a concept is as good as the person or persons who use, apply or implement it. The reverse is also true. A broken tool negatively affects the activity of the person using it.
It is frankly concerning that before we could see any major tokenization of goods and services (based on blockchain and cryptocurrency), we see the eve of tokenization for human beings.
World ID and CBDCs
"Proof of personhood" to prevent AI impersonation. That actually sounds good for the masses and many would jump right at it. I could actually see enough people in Splinterlands embracing it to keep bots away... Hmm...
Ok... So, the idea is to prevent AI to impersonate humans, right? Just for the sake of a game, let's suppose this system goes online for the intended purpose. What would prevent AIs to use humans with these World IDs as interfaces, almost like players using helpers are interfaces between the program generating the team and the game?
AIs could pay people with World IDs for facilitating access. Sure, it's not direct access, but the AI still gets where it wants. That's the favorable option, people could be tricked into facilitating access without receiving anything in return. Don't get hopeful about receiving more income based on your World ID. The worse part is never disclosed until the majority is hooked, if ever.
So... I believe we can discard this use case for the World Coin.
In my opinion, the World ID (or something similar if this doesn't work), will be the next level of identities people will be branded with.
To make World ID and World Coin more enticing for the masses, there is a mention of UBI (universal basic income) that will be tied to your proof of human identity.
This is the current narrative, but I see it developing into something like the social credit that has been tested in China for years already.
If you don't know what social credit is, think of your bank credit score, but applied to everything you do in life (and with consequences everywhere), from not paying debts on time to jaywalking, to (apparently there is this thing in China) listening to music too loud on train.
It sounds like a good thing that brings order to society, until someone is singled out and becomes a target. Then, it's a nightmare. Or a movie scenario (Enemy of the State).
World ID (or a similar project), as the next-level digital identity, may be considered a fertile ground to tie CBDCs to, in my opinion. So we might see this happening, especially since the masses seem to embrace everything that is thrown at them in a nice package, only to later severely affect their freedoms.
That's what they do in China and it's funny that we're moving toward that model. They have their phone numbers linked to WeeChat (their Everything App), and can use Digital Yuan (their CBDC) to pay. Of course, if they don't have a high enough social score, they might not be able to buy a plane ticket.