All the world’s a (digital) stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
Shakespeare’s poem inadvertently jumps into my mind when I think about the Metaverse. The correlations are numerous; the constructed world is a stage and those who jack in the players. You can enter and exit at will, and it gives you the freedom to play as many parts as you want to. However, what happens on a stage is scripted and directed. That made me think about a few behind-the-scenes questions.
We’ve already discussed some things around those who play God in the Metaverse in “What would life be like in a metaverse, and do you want in?” Today I want to take a look at other elements of online life that could influence real life. It’s one thing to distance yourself from the Metaverse as something ‘other’ people will do, but what if it is possible to bridge the digital divide and create chaos in the here and now?
Things That Think was a MIT Media Laborator research project from January 1995 to January 2014. The project aimed to design:
seamless interfaces that bridge the digital and physical worlds while meeting the human need for creative expression; and creating an understanding of context and affect that helps things “think” at a much deeper level.
I would assume that many of the ‘Things’ designed are part of everyday life today. Typical examples would be a watch that measures your vitals and warns you when your body is reacting to stress symptoms that could lead to, say, a heart attack. A more sophisticated example would be to live in a tech-advanced home. Your garage door opens automatically as it reads your licence plate. The lights in your house go on as it detects movement. Things like your TV and music centre power up depending on your voice commands.
The ‘Things” we use respond intuitively to the humans around it. Just think about the Internet and how the algorithms react to your digital footprint. Everything you do in the virtual world is stored, analyzed and used. Used to predict shopping behaviour, trends, and voting, and it’s a pandora’s box.
Hypothetical technology includes fully autonomous vehicles, mind uploading and AI replicating the human ability to learn. There was a time when something like the Metaverse was considered futurism, and here we are today with it becoming a reality.
Things That Think would play an integral part of a connected universe. The ultimate vision of the Metaverse is to replace the Internet as a single connected virtual world. The Things we’re using connect to the Internet, like Facebook, like the tech you use to upload critical biometric data to your doctor. If something’s on the Internet, it can be hacked, influenced and manipulated. The Metaverse aims to narrow the divide between the real and virtual worlds.
Given the above, let’s play what if.
What if your Metaverse life can be traced to your real life? Would a malicious person be able to cause havoc from the Metaverse to your real life? That should most definitely be a real concern.
Central to the concept of the metaverse is the idea that virtual, 3D environments that are accessible and interactive in real time will become the transformative medium for human engagement. If they are to become practical, these environments will be dependent on widespread adoption of extended reality. weforum.org
How about this. What if you befriend someone in the Metaverse who turns out to be a Psychopath? It is already a problem on the Internet; how much more with a world that aims to erase the lines between what is real and what is not? I am not against the Metaverse. However, I am cautioning against jumping headlong into it. Before we hook up, there needs to be a lot more discussions and research about best practices, privacy and security. I want us to think about what we’re investing in.
Let’s close with my initial question; if you don’t jack in, can you be at risk? The possibility is a big yes, given your proximity to smart technology and what creators decide to include in the Metaverse they’re building. So, unless you’re living completely of the grid, you won’t be able to avoid a merging of the digital and physical worlds.
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