Millions of people are scanning their eyes to prove that they are human. You could also become a “verified person” and can be easily identified.
“Big Data will see you now.” economist In the final issue, “Evaluating China’s giant new gambling with digital IDs,” South Korea follows the lawsuit. In the US, the IRS plans to develop similar capabilities and integrate names, addresses, social security numbers, tax returns and employment history into a single cloud-based platform.
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are one of the most well-known investors in AI. Founded by Openai CEO Sam Altman Tools for humanity To prepare for a future where the boundary between humans and machines disappears. His answer, ORB, is a biometric device that scans IRISES to issue a world ID (and small cryptographic rewards) and confirms identity in a crowded digital world with AI agents.
Imagine an orb at every intersection and replace today’s video cameras. This is a surprise to stop crime and protect national security. ICE can meet annual quotas in one week.
Altman sees ORB as the future infrastructure of artificial intelligence. Openai’s major rival, Meta (Facebook), has declared that a singularity (the machine at the moment outweighs human intelligence) is imminent. Meta competes for “general artificial information.” Openai aims to be “artificial general awareness.”
We’ve been heading this way for a long time. The luddites (class rebels) endured from under the rest of 1863, but the Victorian essayist and satirical Samuel Butler, who wrote from within the founding elite, warned that machines evolve faster than humans and might replace them. Since Butler, thinkers such as Nietzsche, Spengler, Heidegger and historian and social commentator Louis Mumford have amplified alarms.
With exceptional clarity, Jacques Elle is a modern French philosopher and sociologist of technology; Technology Society (1954) that “technique” became an autonomous force and evolved independently of ethics. Efficiency becomes the highest value and narrows your freedom to technical choices. For Elle, technology does not just change society, it defines it.
He also argued that the shift involves a rise in images rather than glasses for meaning, boring. Images provide immediacy. Words need to be interpreted. This word invites thoughts. The image overwhelms it. Memes compete and turn ideas into signals. Elle would not be surprised that even Jesus became an avatar in the age of Meta.
in The humiliation of wordshe warned that when words silenced, they would lose nuance, contradiction and moral depth. What we see shows what is. The ruthless, trolling politics coordinated for social media is coming for the rest of us. As said, “Do you believe me and your lies?”
This word creates a space between stimuli and response, allowing for reflexes, responsibility and resistance. In an algorithm-curated world, The humiliation of words It reminds us that preserving words is essential to preserving what remains human.
Before the scientific revolution, expression was assumed to emerge from a consistent self based on tradition and moral imagination. Meaning was embedded in shared languages. That consistency is broken. In the age of AI, authors and accountability are increasingly elusive. Expressions may no longer come from the person standing behind them.
Ellul’s warning is urgent. The fact becomes optics when the dominance of what is visible than Fayable, when appearances portray meaning, and when it puts the human voice at risk of error. Tragic scenes and crying children shake millions, and the perfect context is never a truth, never a trend. Even wars become sights, religious performances, everyday life.
But Elle’s vision was more than just a lament. “Saving words” means restoring slow, interactive practices that make meaning. It is to speak, listen, question, interpret and resist the flattening of experience.
The goal is not to stop AI, but to ensure that the words endure. This is the space for the noise of algorithms and images, for reflection, responsibility, and as a defense of human dignity. This term holds what the algorithm doesn’t have in fakes or replacements. The story is read out loud by the child, and conversations in which notes slip into the lunch box or are read entirely on paper or screens.
Hope is not optimistic. It is a stubborn act of keeping words alive. Therefore, even in a world re-changing by machines, we have the capacity to mean, freedom, and true encounters.
Long after the popsicles confirm their identity, it is a word that proves that we exist. Orbs may prove that we are human. There could be a singularity approaching. But we cannot ask what our voices do: What is important?
Notes and reading
Fractal Eyes – Sam Altman’s Digital – and Funding – Jennius is a Fractal: Innovation hesitates. There is no scaling. Fractal growth accelerates by expanding what already exists. The main bottleneck is capital. It leads to a record of success. Altman is “simple” built on AI logic. (Author’s Block Tip: Don’t wait for new ideas. – Karen Hao, The Empire of AI (2025).
“Doge, Palantir, IRS: What’s wrong?” – CPA/Trendline (July 10, 2025).
Early warning – Reprinted in “The Machine Between Darwin” (1863). Samuel Butler’s Notepad (2011), Victorian satirists and iconoclasts speculated that machines evolve through natural selection. They were able to ultimately outperform and replace humanity, not by rebellion, but by making us look.
dawn – Octavia Butler (2011), Science Fiction. Lilith Iyapo wakes up with a future remake by the alien Oankari, who saved humanity with price. To survive, humans must adapt to their own ways. Lilith, chosen to lead, gets caught up in between the mistrust of both sides. Instead of giving in, she learns, acts, and shapes what continues. Lilith’s dilemma remains unresolved, like our own with AI. The future can depend more on purity than learning to live with something different than us. Simply wise.
Technology Society and The humiliation of words, Jacques Ellul (1952-1954; 1985). Furthermore, “Surprise against the technological society” – About Jacques Ellul’s Technique Analysis – Collected essays edited by Samuel Matlack, managing editor The new Atlantis (Summer/Autumn 2014).
Line: The future of AI and personality – James Boyle, Law Scholar (2024). Boyle encourages clear legal standards regarding AI rights and obligations before improvising by courts and businesses. Should a person being synthesized bear testimony, his or her property, or liability? Don’t wait until the chatbot is sued or the robot requests asylum. personality It has become a changing boundary. Each of the iodines of the law, culture and technology is redrawn for each new case.
“I had Sam Altman scan his eyeballs with his shining, dystopian orb” – Thomas Smith, Medium (June 22, 2025). Smith is an award-winning AI expert with 14 years of experience.
I’m about to leave
Please turn off the wind
Approx. 2 +”2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
