Will The AI Explosion Require A 'Proof Of Personhood' Biometric ID?

The battle for your identity is no longer theoretical--it's happening right now, and most people aren't paying attention.

Reddit, one of the most influential platforms on the internet, is actively exploring the use of World ID, a biometric verification system powered by an orb-shaped device that scans your iris to prove you are a real person. Behind it is Tools for Humanity, co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose involvement spans the very technologies creating chaos (AI) and now the systems designed to sort through that chaos (digital ID).

This isn't just a tech upgrade. It's a civilizational shift.

Under the banner of stopping bots and protecting children, a powerful coalition of governments and tech giants is working to embed identity verification into the foundations of the internet. And they're not asking for your name or password anymore. They want your eye. Your face. Your biology.

At first glance, it seems innocent--even helpful. But the implications are deeply disturbing: a world where access to the digital public square, online services, and even commerce itself could soon depend on biometric approval. A world where no biometric ID means no access.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Revelation 13 warned of a time when buying and selling would be impossible without a specific mark. That prophecy, long dismissed by skeptics as hyperbole, is now startlingly plausible.

And it's closer than you think.

The World ID system works like this: you visit an "Orb," which scans your iris and generates a cryptographic identifier stored on your phone. The system claims to protect privacy--no names, no data trails--but let's be honest: the very act of submitting to a biometric scan is a surrender of something far more personal than a username. It is the surrender of your physical being as proof of participation in society.

The selling point is security and uniqueness. The real consequence is exclusion for anyone who refuses.

Reddit's CEO Steve Huffman has already stated that age verification and AI abuse will soon make user identification unavoidable. "We will do our best to preserve anonymity," he wrote, but his language betrays the truth: this is coming whether people want it or not. Soon, platforms may begin to treat non-verified users as second-class citizens--or block them altogether.

This isn't a crackdown on bots. It's the construction of a new internet caste system--the verified and the vanished.

Behind this system is a dangerous centralization of power. Sam Altman already leads OpenAI, a company shaping the very language, images, and thoughts that flood the digital world. Now he may control the gatekeeping mechanism that determines who is allowed into that world.

If you want to speak, you may need his ID.

If you want to shop, you may need his verification.

If you want to exist online at all, you may need to submit to his Orb.

That is not innovation. That is infrastructure. And once embedded, it won't be optional. As more people get verified, the pressure will mount on the rest of society to follow--or face digital exile. Like all authoritarian tools, it begins with voluntary adoption. It ends with mandatory compliance.

History has shown that the most dangerous systems are not those that arrive with sirens and guns--but those cloaked in efficiency, wrapped in safety, and sold as progress.

Revelation 13:17 tells us of a time when "no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark." Many have speculated what that mark might be--some imagined tattoos, others microchips. But perhaps it was always going to be digital. Perhaps it was never about the mark itself, but about the system that requires it.

Commerce today is digital. Identity today is digital. The town square today is online. Control access to that digital space, and you control everything.

When biometric ID becomes required for participation in the online economy, we have crossed a line that no generation before us could have imagined. We are not there yet--but we are now dangerously close. And the church, once mocked for its "end times warnings," suddenly finds itself watching prophecy morph into policy.

The mark may not come with horns and flames. It may come in the form of a sleek metallic Orb offering free crypto and secure identity. But the result is the same: a world where refusal means exclusion, and compliance means total surveillance.

Supporters argue that World ID is private, encrypted, and decentralized. But that is a fragile hope in a world where every system can be hacked, every vault can be breached, and every promise can be revoked.

This week alone, users of Apple, Facebook, and Google are being urged to change their passwords immediately after a colossal data leak exposed as many as 16 billion logins. It's being called one of the largest data breaches in history--giving hackers what cybersecurity experts describe as "unprecedented access" to personal data and online accounts. 

If this is what happens with traditional login systems, imagine the catastrophe when biometric identity--your iris, your fingerprint, your face--is at stake. You can change a password. You can't change your biology.

And even if the technology works as promised, the ethical structure around it is crumbling. Governments are already mandating age verification laws. Major platforms are already building the foundation for verified-only participation. And the AI explosion guarantees that "proof of personhood" will soon become a prerequisite for nearly every corner of life.

We must not walk blindly into this new system. Christians in particular must recognize the spiritual battle beneath the surface. This is not a "sign of the end" panic, but a sober realization: Revelation warned us what such a system would look like. And it looks a lot like the infrastructure being built right now.

The truth is, once this door is opened, it will not be easily closed. And once access to the world requires your biometrics, you don't just risk your privacy--you risk your autonomy, your liberty, and eventually your conscience.

This is not merely a battle over tech. This is the groundwork for a future in which participation in society may depend on your willingness to surrender your most intimate identifiers to those in power.

Because soon, to reject the system may not just be inconvenient--it may cost you everything.