*By Pablo Saez
At the end of October, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, announced the launch of a new brand, Meta, which will be a company adapted to the metaverse. Since then, much has been said on the subject. But there still seems to be little understanding of what, in fact, the metaverse is and, mainly, the challenges for its creation and the transformations that this new world will provoke in lives and businesses. It is important to make it clear right away: we are far from developing the technology necessary to bring the metaverse to life.
Metaverse comes from the prefix meta, which means transcendent, and verse, from universe: transcendent universe, which describes a virtual world interconnected with the physical world. The word appeared in Neal Stephenson's 1992 book Snowcrash. But the idea of virtual worlds habitable by us has always existed in human culture and fantasies. He appeared, for example, in 1982, in the film Tron, which was remake in 2010, in The Matrix and in several episodes of the Black Mirror series. Games like Second Life and Fortnite also rely on this virtual universe.
what is the metaverse
The concept of metaverse, also called Web 3.0 or Spatial Web, presupposes the creation of a “3D internet” that connects to the physical world in a natural way. In this new web, it is possible to interact with virtual entities “brought” to the real world, in the same way that it takes us to the virtual world. The user, instead of consuming text, video and audio through a screen, can “enter” a virtual world, with the possibility of physically feeling sensations experienced by their avatar, which would be their “persona” in this world.
Examples? Think about remote work today and what it could be like if you “entered” an environment and could interact with your co-workers; imagine an online purchase in an environment that puts you in an immersive virtual store, similar to an online store, where you (or your avatar) would enter the store and choose a book, clothes or a car – how about taking a test drive of a Porsche in a universe that simulates a road in the German Alps? Imagination is the limit to the experiences that can be created.
When it becomes reality, the metaverse could be our place to work, socialize and play. He doubts? Think about the amount of hours young people spend on social media 2.0 and compare it to the intensity of the metaverse experiences (those who watched the Black Mirror episode Striking Vipers can understand. The appeal will be too great to ignore.
But the metaverse goes beyond insertion into a virtual world; it is a two-way world, providing physical experiences in the virtual world – and virtual experiences in the physical world. In this second case, we can think of a person planning the decoration of a new house. She positions the virtual sofa in the chosen spot in the house – using an augmented reality glasses or lens. When the delivery man arrives, he will be able, with his glasses, to know exactly where to install the real sofa. We can think of other applications as a virtual guide that accompanies the tourist in a city, or training in which a person can tighten a virtual screw with a real screwdriver.
Metaverse implications
The creation of the metaverse will force society (people, governments and companies) to rethink questions regarding law, rights, freedom, privacy. With the development of the metaverse, it will be possible for a person to create an independent avatar, which emulates the behavior of the “person” through artificial intelligence and machine learning. If this avatar commits a cybercrime, who should be held criminally liable? Can a person be fired if their avatar disrespects a colleague or fails to meet a deadline?
Will the metaverse have an “owner”? Who will control it? A bigtech? The government of a country? Or a group formed by governments and companies? Who will choose this group? Will the codes for its creation be open? Who will be the “judge” to resolve disputes in the virtual world?
There are more existential questions: can a person have multiple avatars and interact anonymously? Is it possible to assume the image of a famous living person or a historical character? In that case, how to identify it in situations where this is relevant? And what to do with a dead person's avatar? Will he be able to survive in the metaverse? Or must he “die” along with his double?
In addition to legal and ethical aspects, the metaverse has the potential to create a new economy. New business opportunities for companies are enormous. It is evident that the objectives of large companies for the development of Metaverso are economic. A new world with infinite possibilities for creating experiences and journeys is a great potential market to work in. The creation of a parallel virtual economy, which supports all the business processes of the new world and with an even greater level of complexity than the current global economic market, will therefore be inevitable.
Are we close to entering the metaverse?
Despite the excitement of Zuckerberg and many others, the development of the metaverse involves overcoming technological challenges that today are considerable. The current data transmission networks do not support the amount of data to render a virtual world in very high resolution, as well as the processors are still below the necessary. And we need to develop technologies to increase the interaction between the physical and virtual world – among other challenges.
For now, the metaverse is just a fascinating and exciting idea.
*Pablo Saéz, lead partner of Digital Technology at NTT DATA
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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