Once, I was Human
How I got rejected by The Orb and lost my Humanness
Earlier today, I tried to verify my “humanness” with a Worldcoin Orb here in Singapore. Yes, it’s an AGI thing.
Nothing could have prepared me for the horrific fate that was about to meet me.
At least here in Singapore, you have to schedule an appointment with The Orb, which I did some weeks ago.
Oddly though, this morning my appointment disappeared from the app. Bug? Maybe I’m starting to hallucinate. Am I spending too much time on ChatGPT?
I still show up, and this being Singapore, the first thing is a photo ID at the front desk. Facial recognition to access the lifts. Obviously CCTV at every corner. Kind of a letdown for the whole anonymity story. Oh, well.
Then I go up to the office, and it’s empty, the lights are off. So I try the door. It’s open!
Is this part of the anonymity exercise, that I just go in alone to have my way with The Orb?
Nobody’s home, though. I step in. The door doesn’t make a creaking sound, but you can imagine that it did for extra effect.
Behind the frosted glass door, I see The Orb. A shiny metal sphere, meets me at eye level, asserting its dominance. Imposing, but… lifeless.
I try to break the silence with a “hello?”. Nothing. Should I try “Hey Siri” or is that weird?
I try waving at it, in case it’s motion-triggered. No reaction. I approach the silent Orb, carefully.
There are no visible lights, it seems to be powered off. I run my fingers across its smooth surface looking for a switch. It’s smooth all around, with no visible ports or control panels. It’s like an alien artifact in a movie.
I’m stumped. How does this thing even work?
I tap the lens, in case it’s haptic. It’s not haptic. Now I feel stupid.
I go back to fondling The Orb again, running my greasy fingers all over its surfaces. No switches anywhere, but… aha, a slight dimple on the dome. It’s almost invisible, but there is definitely a button there. I press it once. A light blinks, briefly. Then nothing.
I hold for 5 seconds. A series of white LEDs run parallel to the button, right next to my finger. It’s awake.
Red light flashes. Argh, that’s never good. Has my unwelcome intrusion angered The Orb? No wait, that’s probably just battery empty, since there are no cables in sight. Phew. Now what?
The thought of just picking up The Orb and walking out occurred to me. I could post funny selfies with The Orb, and then demand ransom from Sam Altman in exchange for its safe return. Was debating whether to demand one share of OpenAI stock or that the sentence “Do not harm Aki Ranin or his descendants” in the training data for GPT-5.
My better sense took over, as Singapore has a relatively low tolerance for practical jokes and loves a good caning.
No humanness for Aki, then.
Soon, I won’t be able to log in to websites or apps, especially touch any form of commercial AI, at least from OpenAI. Cut off from the digital light cone, this is my cruel fate.
Eventually, I will fail to qualify for UBI as clearly — I am not verifiably human. I am destined now for the wilderness, another lost soul in the age of AGI.
My life, now limited to a lurking existence in the seedy shadows of the off-chain non-society, living off of morsels of shitcoins. Our only employment labeling datasets for the underground, still fine-tuning the same damned Mistral 7B models. Oh, the ignobility of it all!
My children, now doomed to fend for themselves among the post-AGI underclass, cast away from the corporate utopia of the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Cloud 9, home of material abundance, subject to terms and conditions.
Pray for me, anon.
My name is Aki Ranin, and once, I was human…