Not long ago, my kitten got sick. After taking it to the vet, I applied for pet insurance reimbursement. In addition to submitting various documents provided by the hospital, I also needed to take a photo of the kitten's nose to verify its 'nose print', which is quite interesting.
I asked and found out that the nose print is actually equivalent to the kitten's ID card, similar to human fingerprints, irises, palm prints, etc. To prevent the misuse of insurance limits, this verification mechanism was introduced.
Recently, I often come across the project @Humanityprot shared by others on Twitter, which authenticates whether you are a real person by verifying palm prints. Many people have published educational content and participation tutorials about this project, so I won't elaborate further; I just want to share my perspective.
In the era of AI, why do we need 'real-name systems'?
1｜From an anonymous utopia to an identity anxiety era
At the dawn of the Web, we embraced anonymity as freedom and a borderless world as an ideal. Forums, communities, cryptocurrencies, and even DAOs were all built on the foundation of 'decentralized identity'.
However, as we enter the AI era, this structure is rapidly becoming ineffective. We are facing a collective anxiety:
We can no longer distinguish whether the speaker is a human or a bot.
After 2023, social platforms like X, Reddit, and Discord frequently encounter bot abuse, with data farms operating on a massive scale; the Web3 world is also witnessing 'witch attacks', where one person splits into thousands of addresses to exploit airdrops and manipulate votes.
If you are a Builder, there are currently two fundamental problems that cannot be avoided:
+ You cannot know if the person you are talking to is a real person;
+ You cannot ensure that one person only participates once, rather than a thousand times.
This is not a Web3 issue; it is an identity crisis in the AI era.
Real-name systems, to some extent, are becoming necessary again.
2｜But traditional real-name systems are a misaligned solution
National ID cards, passports, mobile phone numbers, bank card bindings...
These are the real-name system infrastructure of the Web2 world.
But its biggest problem is that the binding of identity and rights is centralized, relying on governments, platforms, and banks. It addresses compliance issues, not authenticity issues.
More critically, it brings structural risks to privacy:
+ Centralized KYC data breaches are currently the largest source of data black markets on the internet;
+ Platforms abuse real-name systems for advertising profiling, credit control, and social sorting.
In the narrative space of AI + Web3, we need a new real-name system:
+ It only verifies that you are human without revealing who you actually are;
+ It does not expose information and does not store data;
+ It is not initiated by any country or platform but operates on a decentralized structure.
3｜ZK + Biometrics: not a simple KYC, but a 'decentralized real-name system'
Humanity Protocol and Worldcoin seem to be doing the same thing: using your 'body' to prove you are human.
It sounds scary, even evoking thoughts of totalitarianism, but the underlying mechanism is a complete reversal:
You are not handing over your privacy to the platform; instead, you are generating an irrefutable, untraceable, and tamper-proof 'evidence of existence'.
This relies on two key structures:
+ Biometrics: iris, fingerprints, facial features, are existential symbols that you cannot 'transfer';
+ Zero-knowledge proofs: only verify 'whether it is true', without disclosing 'specific content'.
This combination gives 'human identity' three important properties for the first time:
+ Scarcity (you can only have one self)
+ Verifiability (you can prove to any system that you are a real person)
+ Privacy (nobody knows who you are)
4｜Why is 'human proof' essentially a power structure?
Many people mistakenly think that Humanity Protocol is a 'anti-bot' tool.
In fact, it is a more fundamental structural declaration:
'Who is considered human' determines 'who has the right to participate'.
As AI sweeps through social platforms, content platforms, DAO governance, and even asset distribution, 'proving you are human' gradually becomes the threshold for entering the world.
This is not a security issue; it is a power issue.
It determines your eligibility to receive airdrops, participate in governance, sign contracts, gain reputation, and influence narratives.
It will shape a new social hierarchy on the chain:
+ Those without a human ID are the silent observers;
+ Only those with a unique ID can become 'digital citizens'.
In other words, we are moving towards an era of 'human assetization'; the fact that you are human itself becomes a resource that can be priced, proven, and empowered.
