Instant Genius - The metaverse, with Prof David Reid

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Virtual reality expert Prof David Reid explains the metaverse – a new form of internet focused on interactivity that we could all be experiencing very soon. Once you’ve mastered the basics with Instant Genius, dive deeper with Instant Genius Extra, where you’ll find longer, richer discussions about the most exciting ideas in the world of science and technology. Only available on Apple Podcasts. Produced by the team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine. Visit our website: sciencefocus.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From origin to legend. I need to become a symbol. I need to become the hero. Someone's got to step up. Build the legacy. Let's get to work. You want to get nuts? Let's get nuts.

I'm allergic to nuts. Lego Batman, legacy of the dark night. This is my favorite part. Available May 22nd on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series XS, and PC. Rated E10 for ages 10 and up. You said this place was steps from the one. Water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water.

The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition. First Citizens Bank.

This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. Streaming has made music more accessible than ever, but true listening is about more than ease. It's about quality. British audio experts name audio, alongside French acoustic specialist focal, combine handcrafted tradition with cutting-edge innovation and high-end materials, delivering digital precision with

analog warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. From BBC Science Focus magazine. This is Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. I'm Alex Hughes, staff writer at BBC Science Focus magazine. This week, I'm joined.

by Professor David Reed. He specialises in the research of AI, augmented in virtual reality, and spatial computing. He explains the Metaverse, a new form of internet focused on interactivity that we could all be experiencing very soon. So the Metaverse is a word that is getting thrown about a lot recently. What actually is it?

Well, you can define it in three ways, worthy. Three levels of increasing profundity. you can think about it as the evolution of the internet. It's the Mark Zuckerberg way of thinking about it. So it's essentially the embodied internet itself. So whereas with the internet, you clicked on links to one page to another page. With the metaverse, you actually go from one location to other locations. And it's actually a visceral experience.

So you can look around you. So it's not just like moving from one page to another. You're going to physical 3D locations. And basically you can inhabit and talk to other people in those specific locations. The second way of defining it is the evolution of computing, really. This is the Robert Scobel type of definition really. And he sees it as the next platform, really, of how we interact with computers, a new wave of computers, really.

Currently, for many, many years, we've basically interacted with computers using a mouse, a keyboard, and a flat screen, a very, very, an appetizing way of interacting with computers. He sees it as a far more nuanced way of interacting with computers and a far more naturalistic way of interacting with computers. Essentially, you're interacting with the metaverse in roughly the same way as you interact with world life. You can use your hands, eyes, you talk, you move around,

you physically move around, pick up objects and so forth. So in effect, what happens to the computer then, completely transparent. You don't actually see it anymore. And the way you interact with it it becomes almost completely naturalistic. So you see it as a way of basically an evolution and human-computer interaction really. Third way is the evolution in society. Sham Puring basically said it's essentially a tipping point. It's like AI singularity. It's when the digital world becomes as important to people as the analog world. So your friends, your job, your identity, your assets, are all in the Metaverse, and at a time when the Metaverse itself begins to

dominate your attention and becomes as important to people as the real worlders. So they're the three basic definitions, really, basically the evolution of the Internet, the evolution of computing as a whole, and basically an evolution in society and how we deal with the technologies itself. And what state do you see the Metaverse as being in now, is it something that we could will be experiencing soon? It's basically very much in its infancy, but you can experience it now.

It's in its primitive state. It's in its primordial state, really. I see it developing massively in the next 10 years, though. But you can think about it as having a short-term, medium-term, and long-term evolution, really. There's no biarily cutoff point where

before this point there wasn't a metaverse and beyond this point, there is a metaverse. It's going to be a gradual evolution of technologies that allow the metaverse, to become more and more realistic as you go on there. But you can experience it now, even through a web browser or through a mobile phone or through a headset, places like Mozilla hubs, if you go to Mozillahubs.org, you can actually go into the metaverse there. It's a cartoony version of the metaverse. It doesn't look realistic at all.

But it allows you to talk to people. It allows you to interact with people. I took classes in there during COVID. You can build virtual places, have virtual objects in the Metaverse that people can examine and people can create. So the actual core structure for the metaverse is actually being laid down now, but we're in a very primitive state. If anybody's interested in that, probably one of the main drivers for the Metaverse through browsers at least is WebExR, if you look at WebExR type technologies. So the core technologies are already there and they'll become more and more sophisticated as things go on as things progress. I see the main tipping point being about five or about five years from now where new

generations of headsets go along that are far less bulky and far more sophisticated and also have a fair degree of augmented reality capability built into them. So you can actually start going outside with them on or interacting with people in a far more nuanced way where it reflects things like your facial movements or your body movements or eye tracking. So those types of technologies will basically push the metaverse into its next phase, which I see being about three, four, five years time. Could you outline what you see as being the key risk of the metaphors? What should people be worried about?

Well, the main thing that people should be worried about really is the amount of data that you give away in the metaverse as you inhabit. that's it really. If you think about the actual interaction with the metaverse itself, everything you do in the metaverse can be monitored. So if you pick up an object, if you look in a particular direction, if you talk to somebody, the way you walk, your circle of friends in the metaverse can all be monitored. And that data is very valuable to not only companies, it might be valuable to organizations, it might be valuable to criminal activities, you know, criminal organizations as well. People,

need to be aware that everything that happens on the internet nowadays will be magnified with the metaverse. Things like theft, both things like identity theft, physical theft, bullying, cyberbullying, stalking, inappropriate content, all the stuff to do with cyber espionage and social engineering take place now will be far more nuanced and far more effective in the the metaverse. The thing that I'm most worried about in the short term is the psychological impact of embodiment on the metaverse itself really. So if you're experiencing something in the metaverse, it will become far more visceral than it is with the internet at the moment. So if you get bullied on the metaverse or you're showing a particular scene in the metaverse, it has far more

influence and has far greater effect than it does at present with the internet. You can imagine that type of thing could be exploited by extremists or particular people who want to make you view a particular idea in a particular way. So that influence on the metaverse will be greater than it is on the internet. And we've all seen what problems that that can lead to. And we've talked a lot about the negatives. What do you see as being the positives of the metaphors? Well, there'll be many, many positives of the metaverse, really. There will be a whole new categories of jobs that will be produced in the metaverse. We can't even think about at the moment really.

Just like with the internet was many, many years ago, nobody foresaw the massive growth of internet-based companies, such as Facebook, Google, Amazon even. Way back when the internet started, nobody even saw it as a commercial prospect, really. It was sort of an academic idea, really. And this is going to be the same for the metaverse itself. At the moment, it's still in its infancy.

They reckon it's sort of the next. couple of years, the Metaverse is essentially going to be orientated towards gaming, really. They see about 50% of the Metaverse as potential for gaming. But the actual games just from gaming alone are massive. I mean, I've seen figures, some people reckon that the Metaverse will be worth $800 billion by 2030 or 2025 even. So it's going to magnify what's going on, but as other aspects of interaction come into the play, like I did with the internet, it'll be used for other purposes as well. So you can imagine a situation where you can actually have far more meaningful meetings with the Metaverse. You can basically interact with your family in a far more meaningful way, if they're remote from you.

You can imagine situations where if people are isolated in some way, they could actually interact with people in a far more meaningful way. you go on virtual field trips, educational resources that could be developed for it, that will basically be far more entertaining and informative as well. So there's a whole raft of good things that will come out of the metaverse. In my particular field, I'm an educational list. I can see whole areas of where education can be greatly enhanced by taking classes on virtual field tricks to, I don't know, historical locations that don't exist anymore, or to, I don't know, if you're a biology student, to be able to show how the body works

in far more meaningful way, or if you're mathematic students, to be able to sort of like see what a particular curve looks like in real life and be able to manipulate it and maneuver it. So you can actually visualize far more precisely what's going on in a particular environment. And all of these things will basically lead on to new ways of doing things, new ways of interacting with computers, and eventually will lead to you entirely new categories of jobs. Is there any obvious way to police the metabus? There's a number of different companies actually looking at policing the metaverse. The problem is at the moment there's no uniform metaverse itself. It's essentially a multiverse and each company is developing their own metaverse in its own walled garden, as it were. But I do know a number of companies are looking at essentially looking at things like how to control inappropriate content on the metaverse, looking at potential problems with stalking on the metaverse. But they're doing it in a piecemeal way.

As soon as the metaverse is gearing up and it truly becomes a singularity, a proper single metaverse, then that then becomes a far more difficult prospect of being able to monitor what's going. on in that metaverse like it is with the internet really. But again, the solution to this might be to develop more sophisticated AIs to basically have the AI systems like we used on the internet to monitor if things like inappropriate content being put up or things like thefts occurring or cyberbullying occurring. And the AI systems in the metaverse itself will develop more quickly than they did with the internet because there's far greater amounts of information being gleaned from the Metaverse to train these AI systems. So essentially it might be that the AI systems themselves are the solution to potentially

policing the Metaverse itself. But it's very early stages for this type of stuff. At the moment, it's all of the policing of the Metaverse is very much in its infancy. So people are buying land in the Metaverse, they're selling their art, trading commodities, is this something you could see happening a form of society into a virtual world of jobs, hobbies, interests? I'm sure it will. Like it did with the internet,

it will produce new jobs and real value will be generated in the metaverse itself. The problem is actually the laws themselves are basically liking behind what's happening with the metaverse, things like ownership of land or of virtual objects that people buy in the metaverse do they actually have complete ownership of those things or are they just basically licensed to a certain extent? So it will generate lots and lots of new jobs and new services that people want to

play around with, interact with. You can imagine a virtual. I mean, this whole cities are actually getting involved with development of the metaverse. I mean, Seoul recently developed a pound of what's called a virtual soul environment where they're mapping the whole of the city and all of their goods and services that you can basically do. So when you interact with any government organization in Seoul, you basically do it through the metaverse instead. rather than actually using the internet to interact with them,

using the metaverse instead. And that produces far more of an identity really of what you're actually interacting with and becomes far more meaningful, the way you actually interact with people, perhaps, or with services in other places. So there's loads of developments with the reservoirs that could take place in the future,

but it depends on whether it's developed commercially or government organizations developed or local communities develop it on how the metaverse takes off. At the moment, it's still very much of its impetus here. It was like the internet right at the start really, where nobody really knew about how it would develop in the future. Nobody actually in those back in the early days really saw it as commercially viable in the slightest. But look at now.

You know, you get whole companies, massive technological companies, built upon trading on the internet. Amazon, Facebook and Google are all companies that grew up because of the internet. And I'm sure new companies will grow up because of their metaverse that will be just as big, if not bigger. Do you think government organizations will take the metaverse seriously and its regulation? I think there will. I think a number of organizations are starting to take it seriously. But again, the problem is with with a lot of government organizations. The technology is developing so quickly

that they're on the back foot a little bit really. And getting up to speed with a lot of the recent developments in the Metaverse is quite difficult when they've got so many other jobs to do. They've basically spread very thinly. There's a problem with technological know-how and training in specific organisations. So I think there's a willingness there

in a lot of government organizations to get involved with the Metaverse, but when they're doing a dozen other things simultaneously, it becomes quite difficult. So I think a lot of organisations are aware of the potentials of the Metaverse, but I don't think they've really had time to analyse a lot of the consequences of the metaverse, good and bad, that are coming over the horizon. So what do you personally see as the most exciting prospect of the Metaverse? There's a couple of things really. I see it as potentially having a massive influence on the

development of AI systems, which is again both good and bad. It will be a disruptive technology. The metaverse is a disruptive technology. And it's so disruptive because it actually is implicitly linked with a lot of AI stuff. A lot of AI systems have growing up, not because of new ideas or new ways of doing things. They've come around because of two things really. And those two things are actually implicitly linked with the Metaverse as well. One is the rise of GPUs, of gaming cards. I've allowed far more sophisticated neural networks to be built that run in parallel. So you could basically train things a lot faster.

So the computational resources have gone through the roof. The other thing is the rise of the internet, the interconnectivity and the amount of data that you can actually use as oil for the AI engines themselves, that has gone through the roof. Now, if you think about the Metaverse, that basically puts both of those things on steroids, really. The amount of data that you'll glean is far, far greater in the Metaverse than it is with the Internet. And the amount of computational and Internet resources that you'll need are going to be far, far higher fidelity that you need. So the beneficiary of that will be AI systems.

They'll learn a lot faster and become far more sophisticated than you are at the moment. So that's one big influencer. have, that'll be a good and bad influence. And those AI systems will basically be trained in the metaverse. Some of them will exist in the metaverse, but some of them will also use the metaverse as a training environment to go into the outside world as well. So I'll see that transition between the virtual and the real world is gradually becoming less and less as the Metaverse develops. And that will be true when the augmented reality devices start to come online as well and people start walking around the streets with glasses and so forth that basically allow them to

interact with the Metaverse and the outside world simultaneously. And at that point, I think a lot of companies see that type of device as being a natural successor to the mobile phone. And obviously the mobile phone market is gigantic at the moment. It could be in the future that the headset market gets just as big. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius. That was David Reed. To hear him tell me more about the accessibility of the Metaverse, head over to Instant Genius Extra,

available only on Apple Podcasts. The February issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy in store or visit ScienceFocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by name, audio and focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist focal, name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.

You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a U.S.-based restoration agent who will stick by your side from start to finish. Phone calls, filing documentation, preparing insurance claims, your agent handles it all. In fact, we're so confident restoration is guaranteed or your money back. Isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side? Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash Spotify. Terms apply.

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side,

turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer.