One night final month, a crowd of cryptocurrency fanatics gathered at an art gallery in downtown Manhattan. They had been greeted by a scene from science fiction.

At one finish of the room was an open bar. Across from it stood a free array of grey pedestals, organized like a futuristic Stonehenge, every displaying a steel sphere in regards to the measurement of a bowling ball.

The occasion was a launch social gathering for Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency undertaking created by Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief govt, and the crypto firm he co-founded, Tools for Humanity. As music thrummed within the background, friends congregated across the shiny orbs, which seemed like a cross between a large eight ball and HAL 9000, the rogue pc in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The gathering was a small step in what Tools for Humanity claims might be a world-changing undertaking: to scan the eyeballs of all eight billion people, after which use that one-time ID to supply small allotments of cryptocurrency to help them in a world upended by synthetic intelligence.

Every Worldcoin orb contains a digital camera designed to document pictures of an individual’s irises. The orbs convert these scans into bits of numerical code, that are presupposed to function a brand new kind of digital ID. In the quick time period, Tools for Humanity plans to generate income by providing its iris-based system as an alternative to safety applied sciences like CAPTCHA, the photographic check that’s used to kind people from spam accounts.

Ultimately, Worldcoin’s backers envision a grander plan to guard individuals from A.I. advances that they declare will get rid of thousands and thousands of jobs. They are selling the orbs as a potential basis for universal basic income, a welfare system through which everybody receives assured funds, and argue that iris IDs will assist distinguish actual individuals from robots.

To skeptics, the prospect of a privately owned crypto firm’s dealing with the biometric knowledge from billions of individuals seems like a recipe for dystopia, with echoes of the 2002 Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report.” But Tools for Humanity has raised $115 million this yr from enterprise capital traders, whilst funding for crypto has dried up throughout a downturn within the trade.

Tools for Humanity is a part of a growing array of crypto corporations making an attempt to latch on to the hype round A.I. to propel digital currencies again to relevance after a miserable 18 months of market crashes and bankruptcies. Its undertaking additionally reveals how highly effective figures like Mr. Altman are looking for to revenue in a tumultuous interval, creating moneymaking ventures to mitigate the damaging results of A.I., whilst they aggressively develop the know-how.

As Tools for Humanity has gained prominence, its advertising ways and iris-scanning strategies have raised alarms. Last month, the authorities in France and Germany mentioned they had been investigating Worldcoin’s knowledge assortment practices. On Wednesday, the federal government of Kenya ordered Tools for Humanity to cease conducting scans, blaming a “lack of clarity” in its dealing with of delicate data.

“They’re asking us to believe them, to trust them,” mentioned Andrew Bailey, a crypto professional at Yale-NUS College, a collaboration of Yale University and the National University of Singapore. “I don’t think I should have to trust anyone like that when it comes to sensitive information.”

A Tools for Humanity spokeswoman mentioned the corporate had designed Worldcoin to “protect individual privacy” and would work with governments to satisfy regulatory necessities.

Despite the considerations, dozens of crypto followers confirmed up final month on the Canvas 3.0 gallery in Manhattan to have fun Worldcoin’s launch. In many locations, customers obtain a small allotment of crypto tokens after they join an iris scan — basically free cash. But Tools for Humanity isn’t providing tokens within the United States, citing the legal uncertainty around crypto companies.

None of the friends appeared perturbed. And they had been comparatively blasé in regards to the potential for an orb-fueled surveillance state.

“Privacy doesn’t even exist anymore,” mentioned Lawrence Yan, a 25-year-old who works within the crypto trade, as a waiter supplied him a cracker smothered in hummus. He was prepared to have his irises scanned “for the meme,” he defined.

As Worldcoin has launched into a advertising blitz, its backers have trumpeted greater than two million sign-ups — a great distance from eight billion, however a number of irises nonetheless. Last month, Mr. Altman claimed that the orbs had been scanning new eyeballs each eight seconds.

“We had a huge, huge surge in demand,” mentioned Alex Blania, the chief govt of Tools for Humanity. “Long lines in front of orbs. So long that it was hard to handle in some parts of the world.”

Mr. Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity in 2019. Two years later, he posted a photo of the orb on social media and promised a brand new cryptocurrency that might be “distributed fairly to as many people as possible.”

“Don’t catalogue eyeballs,” responded Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower and privateness advocate, on what was then Twitter.

Mr. Altman and one other co-founder, Max Novendstern, picked Mr. Blania, 29, to run Tools for Humanity when he was a graduate pupil in theoretical physics on the California Institute of Technology. Based in San Francisco and Berlin, the corporate has about 50 workers. Mr. Altman stays concerned, approving necessary hires and shaping the general technique, Mr. Blania mentioned.

In an electronic mail, Mr. Altman mentioned he was “probably not close enough” to debate Worldcoin in a lot element. But he has saved up a operating commentary on social media. “Like any really ambitious project, maybe it works out and maybe it doesn’t,” he posted final month.

Much of the scrutiny has targeted on Worldcoin’s potential privateness dangers. On its web site, Tools for Humanity says the orbs don’t retailer iris knowledge. When persons are scanned, the web site says, they obtain a novel ID secured by complicated cryptography, whereas any pictures are deleted. With large adoption, Worldcoin IDs may assist social media platforms distinguish between people and bots, Mr. Blania mentioned.

Eventually, the agency desires to distribute 50,000 orbs worldwide — in the meanwhile, just a few hundred are in circulation — and amass billions of sign-ups, sufficient to type the premise of a common primary earnings system.

The income of the rising A.I. revolution could in the end should be “redistributed with society,” Mr. Blania mentioned. “What Worldcoin does is it gives everyone, not just people in Europe or the United States, an identity, and it gives them a way to be economically reachable.”

But as the corporate has expanded globally, it has confronted criticism for its advertising. Before its official launch, Tools for Humanity despatched contractors, known as “orb operators,” to gather iris knowledge in creating nations. Some of these contractors used misleading strategies to solicit sign-ups, in line with investigations final yr by Buzzfeed News and MIT Technology Review.

And for all of Mr. Altman’s speak of an equitably distributed foreign money, Tools for Humanity has mentioned about a quarter of its new digital cash, generally known as WLD, are already earmarked for enterprise traders and different firm insiders.

Mr. Blania in contrast Tools for Humanity’s rollout issues to the challenges going through corporations, like Uber, that function giant networks of contractors. He mentioned that the corporate had instituted “standard quality control measures” for its work power, and that the token allocations had been needed to lift funds from traders.

“I would love that number to be lower, but it is what it is,” he mentioned.

At the occasion in Manhattan, a stream of curious onlookers mingled with Tools for Humanity representatives, who wore white T-shirts emblazoned with the phrases “unique human.”

As music blasted, a pair walked over to an orb podium to talk with the orb operator about his experiences manning the brand new frontier of digital identification. He hadn’t been on the job for lengthy, he instructed them, however was already getting unusual questions. A brand new person had lately requested what would occur if “someone took off my face and put it in front of the orb?” he mentioned.

Then the dialog turned to the unlucky plight of “the eyeless.” A freshly scanned visitor questioned, from an accessibility perspective, how individuals who didn’t have eyes would match into the brand new world order. The orb operator nodded solemnly. “That’s a very valid concern,” he mentioned.

None of those potential points stemmed the circulate of sign-ups. Isaac Cespedes, a 32-year-old software program developer, spent a lot of the evening weighing the professionals and cons of providing his biometric knowledge to a start-up.

“My crypto trader friend — I just messaged him,” Mr. Cespedes mentioned. “He thinks it sounds scammy.”

By the top of the night, although, Mr. Cespedes was lining as much as be scanned.