OpenAI Working on Social Media Network That Could Require Creepy Eye Scans: Report

OpenAI, the company best known for its AI applications like ChatGPT and Sora, is reportedly working on a social media network designed to be free from AI bots. The catch is that users may need to have their irises scanned for access.

Forbes reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the project, that the platform is still in very early stages and is being developed by a small team of fewer than 10 people. The goal is to create a human-only social platform that would require users to prove they’re real people. To do that, the team is reportedly considering implementing identity verification through Apple’s Face ID or through the Orb, an Orwellian eye-scanning device made by a company that was also conveniently founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

This new social media platform seems to be Altman’s latest attempt to solve a problem he himself and his fellow “architects of AI†helped create.

Altman first tried to tackle the bot problem in 2019 when he co-founded Tools for Humanity, the company behind the World app, formerly known as Worldcoin. The project aimed to create a global ID and a crypto-based currency that would only be available to verified humans. The project has since evolved into a “super app†called World that has messaging and payment features. But verification requires humans to get their eyes scanned by the soccer-ball-sized Orb device in exchange for a unique digital ID code stored on their phone. In theory, this could help filter out annoying AI bots from gaming, social media platforms, or even financial transactions like concert ticket sales.

So far, roughly 17 million people have been verified using the Orb, a far cry from the company’s stated goal of reaching one billion users. Part of that adoption problem is logistical. People have to physically travel to one of the 674 verification locations worldwide to get their eyes scanned. In the U.S., there are only 32 such locations, most of them in Florida. More broadly, the idea of getting your eyes scanned by a company founded by one of Silicon Valley’s most controversial figures isn’t any easy sell.

Unsurprisingly, several countries have already temporarily banned or launched investigations into the company’s biometric technology, citing concerns around privacy and data security.

Now, that tech seems like it could be making its way to a new social media network. Sources told Forbes that the new social platform would allow users to create and share AI-generated content like images and videos. And while OpenAI has proven it can build popular apps, it’s far from clear whether a new social network could meaningfully pull people away from existing platforms, especially when you add biometric verification as a barrier.

ChatGPT alone now reaches roughly 700 million weekly users, and the company’s AI video app racked up about one million downloads within five days of its launch. In comparison, Meta reported in September that its platforms, which include Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, now reach about 3.5 billion daily active users combined. All of which already allow users to generate and share AI-generated content.

OpenAI seems to hope that its promise of a bot-free environment will be enough to draw in users.

Altman himself has repeatedly voiced his frustration with bots online. In September, Altman responded to a post showing comments in the ClaudeCode subreddit praising OpenAI’s coding agent Codex. “i have had the strangest experience reading this: i assume its all fake/bots, even though in this case i know codex growth is really strong and the trend here is real,†he wrote in a post on X.

He went on to theorize why this might be happening, pointing to people picking up “quirks of LLM-speak†and also “probably some bots.†“But the net effect is somehow AI twitter/AI reddit feels very fake in a way it really didnt a year or two ago.†Altman wrote.

A few days earlier, Altman wrote in another post that he had never taken the dead internet theory seriously, “but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts now.â€

The dead internet theory claims that since around 2016, much of the internet has been dominated by bots and AI-generated content rather than real human activity. But maybe there is someone other than Altman who could be trusted to find a solution.