Saving the Internet from a 99% Fake Future

I sometimes find it hard to grasp where all of these new AI tools are taking us. Because if you try to think a few steps ahead, my thinking goes to a 99% fake internet pretty fast. That’s veryyyyyy weird and uncomfortable.

It hit me again when I saw the following tweet on X:

Let me start by saying that the video caught my attention first and then looked back up to the opening sentence; We just made UGC creators useless - forever. Combined with the way this guy is sitting in his chair, proudly announcing that he just took away millions of jobs, feels just very wrong.

As you know by now I am all for evolution. Jobs will disappear, it will hurt, new jobs will rise and we will continue. I think there is no stopping it, it might even be healthy, it’s been happening like this for hundreds of years.

But I am anything but saying that this is just fun and all amazing. People will get hurt, will get in trouble, lose their jobs (and anything that might come with that), their identity and so forth. It sucks, however you frame it. So to then decide to dunk on this some more is just throwing salt in an already fast growing wound. 🤮 Disgusting.

I mean what kind of brand positioning/marketing is this…..:

But ok, if we look at what he announced it’s basically UGC video creation for your (physical) products:

We have seen multiple AI startups that are competing for this same market. Such as:
- HeyGen Video Agent
- Mirage Studio by Captions
- Character by Higgsfield

Very real looking “people” that can be used to promote any product you want.

You could say that some still sound/look very AI like, but this is only now. Fast forward 12-24 months and this will look not only perfect, but will probably also be 10x cheaper to do.

So where does this lead us? Why wouldn’t all brands do this to flood the internet with ads, if the difference between real and fake are literally not visible anymore? Add to this the latest development by Meta that successfully can predict what your brain will like and dislike… yes, you read that correctly.

Meta's TRIBE system, developed by the company's Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, is an advanced AI model designed to predict human brain activity in response to watching movies.

Officially known as the TRImodal Brain Encoder (TRIBE), it represents a breakthrough in brain encoding models by integrating multiple sensory inputs (video, audio, and text) to forecast functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) responses across the entire brain. (click for full paper) Meta announced they won 1st place at the prestigious Algonauts 2025 brain modeling competition.

Now you can already think where this is going.. If you think the current TikTok algorithm is addictive, what will happen when algho’s can predict (and generate on the spot) stuff that you will love just to keep you glued to the screen… ouch…

There must be a counter movement that will immerse from all of this. If everything gets optimized to the max, when that maximum point is reached, some counterbalance must happen.

I argued in my newsletter on February 27, 2025, that anything human made will become more valuable. My conviction of that has only grown stronger. But how do you fight against the machines? How do you make sure that your art, creativity, content, gets seen by actual people among the billions of AI generated fakes?

On July 15, 2025, Youtube updated its monetization policies to target "inauthentic content," such as repetitive, low-effort, or mass-produced videos that lack originality or value, which could be a first sign of fighting AI-generated spam/slop. But this definitely won’t be enough.

Will social media platforms give us the options to change our feeds to be more human? Maybe. But again, how will they know who is human and who is not?

This is why I thought it’s worth discussing what appears to be the most promising project offering a potential solution: Worldcoin.

Co-founded by Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) and Alex Blania, Worldcoin’s mission is to give every human on Earth a verifiable digital identity and eventually a share of global digital wealth. Proof of personhood, as they call it. In a world where AI can spin up millions of fake accounts and content pieces in seconds, Worldcoin wants to give each real human a way to say: “this came from me.”

So how does this actually work?

At the center of Worldcoin is a piece of hardware called the Orb. It scans your iris, but not to keep an image of your eye, instead, it turns that scan into a unique mathematical code. That code proves you’re a one-of-a-kind human, and it’s stored in a way that doesn’t reveal your identity. In practice, it means you can prove “I’m real” without saying who you are. The idea of scanning your iris caused a lot of controversy in the early days, but now that more and more people are seeing why this is necessary, the adoption is growing.

This proof gets bundled into what Worldcoin calls a World ID, which you carry in an app on your phone. Whenever you log in somewhere,a social feed, a dating app, or even a payment system, you can show your World ID. Behind the scenes, it runs on blockchain rails, so the verification is transparent, tamper-resistant, and works across borders.

A big question, of course, is security. What if a government comes knocking and demands access to your data? In a podcast, Alex Blania explained that there’s actually very little they could hand over: the Orb doesn’t store eye images, and the system is designed so Worldcoin itself cannot trace actions back to specific people. What they can confirm is that a user has a valid World ID, but not who that person is, what they’ve done, or where they’ve been active.

The system is privacy-preserving. Platforms only see a yes/no answer to the question “is this a human?” without touching any biometric data. And because it’s built on open infrastructure, any developer can plug into the same system instead of reinventing their own half-baked bot filters.

Worldcoin is already seeing serious traction. The World App has been downloaded by over 30 million people, with around 14 million verified through an Orb. Of those, 9–10 million use it monthly, and on average the system processes over 1.5 million transactions a day.

Spain was one of the first hotspots, then Argentina picked up momentum earlier this year, and now Thailand is exploding with sign-ups. The bottleneck right now isn’t interest, but hardware. There simply aren’t enough Orbs to meet demand.

Worldcoin is also striking early partnerships to show what a “proof of human” internet could look like. Dating platforms like Tinder are exploring it to cut down on bots and catfishing. Gaming companies such as Razer are looking at how World ID could keep competitive lobbies free from cheaters.

These numbers and experiments suggest that while the Orb still raises eyebrows, the idea of a global, bot-proof identity layer is finding an audience.

So if Worldcoin, or another blockchain-based system (because yes this shouldn’t be owned by anyone.., can create proof of humanity, then platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn could start giving you the choice to only see real humans in your feed. Maybe that means a timeline of only people you follow, maybe it means verified human accounts, maybe it’s both?

The same applies to content itself. There will be a strong incentive for creators like myself to mark work as “real,” tied to my proof of humanity. So when scrolling you will instantly know which videos, articles, or posts come from actual people versus AI bots. That kind of signal could become very valuable, again human made will become more important in a world where everything is mostly generated in my humble opinion.

I think a solution like this feels not only inevitable, but urgently needed. Yes, the iris scan still feels strange. But as Alex Blania explained in a podcast, they landed on the iris because it’s the only biometric that scales globally without being easily gamed. Fingerprints, faces, even voice can be spoofed with today’s AI. Your iris, however, stays unique and stable across your lifetime, and it provides enough complexity to ensure that one person really equals one ID. That’s why, despite the awkward optics, the Orb focuses on the eye, it’s the most reliable way to make proof of personhood bulletproof.

Sam Altman is creating the problem, but with Worldcoin also trying to create the solution.

Worldcoin isn’t just trying to solve the “fake internet” problem. Sam Altman and Alex Blania have always positioned it as the bedrock for Universal Basic Income (UBI). In fact, newly verified users already receive Worldcoin tokens, a small but tangible first step in testing what a global ‘for being human’ payout could look like.

The logic is simple: if AI really does supercharge productivity and take away millions of jobs, then value created by machines could be redistributed back to humans. Something that feels like a much needed, and currently only, solution to the potential job loss that AI will bring. But for that to work, you need a way to ensure one person equals one share. Without proof of humanity, UBI is impossible, bots would drain the system instantly.

That’s why Worldcoin’s identity layer, or something like it, is so crucial. It’s not just about cleaner social feeds or bot-free dating apps. It’s about building the rails for a future where economic participation isn’t gated by geography, platform, or even employment, but by the fact that you’re a human being.

In other words, proof of humanity could be the bridge between surviving a 99% fake internet and thriving in a world where AI produces most of the value, making sure the humans still get their cut.

Closing thoughts

If the internet really is heading toward a point where most of what we see is synthetic, then proof of humanity will matter as much as proof of payment does today.

So here are two things to start thinking about now:

1. As a brand or creator: Ask yourself how you’ll signal that your work is human-made. Will you adopt tools like World ID, or create your own “verified human” stamp to build trust with your audience?

2. As a leader or strategist: Consider what parts of your business are most vulnerable to bots, fakes, or AI floods. Customer reviews? User onboarding? Community engagement? Begin mapping where a human-only filter could protect or even add value.

We could enter a new era where being human online is not something you can assume anymore, it should be provable.

In the AI era, humanity itself becomes the ultimate credential.

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^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

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