Human: Digital Passport for the Post-AGI World
February 22, 2024
Human's mission is to enable the world beyond national borders. Foster the creation of new non-national governments with their voting, currency, taxation, and wealth distribution systems. Empower global self-sovereign citizens and give humanity control and ownership of the planet.
Human tackles the issue of online identity uniqueness, democracy trust centralization, presenting a solution through a user-owned economic and governance ecosystem. It incorporates an open-source standard for Continuous Human Verification. The ecosystem is built as an open protocol meant to be owned by all people equally and designed to be a public good: non-excludable (open to all unique humans without restrictions) and non-rivalrous (one person's use doesn't diminish another's ability to use it). It operates on credible neutrality principles.
Through its unique technology and foundational decisions, Human aims to provide everyone in the world access to the growing digital and global economy in a privacy-preserving and decentralized way. At the heart of this ecosystem, every individual is a verified real person, maintaining absolute control over their digital assets and personal data. All humans are equal in the protocol: one human can have only one Human ID, run only one consensus node, have only one vote, and receive an identical amount of Humancoin.
Human consists of four key components:
Human Network is an open, decentralized network of verified, unique human identities running entirely on user-owned mobile devices.
Human ID is an unhackable digital ID that proves you’re you — not a fake, AI, or bot. Only your face grants access to your ID and data, while your ID can be verified without sharing anything about you.
Human Dollar (HMN) is a native coin, regularly issued as a reward for the successful verification of one's uniqueness. The currency is universally available and equally issued by protocol to everyone.
Human App is a secure gateway into the Human Network, as well as an ID and digital payments.
Mission-Driven Choices
Human is a network of humans, not machines, which makes Metcalfe's law applicable. It is important to point out because we always look back at it while working on different parts of the ecosystem.
At first glance, the fair launch looks effortless and straightforward: only the public ecosystem can be used by all consumers – individuals, families, companies, cities, governments, etc. If there is an owner, we inevitably get those against the ecosystem for one reason or another. Bitcoin is fair enough for its purpose, and because of that, it is the only network decentralized on most levels, at least for now. Fair launch is a challenging concept on many levels because it is hard to be fair to everyone, especially if they are separated by time, like parents and their kids. From this particular point of view, Bitcoin is not fair because it favors early adopters and those with capital to build businesses around mining.
“Initial Human, Inc. team have created Human, but we own none of it,” – says Kirill Avery, co-founder of Human. The economics model and the native coin are designed to reflect the team's mission and approach. The source code will be gradually open-sourced. The Human Network Foundation is pivotal in supporting and directing the network's growth and the developer and user community. However, it remains non-governing, adhering strictly to the decisions made by the network's participants.
Human is the first and most ambitious programmable ecosystem created with consumers in mind. We created Human because it is the only ecosystem that can allow us to create products in a way that benefits society at large. We want it to be light-speed-fast, secure, easy to use, easy to create apps in, and in full control of real humans.
Initial Human, Inc. is the software company behind Human App, the first wallet for the ecosystem, which helps users with Human ID verification. Human App will become a user-friendly decentralized app store.
Human Uniqueness and Verification Protocol
A human uniqueness has never been solved on the network level by any known platform in the world. Human ID is designed to non-economically align incentives of all network participants around adding real humans to the network. As a result, Human is Sybil-resistant, which opens up many technological advances that seemed challenging before.
For us, it is very important that all humans in the world, including your kids or unborn grandkids, can eventually use the platform. There is no technology that can solely address all principles defining a truly working human uniqueness verification protocol:
Unauthorized User Additions: The verification protocol ensures that users cannot add or identify people they do not personally know and have never met. Neither a member's negligence nor the influence of online acquaintances should allow the invitation of new users without verifying their identity by their peers.
Duplicate Human IDs: The verification protocol prevents creating a new ID for someone with a Human ID.
False Identities: The verification protocol safeguards against dishonest users attempting to add non-existent or fictitious individuals.
Identity Theft: The verification protocol prohibits adding existing people without their knowledge, thus preventing identity theft.
Transfer of Control for a Human ID: The verification protocol strictly prohibits the temporary and permanent transfer of control over a Human ID from one user to another. This ensures that the identity associated with a Human ID remains in the sole control and ownership of the individual it represents, thus preventing a black market of identities.
User Data Confidentiality: All user data is transmitted, stored, and reviled securely and in a privacy-preserving manner. Access to this data requires direct permission from the data owner.
Inclusivity: Anyone in the world, at any point in human history, can be added to the network just once, provided they are honest.
Minimal Dependence on Centralized Systems: The verification protocol should minimize, and eventually eliminate, dependence on centralized systems like databases or servers owned by other companies and governments. This is to prevent them from having an undue advantage over the verification process.
To address all these at once, we’ve designed the Continuous Human Verification Protocol as a new open source standard around three primitives: zero-knowledge face biometry, social graph, and "notarized credentials."
After five years of research, we've come to understand that there is no perfect solution. There's always a trade-off, either in terms of security or the decentralization of a protocol. Human is an open-source solution that consolidates all verification events into a single event chain, enhancing the probability that someone is a real person. This generates a dynamic "Humanness" score that can evolve over time as more steps are incorporated and added by other teams.
The protocol itself is a ten-step process that makes it easy for the unsophisticated user to create their first Human ID while blocking, slowing down, and/or making infinitely expensive all other activities aimed at tricking the protocol.
Yes, we’ve put in place all possible safeguards to prevent the creation of non-existent accounts. Still, we understand that bad sophisticated actors will find a way to do it, meaning it is impossible to create a zero-bot ecosystem. Our goal is less than 0.01% bots in the Human Network at the global scale. More detailed documentation regarding the verification process will be released and ultimately made open source by mid-2024.
Human App and Use Cases
Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) establishes a framework where individuals have complete control and ownership over their personal data and identity attributes, enabling autonomous and secure management, sharing, and asserting their identity across various contexts. Human ID, as an implementation example within the Human Network, paves the way for numerous compelling use cases across industries.
Many of these cases will focus on internal applications or serve as a bridge to web2 during the initial stages following the network launch.
At a scale, the adoption of decentralized identity solutions showcases their potential to address real-world challenges and deliver tangible benefits. Various industries have identified compelling use cases for decentralized identity, such as customer onboarding requiring legal-grade Know Your Customer (KYC) processes on a global scale, accompanied by compliance with regulations like the Travel Rule. Additionally, these solutions enable strong customer authentication (SCA) to enhance security, streamline eSignature processes for efficient digital transactions, and revolutionize eVoting mechanisms for secure and transparent democratic practices. Through these use cases, decentralized identity demonstrates its potential to transform key aspects of our digital interactions and establish trust in various contexts.
Individuals will have autonomous control over their documentation, securely stored in their digital vaults making possible the use cases that address the Human mission. In the future, industries such as eCommerce & retail, telco, finance (including banks and insurance companies), gaming, payment service providers, government, education and science, healthcare, travel & hospitality, and recruitment are likely to show increasing interest in Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI).
Conclusion
While still experimental, the potential of Human is undeniable. The overarching goal is to avoid historical pitfalls where single, trusted authorities controlled identity issuance. Human aims to establish a system free from manipulation by governments or corporations, ensuring a decentralized, fair, and secure digital identity for everyone.
This vision for Human is underpinned by a commitment to privacy-first, decentralized, and inclusive principles, making it a truly revolutionary worldwide financial and identity network. Every member of Human is not just a user, but a co-owner of the network's value, reshaping the landscape of digital and global economies.
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