What Is ‘Metaverse’
Jen Sincero, an American writer had said “Our 'realities' are make-believe - whatever we make ourselves believe, we experience”. Is ‘Metaverse’ make believe? Can ‘Metaverse’ take us from real into unreal and the other way round like ‘Advaita Vedanta does for us? Let’s find out.
‘Scythe’ is a science fiction novel by Neal Shusterman. It is a ‘utopian’ story that conceives a future without disease, hunger, war, or crime and focuses on a society that functions fairly well under the guidance of Thunderhead, an advanced cloud technology that oversees everything. The Scythes independent of the Thunderhead, with the help of AI algorithms, keep overpopulation in check by killing people. The story then goes through the machinations of the Scythes vs the society.
Can we use copies of ourselves to represent ourselves? Can we communicate with each other and virtually build our own community? Can we use digital currency to buy food or maybe anything under the sun? Can we travel virtually through the metaverse for fun? In another fictional odyssey, ‘Ready Player One’ is a 2018 American science fiction action film based on Ernest Cline's novel of the same name and was directed by Steven Spielberg. Set in the year 2045, it showed people escaping the problems plaguing Earth in a virtual world called the Oasis. Are these scenarios possible in future? Now for something real albeit in a virtual world. 27.7 million players attended Fortnite’s Travis Scott Virtual Concert and elsewhere someone bought a digital Gucci bag for 4115 USD which costs 3500 USD in the real world when Gucci the fashion giant offered it on Roblox, a gaming platform. The only difference is, this Gucci cannot be used, as it is a digital version. This spend is real money in a virtual world proving the adage that ‘it takes all kinds to make this world’.
‘Metaverse’ is Meta and Universe. Meta is a prefix that denotes something of a higher order and transcendent. ‘Metaverse’ is the next iteration of the Internet’s frontend. Mark Zuckerberg defines it as a virtual world where people can interact, hold meetings, buy property and do much more. Imagine a virtual world where we live, work, shop and interact with others, all from the comfort of our home or bed in the physical world. What makes it possible is a network of 3D virtual worlds using AR/VR technologies to interact with the digital domain in more realistic, experiential and immersive ways. Suppose we wish to surf Amazon. Metaverse will allow virtual hands to pick up and manipulate objects. Our voices then can give instructions to machines, or talk to other people. Roblox, Minecraft and other immersive video games are built on Metaverse. Roblox has 220 million monthly players with 32 of them actually becoming millionaires playing the game that they developed. Metaverse is expected to cross 100 billion USD in 2022.
Metaverse will be the interface through which we will engage with web3 tools and applications. Can it create a virtual economy that runs parallel to our real one? Is this in the realm of fiction? No. The 5G technology will enable it. Will all these new technologies lead to a fresh set of regulations? Will the governments let this happen without a bother? Will the VCs and their LPs control the web in future? All important questions to answer before web3 tools take over. Another concern is of course energy use since web3 tools are built on ‘blockchain’, which is very energy-intensive.
So, what is Blockchain? It is a new method of storing data online, which is built around important concepts of encryption and distributed computing. First encryption. It means, that data stored on a blockchain can only be accessed by people with permission to access it. Such data may be stored on a government or a corporate computer.
Second is the distributed computing. It means that every file is shared across many computers or servers. If data on a computer does not match with its copies on other computers or servers, that file becomes invalid. Simply put, no one can change data, except the one who creates it, without the permission of either the person who owns it or the entire distributed network.
Both concepts read together, meaning the data can be stored in a way so it is always under the control of the person who owns it, irrespective of where it is stored, whether a government or a corporate-owned server.
What does this mean? Firstly, the owner, even if it be the government, can never access or change the data without the keys to the encryption that proves they own it. Secondly, suppose the owner or the government shuts down or removes their servers, the data is still accessible on one of the hundreds of other computers that it’s stored in. Guess what is going on? A journey to ‘Metaverse’ is on.
web1 was the internet we all love to use. web2 is the user-generated web, influenced by social media. Web3 currently in development is designed to be decentralized, which means it will not be controlled by governments or corporations. “Metaverse” is the new cutting-edge Web 3.0 technology. The technical infrastructure of web3 is open, built on open-source software, is trust-less and permissionless.
Transactions happen between two individuals or entities without the need for a trusted third party which means communications cannot be manipulated. "Permissionless" means none of the parties needs to seek permission from a third party like the service provider or the government while transacting. Technically it means that all the so-called middlemen needed to run an organization, such as bankers, lawyers, accountants, and landlords will become redundant. No fancy stuff. It is already happening. Did you know that ‘Decentraland’ users can use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and a cryptocurrency called MANA to buy digital real estate? Will then the government now seek to regulate the end-to-end encryption of the messages we may send in the future, only time will tell.
Metaverse is a work in progress and may take a couple of years more. Research in ambient computing is the key. Specific electronic equipment to connect to the metaverse will be needed. For a 3D world to come alive, we will need computers to exist all around us with screens fitted into almost everything with interaction with them happening by gestures, and maybe even our thoughts. It is predicted that a quarter of the population will spend at least an hour daily in the Metaverse by 2026. Facebook which invested 10 billion USD on ‘Metaverse’ in 2021 is pioneering wrist-based augmented reality controllers, which will read the signals sent to our hands through neurons in the human brain. The controller will then sense and relay our gestures to machines. Some more science or fiction or both? Whatever it is, it will be a reality sooner than later.
