he Twitter-turned-X feed is riddled with bots. OpenAI’s network seeks to remedy the issue — but at what cost?

The AI company is working on a humans-first platform positioned to compete against dominant social media firms, such as X, Instagram and TikTok, according to a new Forbes report. The app is still in the early stages, with a small team of less than ten people developing it.

The key differentiator between this platform and others is that it may include a biometric identity component. Sources familiar with the project cited in the report said the team is considering requiring users to prove their “personhood” via Apple’s Face ID or the World Orb, an eyeball scanner developed by Tools for Humanity, a company co-founded by Sam Altman.

World’s Orb is a sphere that includes an optical system with telephoto lens and 2D gimbal mirror, created for the sole purpose of proving humanity, according to the site. The company claims the iris image is encoded and encrypted directly to the World Orb, keeping user data safe. Naturally, concerns persist about both the privacy risks of handing over biometric data and whether it is appropriate to mandate this at all.

This report breaks as new data shows that OpenAI’s first tiptoe into the social media space, its Sora app, is declining in popularity, as first reported by TechCrunch.

The Sora app, which let people share AI video and image generations, became a viral sensation upon launch in September, accruing 100,000 installs on day one despite being only available on iOS and an invite-only experience. It then climbed to one million downloads, beating a record ChatGPT set as the fastest growing app of all time. However, the app has since lost momentum as Appfigures data shows downloads fell 32% and 45% month-over-month in December and January, respectively.