27:10 in his interview with Lex Fridman, Mark Zuckerberg hits on one of my ideas, which I believe will be a winner. People might be able to change an aspect of their photo-realistic avatar that they don’t like. For example, a smaller nose or less bushy eyebrows. In my imagining of the “metaverse” you can change just one such thing, and your hair as much as you want. Changing just those and you will still be recognisable, which is a key to having some integrity and realism.
Something that is missing so far is integrity of the environment. Zuckerberg imagines the metaverse will be used for playing games together (that won’t be important to many people), and meetings where I think he envisions tropical island backgrounds. No, the end game of all this is actual reality.
The metaverse will offer the convenience of remote people being physically present. In the board room, people wearing the AR glasses will be able to see present people, and the avatar of some remote person, appearing near-enough in the same size and great resolution and 3D, with a photo-realistic head. We will soon barely notice the perfunctory bodies and just look at the head. The remote person will be in VR mode and will feel like they are in the room, and can even get up and walk around. They can see the photo-realistic everything of people there, because the room will have a few cameras on top of people wearing specs.
I don’t know if this will take off, but a third type of participant could be a robot controlled by a remote person. For example, if a boss wants to walk around the factory floor while they are on vacation, a factory isn’t set up like a meeting room. Their face would be a 2D screen on the “head” of a robot.
Integrity is everything and my metaverse is actually a digital reproduction of the entire planet. In cities it could have 1cm resolution. This requires a lot of data (1000x all the data centres we currently have) so you would start off with major cities first — the greater the population density, the better value and utility you will get.
Where does the data come from? The future will involve a lot of drones, robots, dashcams and autonomous vehicles, all with cameras. That data could be purchased and stitched together as a “fresh” layer on top of what we already have with the likes of Google Maps Streetview.
You will be able to traverse the entire planet digitally, in real time. The majority of what you see will not be fresh, but doesn’t need to be. The Golden Gate Bridge or the seas and hills in the background won’t be changing. Superimposed onto the digital world will be “fresh” data from independent cameras — say a new billboard or shopfront. Car data could put actual cars in place in real time. And anyone participating in the Metaverse, their digital version can be seen in real time. All that will be meaningful and missing will be people, cars and animals who are not plugged in. Approximations of them can be provided from fixed street cameras. Their privacy can be assured — maybe a person’s dress is represented but they have a generic/blank face.
Aside from not being able to physically interact, someone travelling in virtual reality through the metaverse version of the real world will get the same experience as someone who is physically there. You will be able to walk into a participating shop and see products on the shelves, and buy them. A combination of fixed cameras and RFID and digital twin data will let you inspect products. A salesperson (wearing AR glasses) will see you present in the store, and will be able to show you a particular product in real live view, through the view of their glasses. As a side-program, you could try the product on virtually — maybe just by walking into the dressing room.
Using the above process, people can attend events virtually. Meetings. Visit family (ideally their home is tricked with the necessary cameras). Shopping. Tourism will be huge.
You can be at a pub with your mates, virtually (29:40). The same faces, the same banter, the same environment. You just won’t be able to go to the bar, instead you’ll have a beer fridge next to you in your VR room at home. In this scenario, you could meet someone with romantic potential…
My opinion — doing this is a game or with a cartoony background, doesn’t work. At least one participant needs to actually be there.
It would be so amazing that usage would need to limited. A bar can’t have 10,000 virtual people with all their holograph-like presences merging. And the thing needs to be paid for.
Going somewhere will cost you. Think of it like electric scooter hire. Going to the same office every day will be cheap. Travelling on a virtual bus, at bus speed, will be cheapish. Teleporting to anywhere in the world will not be cheap.
The other form of funding will be advertising, just like everything else. If a real person is walking past your restaurant, hit them with a 2-for-1 burger offer. We won’t be bombarded, just like Google Search only shows 4 ads — there will be a balance.
Here is a wonderful aspect that I believe is original. Whoever owns land in the real world, owns it in the Metaverse. That means restricting access. That means income. To save us from some kind of Second Life excess.
I see the future as revolving around billboards. If you have a digital billboard on the side of your building (in the real world, showing ads), then you get to have one in the digital world, in the same spot. You earn money from both.
First mover advantage is massive. Their will probably be two versions of this, like there is Apple and Android. A premium and a cheap version. No room for any other competitors ever, just like there isn’t a clone of Facebook competing.
In my opinion, this end game is inevitable. It is simply a matter of who takes the reins, and when the tech becomes affordable enough to make it real.
