Lens Words

CURATED CURIOSITIES

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re looking for your sunglasses, but they’re on your head? Or your car keys, and they’re in your hand? There’s a weird symbiotic link between our focus and our awareness. But it’s a paradox!

Case in point, helping with Jordan’s word scramble. I checked every “S” in the grid, but for the life of me, could not find the term “symbiosis.” Did I need to give it a side-eye? Demure began fraying. Optic nerves frantically pushed.

"JORDAN! Where is symbiosis?” Her quick scan evolved into a confident gaze. She spied it quickly.

There’s no telling what my eyes looked liked during the word hunt. But, a group of astronomers would likely be interested. It turns out that our eyes are like galaxies in space. They reveal identity through light.

Astrophysicists think this can be applied to spotting deepfake images. A team from the UK analyzed reflections of light on the eyeballs of people in real and AI-generated images. They found that fake images often lacked consistency in the reflections between each eye. Real images tend to show the same reflections in both eyes. The work was presented last week at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting.

Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, wants a scan of your actual iris. Altman’s “Worldcoin” initiative aims to scan the eyeballs of every person on Earth. Altman claims that AI models will outsmart humans, and we won’t be able to tell people and robots apart.

"The Orb” verifies humanness through an eye scan. Users will get immutable codes held in an online “World ID” passport. People can use these to verify their humanity on online platforms, plus get payouts in Worldcoin’s cryptocurrency. So far, six million people have signed up to get the World ID. Orbs are currently in mass production in Germany.

What do you think about this? Here’s a link to an article for more.