At the MBA student leadership summit, I demystified some of the then-buzzing terms in technology. Going beyond mere definitions, I offered a balanced perspective, intertwining genuine excitement for technological advancements with a cautionary note on their implications.
Live Presentation Transcript from Slide Notes:
Slide 1: Hello! I’m excited to get to share some of my passions with you today, technology and criticism! There’s always lot’s of discussion around the latest and greatest buzzwords, and these overhyped and least understood technologies happen to be brought up often. I think it’s important to know what is the newest bright and shiny object, and how to ground yourself in a little knowledge and realism with new things. Especially as they come up in conversation in our professional working careers. (29.52 seconds)
Slide 2: The foundation of all these buzzwords is “The Blockchain”. The underlying process of the blockchain is relatively simple. It’s a network of nodes consisting of a cluster of machines which all must reach consensus in order to validate a transaction or change. The reasoning behind this is that while one computer is relatively easy to hack, multiple devices would be much more difficult to hack simultaneously. Once a cluster validates an action, the transaction in the form of a block of information is added to a digital ledger, the chain. Hence the name, Block-Chain. The biggest claim to blockchain is that no one computer owns the information, making it decentralized, and because they are all hashed transactions, it is claimed to be completely private and anonymous. (43.45 Seconds)
Slide 3: What does a digital ledger look like? On the left we see an example from Venmo, where the transactions between users are private, and the usernames are public. On the right we an example from Binance Smart Chain, where the transactions are public blocks, and the hashed addresses are anonymous. Any blockchain your cryptocurrency is built upon has a blockchain explorer, which lets you view and verify these transactions or blocks. Frankly, I find both very invasive and uncomfortable. (26.45 Seconds)
Slide 4: Following the previous comparison, one fairly simple and immediate application of blockchain is to address a transaction as a digital assets, called cryptocurrency. Here are my favorite cryptocurrency apps! One the left are two great apps which allow you to buy and sell crypto from your fiat banking accounts. On the right are two apps for blockchain storage. These exchanges and wallets are what allows you to buy and sell digital assets of all kinds, like other currencies, NFTs, and they are needed to access meta-spaces. (29.39 Seconds)
Slide 5: Now we look at NFTs. Unlike Cryptocurrency, which is interchangeable with any other currency or token, these are “Non-Fungible Tokens” meaning there is only one of that unique receipt address, even if they have identical images or files associated with them. The app on the left is where you can buy/sell NFTs. Most of the time, I think it is the worst “Art” I’ve ever seen, and I think people are just trying to sell hype around nothing. It’s the same feeling around buying/selling collectable trading cards. Sometimes the NFTs hold tangible value, like the “Vee Friends” Series created by Gary Vee, where holding one of his NFTs is an annual pass to his massive multi-day marketing conference, as well as the possibility to meet with him and discuss business or life coaching. (42.98 Seconds)
Slide 6 Part 1: This brings us to how the Web has evolved. I was here for some of this, so it’s interesting to see how far we have come. I tried to add the logos of popular companies within stages to give a reference point. This chart was made in 2008, so a lot of this is making predictions, and we see how they turned out now. I also like this chart as it shows clear milestones and objectives for what needs for that age to be reached. From this perspective, we’ve been in Web3 already for some time, and it’s Web4 and Web5 we are working on now. (30.36 Seconds)
Slide 6 Part 2: Web1 is the world of information storage and access held by few, Web2 is something like the social media and ecommerce aspects where information is made by the people and held by few.
Web3 is supposed to be moving towards interconnected spaces which are created by and held by the people, which is why the idea of a discrete and anonymous blockchain appeals to this ideal.
Web4 is the world of humans interacting with essentially perfect holograms or simulations, and Web5 is when holograms will interact with holograms on our behalf, and the lines of organic and digital are blurred.
You could consider this the beginning of The Matrix (first released in 1999 for reference), and the inspiration behind the metaverse.
So what does our transition into the metaverse look like?(47.97 Seconds)
Slide 7: This is a screenshot of the game Fortnite. This is Ariana Grande, Performing in the “Rift Tour” on Fortnite during the summer. I was able to attend this event, which was very fun, and made the concert interactive with little mini games to be played while she performed. These Fortnite concerts were particularly timely as this was when the pandemic had first initiated the shut-down of many public artistic venues. They also hosted concerts from Deadmou5, Orvill Peck, Marshmallow, and Travis Scott, and others. They literally set the stage for what was possible in live entertainment. (33.45 Seconds)
Slide 8: Being able to provide a digital platform and maintain the entertainment value of live concerts is something we are still struggling to achieve, but this gives a glimpse of an idea into what has been tried over the last two years.
This company, Wave, hosted artists like Justin Bieber, Lindsey Stirling, The Weeknd, and John Legend. You had to have the NFT in order to attend, so they were using them as concert tickets. (23.76 Seconds)
Slide 9: If you have recently heard the hype around buying up all the property and real estate in the metaverse, it’s happening here, in The Sandbox. This is an image of the current world map of the sandbox, and once you own land, you can host all kinds of digital architecture. Once you are there in VR, you can do things like meet up with friends, ride roller coasters, and there is a dance club region owned and operated by Snoop Dog. Everything I have seen so far feels pretty cartoonish and silly to me. (26.75 Seconds)
Slide 10: Here we have the famous Facebook, ergh, I mean “Meta” Horizon. Which includes a fun VR version of Facebook games, and “Workrooms” which is a VR version of zoom, with interactive whiteboards and stuff. And apparently, when you’re working, you have nowhere to go, so who needs legs? We can see that things are starting to get a little more productive, and a little more realistic. (24.08 Seconds)
Slide 11: Which brings us into the horizon of Web4, where technology is heading. 12.1 Seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3F1vZYpH8c (12.1 + video = 1:24.62)
There are already chat bots which do a pretty good job of nearly passing the Turing test (the ability to decide if an artificial intelligence has reached a level which we cannot distinguish from human). Rather than the Ai robots we see today, which are uncanny but you can tell they aren’t human. Imagine for a moment, in the metaverse, we can manifest and render Ai as real and believable beings, which are rendered at the exact same quality as our biological friends and our self. I may know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t this seem like the makings for a dystopia? (35.52 Seconds)
Slide 12: Can’t the FBI just connect the dots between my real life identity and my hashed blockchain addresses? YES! And they’re very good at it! Your “Anonymous” Blockchain behavior is only as private as an email address made up of numbers and letters. Once it is associated with your name, it’s as if every email you ever sent or received is public information, and conveniently accessed by literally anyone on the blockchain explorer. But at least it’s “Decentralized” right? It’s owned by everyone! No primary ownership! (28.6 Seconds)
Slide 13: Sure, just explain why it was a no-brainer move for Facebook to invest $10 Billion to rebrand as “Meta” and build the infrastructure to acquire the bulk majority of the currency, NFTs, and metaverse real estate. As long as Marginal Revenue is greater than Average Cost, you should enter the market. Is this our dream future in the workplace? (22.7 Seconds)
Slide 14: Finally, this is a graph of plotting ice-core data of global CO2 output compared to human technological advancements. You can see the impact form the growth of popularity in the world wide web, as well as Bitcoin. If you believe this blockchain technology is another internet bubble, you’re probably right. The 2008 dot-com market crash sent ripples through time. Did the internet go away? No. Has it had a lasting impact? Yes.
It’s important to know how these technological advancements impact the habitability of our planet. The climate of the Earth is at stake, and literally no one will survive in the Metaverse while the Earth’s climate cooks all the people in their VR machines. I suppose we can choose to just live out the remainder of our lives in the perfect digital space, keeping our heads in the sand-box. I’ll see you there. :) (47.68 seconds)