In his 1992 novel Snow Crash, author Neal Stephenson introduced the concept of a “metaverse” – a fantastic virtual world that felt as real and present as reality itself.
Nearly three decades later, Mark Zuckerberg is making Stephenson’s vision a reality.
Last Thursday, the CEO and co-founder of Facebook unveiled the metaverse project of his company during a virtual conference. Reminiscent of Stephenson’s book and other sci-fi staples like Tron or Enter Player One, Zuckerberg’s metaverse was presented as an “Internet incarnate” where you could play, socialize, work, and more.
“We believe that the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile Internet,” Zuckerberg said. “We will be able to feel present, as if we are there with the people, no matter how far away we really are.”
During the same conference, Zuckerberg revealed that the Facebook holding company is changing its name to “Meta” to “reflect our commitment to this future,” according to Meta website. In particular, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other properties owned by Meta will retain their names.
So what is the metaverse?
In practice, the metaverse would resemble a hodgepodge of existing and still-developing technologies, all working together to create a tangible digital layer over reality. It would be facilitated by virtual and augmented reality, accessed through glasses, goggles, and other technology that is still in the works.
For example, instead of looking at the Internet through a screen, users would put on virtual reality glasses and feel physically present within the virtual world of Meta. Eventually, haptic technology could allow users to feel physical sensations, while biometric scanners capture micro-movements that allow facial expression, Zuckerberg said.
“You will be able to instantly teleport as a hologram to be in the office without traveling, at a concert with friends or in your parents’ living room to catch up,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter from the founder last Thursday.
Alternatively, people could bring digital aspects, like 3D art, to the physical world through augmented reality, think of games like Pokemon Go. Zuckerberg said these will be accessible through high-tech lenses that are still in production.
Other aspects of the metaverse would be accessed through more standardized technologies, such as computers and smartphones.
When will it get here?
Zuckerberg acknowledged that the full metaverse is still years away. TO press release September 27 estimates that many of its products will “only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years” and will require collaboration from policy makers, industry partners and experts.
Still, during his lecture, Zuckerberg said: “In the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers.”
The rise of virtual reality will be “inevitable,” said Beth Coleman, author of Hello avatar and associate professor of data and cities at the University of Toronto. Just as society had woven the Internet into its cultural and socioeconomic fabric, Coleman hopes that virtual reality will eventually become as integral to everyday life and the economy.
“In a way, we’re already doing all of that online,” Coleman said. How much time have you spent zooming in in the last 18 months? How many things do we buy online instead of going to a physical store? “
“… The metaverse is just the next step in this development of robust communications, visualized in real time,” he said.
However, you are concerned that Facebook (or Meta) is leading the charge.
“If the new Meta brand has a monopoly on the metaverse … that’s a very daunting prospect,” Coleman said. “Basically, Mark Zuckerberg will rule the entire virtual world.”
Privacy concerns
Anatoliy Gruzd, a professor and director of research at Ryerson University’s social media lab, said the metaverse may be more susceptible to data breaches.
“(The metaverse) will expose more user data on more platforms … by creating all these different places where people can interact and connect on other devices, it creates more opportunities for privacy concerns,” he said.
At the same time, the metaverse could allow for much more data collection, from user biometrics to facial recognition. This is concerning, Gruzd said, considering Facebook’s track record regarding privacy and security.
For instance, in 2018, a whistleblower disclosed that Cambridge Analytica, a company connected to both Donald Trump’s 2016 election team and the winning Brexit campaign, collected the private information of up to 87 million Facebook users without permission in 2014.
Even though Facebook discovered The 2015 leak failed to alert users and took limited steps to protect and recover stolen information.
Misinformation and radicalization
Gruzd was also confident that current Facebook issues like political polarization, hate speech, and misinformation would carry over to the metaverse.
“I guarantee you that the same problems that we see on social media right now will exist in any other form of connected reality, simply because we are human,” he said. “The same factors that drive antisocial behavior online and some of the other trends like the spread of misinformation (it won’t stop), there’s just going to be a new place to do that.”
The message is especially prophetic in light of Facebook docs, a collection of internal Facebook documents disclosed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission by whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Newspapers revealed that Facebook revoked measures preventing hate speech and misinformation months before the January 6 insurrection; employed few measures to counter hate speech and disinformation in the developing world; actively chose user engagement over safety, using algorithms that favored outrage over all other engagement indicators; and much more.
“Naive visions”
Taina Bucher, Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Oslo in Norway and author of “Facebook”, cautioned that these are still the early days of a product launch. Zuckerberg is trying to hype the product with “rhetoric and strategic communication,” he said.
So now begins the task of classifying these strange, hopelessly naive visions. What are the repercussions and consequences of all this? “
The metaverse is so large and multifaceted that there will surely be unforeseen problems, not to mention all the existing problems for Facebook, he said: “problems are waiting to arise.”
Bucher also wondered how a system designed by a billionaire would suit people and perspectives around the world.
“It just feels very privileged. I’m pretty sure (the metaverse) can only be imagined from a very specific place, and that place is so exclusive and unrepresentative of the rest of the world, ”Bucher said.
“It’s easy to laugh at it now… but it could actually become a reality because it’s Facebook who is trying to figure it out. And then it might not be so much fun anymore. “
Reference-www.thestar.com