Brave New World Dept.Are You a Human?From branding irons to iris scans, the ancient business of proving who you are has never been stranger—or more lucrative.By Jill LeporeAugust 10, 2026There are now more bots online than people. The challenge used to be telling who was a person from who was a bot; today, the challenge is telling good bots and bad bots apart—with humanity in the lurch.Illustration by Bratislav MilenkovicSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyThree summers ago, Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, posted on X a fifteen-second video of dozens of people—mostly young, veiled in face...