AI transcript
0:00:03 – When we talk about Metaverse, what is that vision?
0:00:06 – I’m optimistic long-term about kind of human nature
0:00:09 to adapt to this new environment and to get us
0:00:11 from these siloed worlds that we have today
0:00:14 to a much more interconnected, interoperable
0:00:16 Metaverse platform long-term.
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0:00:50 (upbeat music)
0:00:54 – Hey, welcome to the Next Wave Podcast.
0:00:55 I’m Matt Wolf.
0:00:57 I’m here with Nathan Lanz.
0:00:59 And today we’re talking with Alvin Grayland,
0:01:02 the author of the book, Our Next Reality.
0:01:05 And we’re talking all about the crossover of AI
0:01:09 and the Metaverse and virtual reality and augmented reality.
0:01:13 And in this episode, he basically lays out a game plan
0:01:15 of how we get to this Metaverse
0:01:17 that everybody’s been talking about.
0:01:19 And well, quite honestly,
0:01:20 a lot of people have forgotten about
0:01:21 over the last couple of years.
0:01:23 Well, we talk about how we get there.
0:01:25 There’s also some interesting discussion
0:01:27 about what we can learn from China
0:01:29 and what China can learn from the US
0:01:31 because Alvin has spent a lot of time
0:01:32 in both of those countries.
0:01:35 So there’s some very fascinating discussion
0:01:39 around the sort of dynamic between China and the US.
0:01:40 I think you’re gonna love this conversation.
0:01:43 So let’s go ahead and jump on in with Alvin Grayland.
0:01:44 (upbeat music)
0:01:46 Hey, Alvin, thanks so much for joining us today.
0:01:47 How are you doing?
0:01:48 – I’m good, yeah.
0:01:49 Thanks for inviting me, Matt.
0:01:50 And great to meet you, Nathan.
0:01:53 I think it’s gonna be a fun conversation.
0:01:54 – Yeah, so Alvin and I,
0:01:57 we go way back to about a couple of weeks ago,
0:02:01 we got to meet each other at the augmented world expo.
0:02:03 You were out there signing copies of your new book,
0:02:05 Our Next Reality, and you and I got to talking
0:02:07 and I had to get you on the podcast
0:02:11 to talk about the crossover of the AI world
0:02:13 and the metaverse world.
0:02:15 And so I wanna talk a bit about
0:02:19 the sort of crossover of AI and the metaverse, right?
0:02:20 But before we do,
0:02:22 I think we kind of need to define the metaverse
0:02:25 ’cause I think a lot of people have a fuzzy vision
0:02:27 of what the metaverse is.
0:02:30 At one point, the metaverse was very tied towards like crypto
0:02:34 and Facebook went and changed their name to meta
0:02:35 and there was all of this stuff
0:02:37 that was sort of muddying the waters.
0:02:40 So how do you define metaverse, first of all?
0:02:44 – Okay, so I think the easy way to think about the metaverse,
0:02:46 first of all, the metaverse does not exist yet, okay?
0:02:47 So all those people who says,
0:02:50 “Oh, we have the X and X, Y metaverse,”
0:02:52 they’re all just bullshitting you, okay?
0:02:55 The metaverse is actually the internet we’ve been building
0:02:56 for the last 30, 40 years,
0:02:58 but the 3D version of the internet.
0:03:02 And what that means is that it’s a open, interconnected,
0:03:04 global network of instead of websites,
0:03:06 you go to 3D worlds, right?
0:03:09 That’s really the definition of the metaverse.
0:03:12 In fact, the guy who invented or coined the word metaverse,
0:03:13 and I checked with him, I was like,
0:03:15 “This is my definition, does that make sense to you?”
0:03:18 And he’s like, “Well, when I wrote it in 1992,
0:03:19 “there was no such thing, it was kind of,
0:03:20 “I made this stuff up.”
0:03:22 But what you’re explaining
0:03:25 is actually what I was trying to describe in the book, right?
0:03:29 In terms of something that is a large network of worlds.
0:03:30 It’s not a single world,
0:03:33 it’s not something where you go and use, you sell NFTs,
0:03:35 or it’s not just a game, right?
0:03:37 And I think it’s the ability for you
0:03:40 to be able to access it on any device,
0:03:43 anywhere in the world with anybody else, right?
0:03:45 That’s where the value comes in,
0:03:48 because as we know, Metcalf’s Law, right?
0:03:51 The value of a network is a square of its nodes.
0:03:56 So, in a particular game or a particular NFT world,
0:03:58 you’re gonna have thousands of people
0:03:59 or hundreds of thousands of people.
0:04:01 That value is gonna be significantly less
0:04:02 than what we have today,
0:04:04 where we have billions of people
0:04:07 on a giant interconnected web, right?
0:04:08 That’s why the internet is so valuable.
0:04:10 That’s why we go on it every day,
0:04:13 because there’s so much going on, and so much potential.
0:04:16 And that’s what will happen in the 3D side,
0:04:19 because as you know, I mean, we grew up,
0:04:20 we evolved over the last several million years
0:04:22 in a 3D space.
0:04:25 There’s no reason for us to be constricting ourselves
0:04:26 to that 2D screen.
0:04:29 We’ve done it because that was the only option available.
0:04:33 But soon, when that 3D space becomes accessible,
0:04:35 affordable, and ubiquitous,
0:04:37 there is no reason for us to go back
0:04:40 to a limitation of a 2D space.
0:04:41 And right now, we’re looking at each other
0:04:45 through multiple 2D screens, and I can see you,
0:04:47 but I don’t really feel like you’re with me.
0:04:50 When we get into that matter of our space,
0:04:52 we’re gonna be around the virtual table.
0:04:53 We’re gonna see, you know,
0:04:55 photorealistic potential of avatars of ourselves,
0:04:58 if we want, we can make it more cartoony.
0:05:01 But the fact that we will feel together,
0:05:03 and whatever memories we create,
0:05:06 we’ll feel the same as we were together.
0:05:09 I think that’s something that is very powerful
0:05:11 to bring people together,
0:05:13 and to allow us to collaborate more,
0:05:14 to allow us to communicate more,
0:05:17 to allow us to get rid of the miscommunication
0:05:18 and differences that people have
0:05:21 between cultures and languages and age.
0:05:23 – Like, how do you imagine the multiverse?
0:05:25 Like, you know, my background is kind of like in gaming.
0:05:27 I actually was one of the top players
0:05:28 on the game EverQuest when I was a kid.
0:05:30 So I feel like I grew up in this like virtual world, right?
0:05:32 Like, do you see, you know,
0:05:33 it’s almost like Ready Player One,
0:05:35 but gaming is just one aspect,
0:05:37 and like everyone’s living in this virtual world
0:05:39 for like a lot of their life,
0:05:40 and they’re doing business there,
0:05:41 they’re meeting friends.
0:05:42 Maybe there’s also gaming.
0:05:44 Is that kind of how you see it?
0:05:47 – So today, if you look at the amount of screen time we have,
0:05:50 the average American is around 10 or 11 hours
0:05:51 of total screen time, right?
0:05:54 Between TV, desktop, you know, phone, et cetera.
0:05:55 – Yeah.
0:05:57 – And what we’ve seen is that over the last 10 years,
0:05:59 people have primarily moved from,
0:06:02 primarily on TVs to, you know,
0:06:03 a lot of it on desktop,
0:06:05 but to now mostly on mobile, right?
0:06:07 Most of our screen time is actually on mobile.
0:06:10 What we will find is that in the next five years or so,
0:06:13 we will start to transition from something
0:06:15 that is in our pocket to something that’s on our face.
0:06:16 Why?
0:06:19 Because that is already on our screen, on our heads.
0:06:21 And half of the people in the world
0:06:22 wear glasses on a daily basis.
0:06:24 So it is something that’s already natural.
0:06:26 Now, if I can turn the glasses they already wear
0:06:29 into a display, into both an immersive,
0:06:31 as well as a potentially AR display,
0:06:33 so you have both options.
0:06:34 Essentially, with a click,
0:06:36 you can turn it into something that’s see-through
0:06:39 versus pass-through versus, you know, completely immersive.
0:06:41 You know, and when you have that,
0:06:42 there’s really no reason
0:06:45 to pick that screen out of your pocket anymore.
0:06:49 In fact, I think that we will essentially be having,
0:06:51 I would say, majority of our day
0:06:52 viewing the world through this screen.
0:06:54 Now, it could be an augmented,
0:06:55 you could actually most of the time be clear
0:06:57 and just have some few augmented items.
0:06:59 Let’s say, instead of having a monitor,
0:07:00 I can have a giant virtual monitor
0:07:03 and the rest of my office looks the same, right?
0:07:04 And for a lot of people, that’s enough.
0:07:08 But, you know, for us who live in the first world,
0:07:10 most people say, “Oh, you know, I would never want
0:07:12 “to spend more time in these virtual spaces.
0:07:15 “I know you’re different ’cause you’re a gamer.”
0:07:17 But for a lot of the world,
0:07:20 their physical world is not as beautiful
0:07:23 and as welcoming as a potential virtual world.
0:07:25 So for a lot of people who, let’s say,
0:07:28 live in a dorm with 10 other people,
0:07:29 you know, they may actually say,
0:07:31 “Hi, I want to spend more time in this virtual space
0:07:34 “because it allows me to have the freedom
0:07:35 “to do virtual traveling,
0:07:36 “to talk to people around the world,
0:07:40 “to learn things in a space that is not distracted
0:07:41 “by all these other things,” right?
0:07:46 So, you know, and I think that’s the beauty
0:07:48 of what this offers is that it allows you
0:07:51 to pick the environment that you want to be in.
0:07:53 And, you know, whether you want it to be for gaming,
0:07:54 whether you want it for education,
0:07:58 whether you want it to be for work, you know,
0:07:59 we, especially white-collar people,
0:08:03 spend so much of their time working with a 2D screen.
0:08:04 But the difference of that now,
0:08:07 if you have that ability to do it in a 3D space,
0:08:08 I think a lot of them would, you know,
0:08:12 in fact, I know you guys are both users of the Vision Pro,
0:08:16 you know, having that virtual environment that they have,
0:08:20 it really allows you to feel more focused
0:08:22 on whatever topic that you’re working on, right?
0:08:25 So even if you just had a screen of your computer
0:08:27 and in that giant, you know, Yosemite Park
0:08:29 or whatever, you know, the volcano,
0:08:32 you just feel like, “Wow, you know, I can be concentrated,”
0:08:34 ’cause I don’t have, you know, dogs walking around
0:08:36 or people walking outside the window,
0:08:39 that in itself will allow us to be more productive.
0:08:40 In fact, there were studies that we’d done
0:08:44 and we found that kids were six times more focused
0:08:47 when they were studying inside VR
0:08:49 than when they were in the classroom, right?
0:08:52 And they were able to learn twice as fast
0:08:55 versus having human face-to-face classroom education, right?
0:08:57 So I think those kind of things,
0:08:58 it’s a little counter to choose,
0:09:00 ’cause everybody’s like, oh, there’s nothing better
0:09:01 than face-to-face, but the problem is,
0:09:03 when you’re face-to-face, you have 30 other kids
0:09:05 or 50 other kids with you,
0:09:08 you know, the teacher has one minute of time per class
0:09:09 that they can spend on you,
0:09:11 whereas when you’re in a virtual environment
0:09:15 and you have that personalized face-to-face AI tutor
0:09:17 that can be working with you the entire time
0:09:20 and they can adjust and you can actually use
0:09:21 your whole brain for learning.
0:09:23 You know, as we know, although there’s some,
0:09:24 you know, visual learners, there’s audio learners,
0:09:26 there’s tactile learners,
0:09:28 and when you’re in the XR, all of that is available.
0:09:32 Whatever medium is the best way for you to consume
0:09:34 and digest and understand content,
0:09:35 it allows you to do that.
0:09:38 Whereas, you know, maybe if you’re a really good audio learner,
0:09:40 you’ll find in the classroom,
0:09:42 but only about a third of the people are that way.
0:09:45 So we’re leaving a lot of people behind.
0:09:47 In fact, we did a study that showed
0:09:51 when a class that was doing astrophysics,
0:09:53 we found that the worst student in the class
0:09:56 that was supplemented by XR
0:09:59 was better than the best student in the normal class.
0:10:01 And they were already pre-sorted beforehand
0:10:04 to be having equal pre-test scores.
0:10:05 So it’s not about, you know,
0:10:07 oh, this class was actually better.
0:10:10 It’s just the fact that until the reality is that
0:10:11 there’s actually no dumb students.
0:10:13 Everybody’s a genius.
0:10:15 They’re just not being taught in a way
0:10:19 to allow them to utilize a genius as in them, you know,
0:10:20 or they’re not being cared for enough
0:10:23 so that they paid focus and paid attention to the things.
0:10:26 So you really smart kids and really kind of,
0:10:28 maybe, you know, divergent kids,
0:10:31 they have the ability to do a lot more
0:10:33 if you gave them the right environments.
0:10:35 And I think XR can do that.
0:10:38 And particularly, if you have customized AI features
0:10:40 or tutors that can help with that.
0:10:42 – So I like part of the vision that you laid out,
0:10:43 but not all of it.
0:10:44 Like the idea that, like, okay,
0:10:46 so if you live in a shitty environment
0:10:48 that we should just keep that environment shitty
0:10:51 and you should now go into virtual reality instead,
0:10:52 I don’t like that.
0:10:54 Like, I personally believe that with AI,
0:10:57 we should actually make the physical world better.
0:10:58 Right?
0:11:01 – I cannot agree with you more, Nathan.
0:11:03 Here’s the thing is that, you know,
0:11:04 people have been talking about,
0:11:06 oh, how can we create greater equality around the world?
0:11:09 You know, how can we let, you know,
0:11:12 the rich nations help the four nations, et cetera?
0:11:13 And it just doesn’t happen, right?
0:11:15 And or it hasn’t happened yet.
0:11:17 And, you know, the key determinant of success today
0:11:20 is where you’re born, more than anything else, right?
0:11:23 And now, what happens when you actually start having
0:11:25 a global metaverse ecosystem,
0:11:28 is that actually you start to create a parallel economy,
0:11:29 right?
0:11:32 So this actually creates a natural flow of income
0:11:35 and wealth-earning opportunity.
0:11:37 No matter where you’re born, if you have a headset,
0:11:39 if you’re connected to this global metaverse,
0:11:42 then I am actually judged by my capabilities
0:11:45 to contribute to society, whether as a programmer,
0:11:47 as a, you know, technical support guy,
0:11:50 as a consultant, as a tutor to some child,
0:11:52 that’s a thousand miles away, right?
0:11:53 If I was born in Bangladesh,
0:11:56 I could make maybe, you know, $10 a month
0:11:56 or something like that.
0:11:58 If I’m, you know, born in the US,
0:12:00 you know, the poorest people who are, you know,
0:12:02 probably making $1,000 a month or something,
0:12:03 you know, in that order.
0:12:07 So the fact that now you create a global workforce
0:12:09 and it equalizes them because it’s,
0:12:11 people will pay you based on your value,
0:12:14 not based on what they perceive your local costs is,
0:12:16 ’cause they can’t tell where you’re from, right?
0:12:18 That actually, I think, will help to achieve
0:12:19 what you’re talking about, Nathan,
0:12:22 in terms of how do we make people’s lives better
0:12:23 by utilizing tech technology,
0:12:27 essentially by creating a layer on top of the physical layer
0:12:29 so that no longer are you constrained
0:12:33 by who your parents were or by where you were born, right?
0:12:35 Which are the two biggest characteristics
0:12:37 that determine your future success, right?
0:12:39 – Yeah, that’s something I wonder about though.
0:12:41 Like, so if we spend more time in virtual rally,
0:12:44 like when I played EverQuest a lot, right?
0:12:46 I was not good at interacting with people at all.
0:12:49 And I felt like a major detachment for other people.
0:12:50 Almost like they were not a real thing.
0:12:51 Like my game was the real thing.
0:12:55 And so I do wonder if we will see more of that
0:12:57 with humans where people don’t actually value other humans,
0:12:59 if they spend more time in virtual reality.
0:13:01 So I kind of imagine that the best scenario is like,
0:13:04 yes, you have this amazing VR tech
0:13:06 that we spend some time in.
0:13:07 And but we’re so much more efficient
0:13:09 with the time that we spend, whether if we’re working,
0:13:12 okay, we put on the VR headset for 30 minutes,
0:13:13 the AI helped us a lot,
0:13:15 and we got a lot of our work done, right?
0:13:17 And then I can go off in the physical world
0:13:19 and spend time with family and friends and things like that.
0:13:21 – So I think those are two different ways
0:13:23 to approach it that actually would be different
0:13:25 than what you probably experienced back
0:13:26 when you were a child.
0:13:28 ‘Cause you know, I also played every question.
0:13:29 You know, you’re in front of a 2D screen,
0:13:32 you’re talking to fixed characters that have fixed lines
0:13:35 and you’re trying to get through this maze or this quest.
0:13:38 Now, the good thing about the, you know,
0:13:40 a future metaverse, which doesn’t exist yet,
0:13:42 that this future metaverse is that the other people
0:13:44 and there are actually also real people.
0:13:45 They’re not scripted.
0:13:47 They’re not something where you’re out there
0:13:50 trying to solve and fix a fixed problem.
0:13:52 You’re actually interacting with real people.
0:13:53 And then we did a study on this.
0:13:57 So we were doing AI based language learning
0:14:00 and inside with avatars inside VR
0:14:03 versus the traditional classroom learning
0:14:05 or recorded learning.
0:14:07 And what we actually found was that
0:14:10 when people were learning inside VR with, you know,
0:14:13 AI avatars or that was teaching them,
0:14:15 they actually learned the language twice as fast
0:14:18 as when they were learning inside a classroom.
0:14:20 And here’s actually the more important thing.
0:14:22 They were 10 times more willing
0:14:24 to use it in the real world, right?
0:14:26 So why is that, right?
0:14:29 Because when they were inside the VR space,
0:14:31 they didn’t feel like they were being judged.
0:14:33 They weren’t shy about using it.
0:14:37 So they got into the habit of actually using the language.
0:14:39 I mean, you’re living right now in Japan.
0:14:41 And I know a lot of Japanese who,
0:14:43 they can read English great,
0:14:45 but they hate to speak it ’cause they’re always afraid
0:14:47 that they’re gonna pronounce something wrong or whatever.
0:14:49 They’re feeling embarrassed
0:14:51 that they may say something wrong.
0:14:53 But when you’ve actually got used to just talking
0:14:54 and you’re not being judged,
0:14:57 you actually get more confident.
0:14:59 And the more you speak, the more confident you get, right?
0:15:02 And so I think that’s something that is,
0:15:04 that can be gotten when you’re in immersive space
0:15:06 that is a little bit more difficult
0:15:09 when you’re dealing with kind of
0:15:11 pre-scripted characters in a game, right?
0:15:12 So I think that’s one thing.
0:15:15 – We’ll be right back.
0:15:18 But first, I wanna tell you about another great podcast
0:15:19 you’re gonna wanna listen to.
0:15:23 It’s called Science of Scaling hosted by Mark Roberge.
0:15:25 And it’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network,
0:15:29 the audio destination for business professionals.
0:15:31 Each week hosts Mark Roberge,
0:15:33 founding chief revenue officer at HubSpot,
0:15:35 senior lecturer at Harvard Business School,
0:15:38 and co-founder of Stage Two Capital,
0:15:41 sits down with the most successful sales leaders in tech
0:15:43 to learn the secrets, strategies, and tactics
0:15:45 to scaling your company’s growth.
0:15:48 He recently did a great episode called
0:15:51 How Do You Solve for a Siloed Marketing in Sales?
0:15:53 And I personally learned a lot from it.
0:15:55 You’re gonna wanna check out the podcast,
0:15:58 listen to Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.
0:16:03 – The other thing that you didn’t mention actually,
0:16:05 I think it’s really important is that
0:16:07 these worlds will house to be so much more efficient.
0:16:10 You know, like right now I spend
0:16:12 probably 60% of my time on the road, right?
0:16:16 And I’m on, in traffic, in airports,
0:16:19 I’m just spending all this time wasted time.
0:16:21 If I didn’t have to travel, I put on the headset,
0:16:25 I’m in a room with you guys, I feel I were connected.
0:16:27 I have a lot more free time to spend with my kids,
0:16:28 to spend with my best friends,
0:16:31 to spend with people I want to meet, right?
0:16:32 And to actually also stay healthy.
0:16:35 I think that’s one thing that I wish I had more time to go
0:16:38 and exercise and play golf and tennis and other things.
0:16:41 Because I’m working so much, I’m less able to do that, right?
0:16:44 So there’s kind of a combination of things where,
0:16:46 I think it’s natural to fear that,
0:16:48 hey, if you spend a lot of time in a virtual world,
0:16:50 you get disconnected.
0:16:52 I actually think that in some ways,
0:16:54 it could be counterintuitive
0:16:56 that it may be the opposite of that.
0:16:58 – I don’t know if you guys have seen the clips recently.
0:17:02 I saw one clip of like MIT and UCSD working together.
0:17:05 And at MIT, they had an Apple Vision Pro on
0:17:07 and they were moving their hands around
0:17:10 and a robot here in San Diego
0:17:12 was actually taking the same motions.
0:17:13 And then like the very next day I was on Twitter
0:17:16 and I saw another video that showed like a remote worker,
0:17:18 I think in the Philippines,
0:17:21 stocking shelves using a robot in the U.S.
0:17:23 They had like some sort of headset on
0:17:25 and they were actually sitting there going through the motions
0:17:27 of stocking the shelves in the U.S.
0:17:32 So now it sort of like shrinks the sort of job market down
0:17:35 to where if you have access to this technology
0:17:38 where you are, you can actually work anywhere in the world.
0:17:39 – Yep, yep, and in fact, I mean,
0:17:41 you can see that example a couple of years ago
0:17:43 where I know this is a little bit kind of crypto related
0:17:46 but the Play to Earn model, right?
0:17:48 Where a lot of the Play to Earn people,
0:17:51 the ones who were doing the work were actually in Philippines
0:17:53 and they were, you know, getting $50 a month.
0:17:56 But $15, $50 a month to them is a full salary job, right?
0:17:58 Whereas here, people would essentially pay some money
0:17:59 to have them do some things
0:18:02 so that they could save the time of, you know,
0:18:03 grinding through the game, right?
0:18:06 So that’s kind of an early example.
0:18:08 I actually, I think that’s probably not the best example
0:18:11 ’cause I think there’s actually creating little real
0:18:13 kind of social value to what they’re doing.
0:18:15 – That was like the whole Axie Infinity thing, right?
0:18:16 – Exactly.
0:18:19 Once you have a global economy,
0:18:22 people will gravitate to doing certain jobs
0:18:24 that allow them to do something to earn more
0:18:27 than then their natural environment gives them, right?
0:18:29 And I think that will actually create
0:18:31 that rebalancing that we talked about.
0:18:33 So I think that the world can be better
0:18:36 and then we just, you know, it won’t happen all at once, right?
0:18:38 This is why I was saying, you know, Nathan,
0:18:40 I know you don’t want to hear that, you know,
0:18:43 people in the kind of emerging markets
0:18:46 may wear this to escape from their kind of physical space,
0:18:47 but it’s gonna take time for them
0:18:49 to change that physical space.
0:18:51 So as long as we give them the mechanisms
0:18:53 to then earn a greater income
0:18:56 than to create that natural flow of wealth,
0:18:58 I think we will get to that point
0:19:01 where we were much more equal longer term.
0:19:03 – When we talk about metaverse is,
0:19:05 do you see the metaverse is being like
0:19:08 a bunch of separate platforms that all tie together?
0:19:11 Is it like one single thing that everybody agrees
0:19:12 this is the metaverse?
0:19:13 Like, is it decentralized?
0:19:15 Is it centralized?
0:19:16 Like, what is that vision?
0:19:18 – Yeah, so there’s actually a lot there, you know,
0:19:20 just like in kind of the wealth and, you know,
0:19:23 inequality issue, it’s gonna take time to work out.
0:19:25 And just like today, we actually have a lot of, you know,
0:19:27 whether you’re talking about gaming platforms
0:19:29 or social platforms that all claim
0:19:31 to be some form of metaverse,
0:19:32 we will essentially go through
0:19:34 kind of three or four stages, right?
0:19:36 So in the book, I actually equate this
0:19:38 to the metamorphosis of a butterfly.
0:19:40 You know, so we’re at the larva stage
0:19:41 or the egg stage, actually.
0:19:43 So all of these are a single eggs.
0:19:45 They’re all separate from each other, right?
0:19:47 What we will get to soon is kind of larva stage.
0:19:51 We will have a few of these platforms will grow bigger
0:19:54 and be more self-sufficient.
0:19:57 But, you know, they’re still independent from each other.
0:20:00 Soon, we will actually get to the kind of cocoon stage
0:20:02 where they shut themselves off.
0:20:03 So we’ll have like a regional cocoon.
0:20:05 So there’ll be a China cocoon,
0:20:07 there’ll be a US cocoon, a European cocoon,
0:20:08 based on all the regulations,
0:20:12 they will essentially create ways for its own population
0:20:16 to encompass in its own policies, right?
0:20:19 And then, but it will probably create standards
0:20:22 and regulation to allow these different
0:20:24 virtual worlds to talk to each other, right?
0:20:25 Whether it’s communication protocols
0:20:28 or common ID systems or common currency systems
0:20:29 or things like that, right?
0:20:31 And then the last stage will be completely open
0:20:35 where there will be, you know, probably 90% of these worlds
0:20:36 will be able to talk to everybody,
0:20:38 will be able to talk to everybody.
0:20:40 And then we’ll be have 10% that are these micro cocoons.
0:20:43 You know, there’ll still be a small China group of worlds
0:20:45 that the Chinese governments don’t want to go to
0:20:46 and there’ll be a small group of worlds
0:20:49 that European governments don’t want you to go to.
0:20:50 Just like today.
0:20:52 – So who controls this world?
0:20:52 (laughs)
0:20:53 – Never talking about–
0:20:55 – Who controls the internet today, right?
0:20:58 I mean, really, there is no central party that controls it.
0:20:59 There’s a few standards.
0:21:01 Or ’cause there’s like the ICANN that controls
0:21:04 the DNS systems or the URL system.
0:21:05 – I mean, the US used to control it, right?
0:21:07 I think that we handed over control,
0:21:09 like maybe I don’t know if it was like five, six years ago
0:21:09 or something like that.
0:21:11 – Well, I mean, even the US, I think,
0:21:13 helped to define it initially, right?
0:21:16 But I don’t know if you would say it’s fully controlled
0:21:19 because right now the network servers
0:21:22 and the data centers and everything is distributed, right?
0:21:25 So I think we will get to that type of a model,
0:21:27 but it’s not completely distributed in the sense
0:21:31 of not every single data will reside on your local server
0:21:34 or your local PC, but there will still be data centers
0:21:37 and there’ll be big pipes to those data centers.
0:21:39 So I think we will continue to use
0:21:42 the semi-centralized networks that we have
0:21:44 because it’s efficient.
0:21:47 I know a lot of people want to have a fully decentralized,
0:21:50 crypto-focused world, but there’s a lot
0:21:53 of technical limitations, scalability limitations
0:21:54 and so forth.
0:21:57 And I actually think there’s some inequality issues
0:22:00 that the current crypto system imposes on the world,
0:22:02 but we can maybe go on that later.
0:22:05 But I think a lot of the current things
0:22:07 that make the Internet successful
0:22:10 will make this future metaverse platform
0:22:13 or metaverse ecosystem success, right?
0:22:15 ‘Cause we’re gonna be based on the same infrastructure.
0:22:17 We don’t need to rebuild any of that.
0:22:20 Just like right now, but I think one thing we will have
0:22:24 is that we will probably have a global universal ID
0:22:26 that allows us to go to any of these worlds,
0:22:29 bring our assets with us, bring our characters,
0:22:31 we can be whatever, you know, an avatar we want
0:22:33 and depending on what’s the nearest happening
0:22:36 in these different worlds, just like when we, you know,
0:22:39 we have a phone number that no matter where you’re roaming,
0:22:40 what phone device you’re using,
0:22:43 what network you’re on, they can reach you, right?
0:22:47 I think we will need that type of a common identity.
0:22:49 And in fact, I think having that will make
0:22:52 the world behave better in the sense of we, you know,
0:22:55 the anonymity that we have today is part of why
0:22:59 a lot of the kind of harassment and trolling that happens
0:23:01 is because, you know, there’s no ramifications.
0:23:02 People don’t know who you are.
0:23:03 You’re gonna post something negative.
0:23:06 And, you know, I know Matt Vats had some, you know,
0:23:08 experience with that.
0:23:10 But, you know, what we find is when people are faced
0:23:13 to face each other, they actually are tend
0:23:14 to be nicer to each other, right?
0:23:17 Because one, I think it’s just a social norm,
0:23:18 but the other thing is you don’t wanna pinch the face
0:23:20 if you’re gonna be rude to somebody, you know?
0:23:23 And we also find that actually in VR worlds,
0:23:27 when people are in VR worlds, they tend to be nicer
0:23:29 and more courteous and behave the way they do
0:23:32 in physical worlds, ’cause they see somebody there
0:23:34 and it feels to them, even if they’re anonymous,
0:23:36 it feels to them that they’re talking to somebody
0:23:40 and there’s an identity hide to that other party
0:23:42 that you’re interacting with.
0:23:47 So, I’m optimistic long-term about kind of human nature
0:23:51 to adapt to this new environment and to get us
0:23:53 from kind of these various styled worlds
0:23:56 that we have today to a much more interconnected,
0:23:59 interoperable metaverse platform long-term.
0:24:03 – Yeah, hopefully there’s like a metaverse version
0:24:05 of the mute button where if somebody is trolling you
0:24:07 in person, you can just like make them disappear.
0:24:08 – Well, no, no, they actually have that today.
0:24:11 A lot of the social platforms today will essentially
0:24:15 create a bubble where people, they can come within,
0:24:17 let’s say a two or three feet of your space
0:24:19 because some people, I think there are some
0:24:22 harassment issues online, although I feel like
0:24:25 people equate it to physical harassment,
0:24:28 I think there’s still a gap between that, right?
0:24:31 But the fact that you can actually mute anybody
0:24:33 in these spaces where you can block them
0:24:37 just like you do on digital spaces today.
0:24:38 – But that brings up a good point though,
0:24:40 like if everyone’s living in this
0:24:42 and doing all their business in there,
0:24:45 whoever controls that system, they can block people, right?
0:24:47 And then you can basically exit somebody out of the economy,
0:24:49 which is kind of like, from my perspective,
0:24:52 it’s a pretty, you know, a possibility.
0:24:54 – I agree with you, and in fact, in fact,
0:24:56 this was also discussed in the book as well
0:24:58 in the sense of, you know, we’re gonna have,
0:24:59 we’re gonna be a lot more dependent
0:25:02 on this future digital economy than we are
0:25:03 on our phone today.
0:25:04 And you know, when you leave your house
0:25:06 without your phone, you feel very uncomfortable.
0:25:09 In the future, we, if our entire world’s wrapped
0:25:12 in this, you know, glasses form factor and immersive space
0:25:17 and our unique ID, you know, when somebody hijacks your ID
0:25:19 or you get blocked out of the system,
0:25:22 it can definitely have a lot of negative ramifications.
0:25:24 So we need to be careful, how do we manage that?
0:25:26 How do we govern that system?
0:25:27 Who gets to control that system?
0:25:30 These are still kind of unknown questions
0:25:31 that needs to be discussed.
0:25:33 – Right, and I mean, we’re still having those same debates
0:25:35 right now with AI, right?
0:25:37 In the AI world, we’re sitting here going,
0:25:40 should open AI have as much power as they have?
0:25:42 You know, should Google have as much power as they have?
0:25:45 I feel like the same discussions are gonna come up
0:25:49 if this stuff becomes as, you know, prolific as–
0:25:52 – Yeah, I mean, I think we’re having these discussions today,
0:25:53 but even, you know, even open AI,
0:25:56 we’re talking about 100 to 200 million users, right?
0:25:57 So compared to 8 billion.
0:26:01 We’re still a relatively small problem today.
0:26:02 But when we start having, you know,
0:26:05 seven or eight billion people on this, you know,
0:26:08 global network, that’s gonna mean a lot more.
0:26:10 ‘Cause that potentially, that digital economy
0:26:12 could be as big as the physical economy
0:26:13 that we have outside of it.
0:26:15 And in fact, the population of that
0:26:17 is gonna be bigger than any one country is today.
0:26:19 In fact, well, I mean, you have Meta today,
0:26:20 I think with three billion people
0:26:22 is already bigger than any country.
0:26:23 But, you know, they’re not able to govern them
0:26:27 and control them as a country does to its citizens, right?
0:26:31 But in this case, whoever’s managing that platform
0:26:33 could have a level of control similar
0:26:35 to a national government does, right?
0:26:38 So it’s actually quite important
0:26:40 how this will be long-term governed
0:26:44 because of its social impact, economic impact.
0:26:46 And in some ways, you know, by taking you out of the system,
0:26:48 you’re almost in digital jail, right?
0:26:51 And that can be, you know, if you’re blocked off
0:26:54 from interacting with everybody that you know,
0:26:56 the dirt there’s mental impact issues,
0:26:58 the dirt there’s, you know, kind of, kind of just personal
0:27:02 rights and freedom issues that I’ve associated with that.
0:27:05 So there’s a lot of things that are uncertain still.
0:27:07 – You know, speaking of things that are uncertain,
0:27:09 like what do you see, maybe you have an opinion on this,
0:27:11 maybe you don’t, but like what is the path
0:27:14 to this being like a global technology?
0:27:16 Like how do we get to a point where eight billion people
0:27:18 have this if in third world countries,
0:27:21 they don’t have access to the power, the technology,
0:27:25 the, you know, how does everybody get their hands
0:27:25 on something like this?
0:27:28 – So I mean, you know, just like you say 20 years ago,
0:27:30 very few people had cell phone, right?
0:27:33 I remember in, well, maybe 30 years ago, like 1994,
0:27:36 I had my first cell phone and you know, it was, I think,
0:27:39 you know, I was in China, it was like $10,000 for this phone
0:27:41 and it was, you know, the status of when you go to dinner
0:27:43 with your boss friends and you put it on the table
0:27:45 and it’s like, oh, my phone’s nicer than yours.
0:27:46 That was a big thing.
0:27:48 You know, now everybody’s got it, right?
0:27:50 I mean, it took a couple of decades,
0:27:53 but the reality is that technology flows down
0:27:55 and the cost of it, once you get economy of scale,
0:27:56 we’re gonna get there.
0:27:59 I mean, you look at, you know, devices like this
0:28:00 are $1,000.
0:28:04 You know, I know the Vision Pros 3000, it’s kind of,
0:28:07 I think unreasonably expensive for what it delivers, right?
0:28:10 ‘Cause you see soon, I think there’ll be Chinese vendors
0:28:12 are coming out with half the price and, you know,
0:28:14 Apple will come out with something that’s half the price
0:28:14 in another year.
0:28:18 So these products will get to a point where it is no more
0:28:20 expensive than cell phones today.
0:28:22 Right, you can go to a third world country
0:28:25 and get a $50 cell phone that will go to all the websites
0:28:27 that you do, all, you know, cell phone, all the websites
0:28:29 can use all the apps and, you know,
0:28:31 make all the calls that are saved, right?
0:28:32 They may not look as nice.
0:28:34 They may not have an Apple brand on it.
0:28:37 But, you know, I think it will be accessible
0:28:39 for most of the world.
0:28:42 And the difference is the phone that you have today
0:28:43 is really just for communication
0:28:46 and going, you know, online to two websites.
0:28:49 In the future, if you have a glasses that is, you know,
0:28:52 $200, that glasses can be your car,
0:28:55 it can be your plane, it can be your tutor,
0:28:56 you know, it can be your assistant.
0:28:59 It can be all the things that you need it to be
0:29:00 in your life, right?
0:29:02 It can be your entertainment system, you know.
0:29:05 So I think we will essentially
0:29:09 create the experience level of the wealthy class
0:29:10 with all classes, right?
0:29:13 Even, you know, the people who can afford,
0:29:16 you know, $50 phones, that changed kind of the whole
0:29:18 economy in Africa, right?
0:29:20 Because all they needed was a cell connection
0:29:22 on the phone, they essentially now had digital banking
0:29:24 and they could pay each other, they could see the weather,
0:29:27 they could go make trade, right?
0:29:29 And they saved them the hours and walking
0:29:31 to get to a certain place, right?
0:29:35 I think, you know, the transformational capabilities
0:29:39 of a, you know, all-encompassing AI device on your head
0:29:42 that is also immersive, I think that that capability
0:29:45 will be, you know, taking that an order of magnitude higher
0:29:46 in terms of its impact.
0:29:50 And then I, you know, we talk about the has and the have nots.
0:29:53 We’re gonna release really more about haves and have soon,
0:29:54 right?
0:29:55 And the question is really housing.
0:29:57 And for some markets it may take five years
0:29:59 or some markets it may take 10.
0:30:02 But, you know, given the speed of a reduction of costs
0:30:05 on things, I don’t think that will be a lot more
0:30:09 than 10 years for this to proliferate.
0:30:12 – I used to be more optimistic about
0:30:14 US and China relations, quite honestly.
0:30:17 I even like, when I remember Mark Zuckerberg talking
0:30:19 about Facebook and how he thought everyone in the world
0:30:20 would be able to use it.
0:30:21 And then, you know, there’s like internal memos
0:30:24 that they’ve basically given up on that idea.
0:30:25 There’s no longer an idea of this being
0:30:28 like a global social network is because the divide
0:30:30 between the US and China in some ways,
0:30:31 in some ways we’ve gotten closer,
0:30:33 in some ways we’ve grown apart.
0:30:34 And so I do wonder, like I mean, you mentioned
0:30:37 like the whole US cocoon and the China cocoon and all that,
0:30:40 you know, I wonder how, like in reality,
0:30:41 how that would actually play out.
0:30:43 ‘Cause I see it being more likely now,
0:30:44 like based on my, based on my current worldview,
0:30:47 and I’m open to changing my view is it’s way more likely
0:30:50 that there’s just a total separate China system
0:30:52 versus the US system and the global system.
0:30:54 – Well, I think ’cause you look at the internet
0:30:57 as an example, I actually just came back last week
0:30:59 from Taiwan and Shanghai.
0:31:01 So I’ve been both the places that you’re talking about.
0:31:06 And, you know, you need a VPN to access a few places, right?
0:31:09 If you wanna access, you know, some of the social networks
0:31:12 like Twitter or Google, you know, maybe New York Times,
0:31:13 Washington Post, those things.
0:31:16 But the majority of that the web is available.
0:31:18 If you look at the apps, the state.
0:31:19 – But you’re not supposed to do that though.
0:31:20 – You’re not supposed to. – You’re not supposed to do that though.
0:31:23 – No, no, no, no, but the reality is that
0:31:27 there are equivalents locally for those capabilities, right?
0:31:30 But if you wanted to, essentially for, you know,
0:31:32 five dollars a year, you can get a VPN service
0:31:34 for you to access that, right?
0:31:36 But that’s, you know, less than 5%, you know,
0:31:38 less than 5% of the internet is not available
0:31:39 to Chinese people.
0:31:41 So essentially that’s what I was saying.
0:31:42 At some point, we’re gonna get to a point
0:31:45 where there’ll be 5% of these worlds
0:31:46 that will be not accessible
0:31:48 because of political or whatever issues,
0:31:50 but then 95% it will be, right?
0:31:53 And then most of the things that brings you value
0:31:55 are actually gonna be that other 95%.
0:31:59 And in fact, you know, I was there when Zuckerberg came
0:32:01 and, you know, I was trying to do all this thing.
0:32:03 The reality is that he was not actually blocked
0:32:05 from entering China.
0:32:06 He was just given the choice that
0:32:07 if you’re gonna operate in China,
0:32:09 you have to put your servers here,
0:32:11 you have to follow the local laws.
0:32:14 And he said, no, I don’t want to follow the local law, right?
0:32:15 Just like if you look at TikTok,
0:32:16 what does TikTok do, right?
0:32:18 The US government said to TikTok,
0:32:20 if you have to follow local laws, they did that.
0:32:21 And then they said, well,
0:32:22 even though you’re following local laws,
0:32:24 I still wanna ban you,
0:32:25 or I still wanna make you to sell.
0:32:27 So in some ways, I feel like that–
0:32:30 – Yeah, I mean, it’s complicated, right?
0:32:31 ‘Cause like there’s more to that.
0:32:33 ‘Cause like putting your servers in China
0:32:35 also could mean your proprietary data
0:32:36 being sold off to someone.
0:32:38 So it’s not, you know, it’s complicated.
0:32:39 – No, ’cause I operated,
0:32:41 I operated a social network in China.
0:32:44 So I, nobody’s really going in there
0:32:46 and taking your proprietary data.
0:32:48 What they will do, what they will do is every week or so,
0:32:51 you’ll get a list and say here are the 20 terms
0:32:53 that are the sensitive terms for this week.
0:32:55 You know, if people search for these terms,
0:32:56 if people, you know, talk about it,
0:32:59 you know, don’t give an answer, right?
0:33:01 And then, I mean, yeah, honestly,
0:33:04 whether it’s Google or if it’s Facebook,
0:33:07 it would have been better for China and for the world
0:33:08 if they actually followed that.
0:33:11 Because then for the other, you know, 1.5 million
0:33:13 other words that people were looking for,
0:33:17 they would have got a more diverse answer base, right?
0:33:20 So, you know, if you look at Bing,
0:33:21 Bing’s available in China, why?
0:33:23 Because they follow these rules.
0:33:24 Yahoo’s available in China, why?
0:33:25 Because they follow these rules.
0:33:27 So it’s not that, it’s not, you know,
0:33:28 I don’t want to sound like
0:33:29 I’m defending the Chinese government.
0:33:30 – Yeah, I was like, let’s not go to that debate
0:33:33 ’cause I’m definitely on the opposite side of all of that.
0:33:35 – You know, I also work for a Taiwanese company.
0:33:39 So, I’m not biased against, oh, you know, or towards anyone.
0:33:42 And ’cause I’m a U.S. citizen, I was born in China,
0:33:44 I’m mixed race between U.S. and China.
0:33:46 You know, I work for a Taiwanese company
0:33:48 and I’m part Jewish, okay?
0:33:50 So, the point is, I guess,
0:33:53 by having multiple perspectives,
0:33:56 it allows me to understand that why are people prioritized?
0:33:58 Why is the government here prioritizing this?
0:34:00 Why is everyone there prioritizing?
0:34:01 And what do they mean by it?
0:34:02 Instead of taking everything as,
0:34:06 oh, that’s a aggressive move to compete with me
0:34:07 or to hurt me.
0:34:09 You know, I think each country is doing the things
0:34:11 that they are doing for the benefits
0:34:13 that they see for their population, right?
0:34:14 So, I get that.
0:34:17 But I think as long as you see that perspective
0:34:18 and instead of saying, oh, they’re doing that
0:34:20 to try to take over democracy
0:34:22 or they’re doing that to try to keep us down
0:34:24 or whatever the perspective, you know,
0:34:26 the narrative on the two sides are,
0:34:28 nothing is that extreme, right?
0:34:31 So, once you start to understand it and at least, you know,
0:34:33 and like you said, if you know the language,
0:34:34 it actually helps a lot.
0:34:36 ‘Cause, you know, like two weeks ago,
0:34:39 I was at this US-China kind of governmental dialogue
0:34:42 and there was, you know, everybody was,
0:34:45 at least all the US people there were super hawkish.
0:34:47 They were like, how can we slow down China?
0:34:49 How can we keep them from progressing in AI?
0:34:51 How can we cut off more chips on them?
0:34:53 I mean, that was their whole thing, right?
0:34:55 And I was like, you know, when you do this
0:34:58 and you’re public about this, you know,
0:35:00 what China hears is that you’re trying to slow down
0:35:02 and you’re trying to keep me from developing the way,
0:35:03 what am I going to do?
0:35:06 I’m going to create a parallel ecosystem of technology.
0:35:10 I’m going to try to hoard as much technology as I can
0:35:11 while I still have access.
0:35:14 And it becomes a self-sufficient prophecy, right?
0:35:15 Where we really should be thinking about
0:35:17 how can we work more together?
0:35:20 Because half of the world’s AI researchers today
0:35:22 are actually originated from China.
0:35:23 A lot of people don’t realize this.
0:35:28 In fact, 38% of top researchers in AI in the US
0:35:33 came from China, and only 37% of US researchers
0:35:34 were born in the US.
0:35:37 So there’s actually more top US researchers
0:35:39 in the US from China.
0:35:40 So, you know, there’s already that,
0:35:42 that collaboration is already happening.
0:35:45 In fact, there was three times more AI research
0:35:48 that was collaboration between US and Chinese
0:35:51 academic institutions up to about two years ago.
0:35:53 And then it came down drastically,
0:35:55 but then any other country, right?
0:35:58 The next one was, I think, US with England,
0:36:01 which was one-third as many collaborative projects, right?
0:36:05 So, you know, I think if you talk to the academic,
0:36:08 there’s the smartest people in this area
0:36:09 are in two countries, right?
0:36:12 But the politics is making it difficult
0:36:14 for us to make progress.
0:36:16 And then because of that, you know,
0:36:18 everybody sees everybody else as an enemy.
0:36:21 And when you see the other person as me and you say it out,
0:36:25 then people behave the way that you expect them to behave.
0:36:28 So, again, I mean, we don’t want to get too political,
0:36:32 but I just feel like we need to have a balanced perspective.
0:36:33 I want to talk a little bit about, like,
0:36:37 the crossover of AI and XR, right?
0:36:40 You did kind of give one example of, like,
0:36:42 you know, maybe AI tutors that look like
0:36:43 you’re talking to a real person.
0:36:46 So, you get that, like, one-on-one teacher experience
0:36:47 with, like, an AI tutor.
0:36:51 But where are some of the other overlaps of AI and XR?
0:36:55 Like, why is the sort of convergence of these two tools
0:36:57 such a big deal?
0:36:58 So, I mean, first of all,
0:37:00 when it makes everything that happens in XR,
0:37:03 it wouldn’t be possible without AI, right?
0:37:05 Everything from hand tracking, eye tracking,
0:37:09 you know, voice control, real timing,
0:37:12 to, you know, world scanning, all of that is AI, right?
0:37:16 To NPC, you know, being powered by AI models, right?
0:37:22 So, AI is actually enabling XR to be even possible.
0:37:24 Now, if you click the other way,
0:37:27 what is XR doing for AI?
0:37:28 So, a few areas.
0:37:32 One is in terms of a synthetic training data, right?
0:37:35 If you look at what Tesla’s doing, a lot,
0:37:37 they’re actually doing now more training
0:37:41 with virtual models inside AI in different situations
0:37:42 than they are with physical.
0:37:43 And they can learn faster.
0:37:45 They can get billions of miles
0:37:46 instead of millions of miles.
0:37:49 The other thing is you are very soon going to have
0:37:52 giant work job displacement.
0:37:55 We’re looking at, let’s say, 10%, 30%, 40% of people
0:37:57 being out of work.
0:37:59 There will not be a physical economy
0:38:01 for these people to be moved into.
0:38:04 So, you have to create a parallel economy trend.
0:38:07 And I think that’s where this metaverse ecosystem
0:38:10 plays a huge part in terms of alleviating
0:38:12 both the social, the economic,
0:38:14 and also the mental health aspects
0:38:18 of not having a work identity, right?
0:38:21 Many of us identify ourselves with our work.
0:38:23 When you introduce yourselves like, “Oh, what do you do?”
0:38:25 That’s kind of the first question.
0:38:28 Where in the future, maybe we’re gonna have
0:38:31 managing a virtual world as my job,
0:38:33 or I can create virtual environments.
0:38:35 I could be a virtual tutor to somebody
0:38:37 that’s a thousand miles away or whatever, right?
0:38:39 This now creates that parallel economy
0:38:42 to give you an added purpose, right?
0:38:45 And it also allows you to be educated much faster.
0:38:46 As we mentioned earlier,
0:38:50 the education aspect of it to essentially,
0:38:53 right now, probably the most rare asset
0:38:54 is a good teacher out there, right?
0:38:57 ‘Cause the most talented people usually go
0:39:00 to where they’re paid most and they’re not teachers.
0:39:01 Right, I mean, I’m not downplaying.
0:39:03 I think there’s a lot of great teachers out there,
0:39:04 but there could be a lot.
0:39:09 And it’d be great if we had this now virtual classrooms
0:39:11 that people who really love teaching
0:39:14 and love their students could then create a income
0:39:18 for themselves that would be able to help
0:39:20 and support students around the world.
0:39:23 In fact, that is the epilogue of the book
0:39:25 talks about kind of the educational scenario
0:39:26 and how that plays out.
0:39:27 So I don’t know if I mentioned,
0:39:29 but the book is actually a debate
0:39:31 between myself and my co-author.
0:39:33 So I’m the optimist in the book
0:39:35 and my co-author is a pessimist.
0:39:36 And so every chapter essentially,
0:39:39 we go through that the two potential aspects of,
0:39:40 here’s all the good things
0:39:41 that can happen from this technology.
0:39:42 Here’s all the bad things.
0:39:43 And a lot of people are like,
0:39:45 “Why would you create this that’s confusing?”
0:39:46 I’m like, “No, actually, the problem is,
0:39:48 “most people, when they buy books,
0:39:52 “they buy books that coincide with their existing beliefs.”
0:39:53 And so when you read it,
0:39:54 you actually don’t learn anything,
0:39:55 you just feel better,
0:39:57 ’cause you’re like, “Oh, see, that book says I was right.”
0:40:00 But you never really listen to the other arguments.
0:40:03 And we want people to see both sides of the arguments,
0:40:03 because once they do that,
0:40:06 then they actually feel stronger about their beliefs
0:40:07 that they actually do have.
0:40:10 And then we give them actionable activities
0:40:11 that they can do to help bend it
0:40:12 towards that positive outcome.
0:40:16 ‘Cause it will never be as positive as the utopia outcome.
0:40:18 It will never be as bad as the whole dystopian outcome.
0:40:20 But if we don’t do anything,
0:40:22 it actually will probably lean towards the dystopian,
0:40:25 just like we’ve seen with a lot of technologies today.
0:40:29 So, and in this one, because of how powerful it is,
0:40:31 we actually do need to take action.
0:40:33 And particularly people, I think in policy,
0:40:34 people that are corporate leaders,
0:40:36 people that are in the ALF,
0:40:39 they have such an immense ability to impact
0:40:41 where the world is going.
0:40:44 And to make sure that we have the UBI and the UBS safety,
0:40:46 and that’s so that when people do lose a job,
0:40:49 they’re now on the streets, causing havoc,
0:40:51 because that’s what happens when people lose a dirt.
0:40:54 And we go back and we look at the lead-eyed movement, right?
0:40:56 What happened there was,
0:40:58 they actually, if you have a chance,
0:41:00 read the book, “Blood in the Machines.”
0:41:01 I used to think, oh, lead-eyes,
0:41:02 these guys are anti-technology.
0:41:04 Actually, they were not anti-technology.
0:41:07 They just, over a 30-year period,
0:41:09 where we’re kind of removing their jobs
0:41:11 and the factory owners didn’t give them options,
0:41:13 didn’t smooth out the transition,
0:41:15 and just said, okay, you’re fired,
0:41:18 and you have no severance, you have nothing.
0:41:20 And they’re like, I have kids to feed, what can I do?
0:41:24 And they just, over several decades, this happened,
0:41:27 and then it led them to be like, okay, I gotta do something.
0:41:30 I gotta stop this, otherwise, my kids are gonna start, right?
0:41:33 And so if there was a social safety net
0:41:36 for that group of people who were being replaced,
0:41:37 we could have prevented that whole thing.
0:41:39 And because a lot of people died,
0:41:40 a lot of damage to equipment,
0:41:42 we probably slowed down progress,
0:41:44 more than we could have or should have, right?
0:41:47 So there’s a lot of things that if we learn from history,
0:41:49 I think, you know, ’cause so many people say,
0:41:51 oh, you can’t have this social welfare system.
0:41:54 It’s unfair to the people who work and blah, blah, blah.
0:41:55 The reality is actually,
0:41:57 if you have another book, you should have a chance.
0:42:01 It’s called Utopia for Realists.
0:42:04 And it talks about the whole kind of,
0:42:07 the justification of the whole UBI model,
0:42:10 and how, over time, there’s actually been dozens of studies
0:42:11 that’s been conducted around the world
0:42:14 that showed more value were actually created
0:42:16 when you provided these kind of things
0:42:17 than you put into it.
0:42:22 So it’s not a value depreciating type of an investment.
0:42:25 It actually helped to create more stability.
0:42:26 People learn more, they actually worked harder.
0:42:28 You know, a lot of people say, oh, you give them stuff
0:42:29 and they’re gonna stop being lazy,
0:42:31 and they’re gonna drink, and they’re gonna smoke.
0:42:34 And actually less money was put into drinking, smoking,
0:42:36 more money was put into self-education,
0:42:38 buying equipment, starting businesses,
0:42:39 you know, those kind of things.
0:42:42 So it’s a lot of what we’ve been told
0:42:45 is actually not supported by the evidence.
0:42:47 – Again, it’s all complicated.
0:42:49 I’m in the point where like,
0:42:51 I think socialism is bad, I’m worried,
0:42:52 ’cause there’s been a lot of examples of socialism
0:42:54 going very, very wrong.
0:42:55 And at the same time, like, yeah,
0:42:57 maybe we do have to have something like UBI in the future,
0:42:58 ’cause like, I don’t know,
0:43:00 there won’t be enough jobs for people
0:43:02 to like have food on the table.
0:43:03 – You look at the examples of what happened today.
0:43:05 You look at places like the Netherlands,
0:43:07 you look at places like Finland,
0:43:09 you know, Germany, you know,
0:43:13 there’s a lot of, you know, democratic socialism, right?
0:43:16 And if you look at the education levels there,
0:43:17 you look at the employment levels,
0:43:19 you look at the fulfillment levels,
0:43:21 they’re all higher than the U.S.
0:43:22 They’re income levels a little lower,
0:43:24 but they’re actually happier.
0:43:25 They’re more educated, they’re more peaceful,
0:43:26 there’s less crime.
0:43:29 There’s a lot of other things that from a social level,
0:43:32 you know, would you rather be 20% less wealthy,
0:43:33 or would you rather live in a place
0:43:35 where, you know, your kids can walk to school
0:43:38 and you’re not afraid, and they have, you know,
0:43:39 they’re feeling good about themselves,
0:43:42 there’s less loneliness, there’s less, you know,
0:43:43 mental health issues.
0:43:47 I mean, I think there’s a trade-off
0:43:48 that we should think about, right?
0:43:52 And the reality is that what’s made it difficult
0:43:53 in the past was that, you know,
0:43:56 we’ve had a relatively slow increase in productivity.
0:43:59 What we will see now with AI and robotics coming in,
0:44:01 is that the productivity problem
0:44:03 that has kept us from allowing
0:44:06 these types of social services is going to,
0:44:09 those obstacles are gonna go away, right?
0:44:11 – Yeah, Elon Musk recently said that he hopes,
0:44:12 instead of UBI that we have,
0:44:15 what was it, like universal abundant income,
0:44:16 or something like this.
0:44:19 – I think he’s at universal high income.
0:44:20 – Oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, exactly.
0:44:24 So I agree with that, ’cause I think his concern is like,
0:44:25 if you do get people money that,
0:44:27 and you combine that with like, okay, yeah,
0:44:29 then also virtual reality gets great,
0:44:31 and then yeah, sure, hopefully people in virtual reality,
0:44:33 do a lot of business with each other,
0:44:34 but look, I’m a gamer.
0:44:36 Like if you give me, like,
0:44:37 if you give me Baldur’s Gate 3
0:44:39 with like 10 times better graphics,
0:44:41 and I can create worlds forever,
0:44:43 I could definitely, you know,
0:44:45 if I didn’t have professional goals
0:44:46 or things that were going well for me,
0:44:47 I could definitely see me just like,
0:44:49 I’m just gonna sink into that.
0:44:51 I’m just gonna, that’s my new world.
0:44:53 And so I hope that we do use these tools more and more
0:44:56 to like, get people things to do, not, yeah.
0:44:58 – And then we actually, we’ve done studies on this,
0:45:00 in terms of, you know, is VRAR,
0:45:03 is it more addictive than traditional 2D gaming?
0:45:06 And what we did find was there’s about 2X more addictive
0:45:08 from various aspects of addiction.
0:45:11 So it is something that we need to be conscious of, right?
0:45:13 But if you look at, I mean, I know,
0:45:15 here’s an example that, you know, you may not like,
0:45:17 but in China, they actually have this
0:45:19 kind of child gaming law, right?
0:45:23 Where children under 18 can only play three hours a week
0:45:25 of network games.
0:45:28 And it’s tied to your national, yeah,
0:45:29 it’s tied to your national ideas.
0:45:32 I mean, I’m glad you agree, ’cause I’m a parent.
0:45:35 And I wish there was these kind of laws in more places,
0:45:38 ’cause I would rather have my kids be studying
0:45:41 and, you know, even watching YouTube to learn things
0:45:43 than to be playing a game that, you know,
0:45:45 maybe has need for mental value.
0:45:48 But, you know, there’s a diminishing level of return
0:45:50 that you get from most gaming, right?
0:45:52 So, and then particularly today’s gaming is really,
0:45:54 it’s designed to be addictive.
0:45:56 It’s designed to make you, you know,
0:45:58 go to the next level and keep trying.
0:46:00 And, you know, I think there’s some things that teaches,
0:46:02 but I think there’s a lot more value
0:46:04 that they could be had with their, you know.
0:46:06 So, those are the kind of things that we found was that
0:46:10 to make this addictive medium less addictive,
0:46:14 you actually have to create some system-mandated policies.
0:46:17 So, and these policies could be mandated by your parents.
0:46:20 It could be mandated by lessing the government
0:46:22 for some cases, you know, which actually for laws,
0:46:24 we have a lot of things like, you know, gun laws
0:46:26 or whatever, pornography laws.
0:46:28 I mean, there’s rules that we already have in the world.
0:46:31 I think having some rules where we know that, you know,
0:46:33 if these things are going to do hard for society,
0:46:35 we should protect society in some way.
0:46:36 – This has been fascinating.
0:46:39 But I do want to, you know, shut out your book again.
0:46:41 You got our next reality.
0:46:43 A lot of the stuff that we talked about on this episode,
0:46:44 you go into a lot more detail.
0:46:48 And you also have a lot of the counterarguments in here too,
0:46:51 with your co-host or your co-author, Louis,
0:46:53 sort of taking some of the opposing viewpoints.
0:46:54 – Yeah, thanks again for inviting me.
0:46:57 This has been a fun, fun chat between, you know,
0:46:59 few folks that actually know the space a little bit.
0:47:02 And if you want to follow me, you can go on Twitter.
0:47:05 It’s @aygraylin or @alvingraylin on LinkedIn.
0:47:05 – Well, awesome.
0:47:06 I have a copy of the book.
0:47:08 I really appreciate the time.
0:47:09 This has been a fascinating discussion.
0:47:10 – Thanks again for inviting me.
0:47:11 It’s been fun.
0:47:14 (upbeat music)
0:47:16 (upbeat music)
0:47:19 (upbeat music)
0:47:21 (upbeat music)
0:47:25 (upbeat music)
0:47:27 you
0:00:06 – I’m optimistic long-term about kind of human nature
0:00:09 to adapt to this new environment and to get us
0:00:11 from these siloed worlds that we have today
0:00:14 to a much more interconnected, interoperable
0:00:16 Metaverse platform long-term.
0:00:18 – So who controls this world?
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0:00:50 (upbeat music)
0:00:54 – Hey, welcome to the Next Wave Podcast.
0:00:55 I’m Matt Wolf.
0:00:57 I’m here with Nathan Lanz.
0:00:59 And today we’re talking with Alvin Grayland,
0:01:02 the author of the book, Our Next Reality.
0:01:05 And we’re talking all about the crossover of AI
0:01:09 and the Metaverse and virtual reality and augmented reality.
0:01:13 And in this episode, he basically lays out a game plan
0:01:15 of how we get to this Metaverse
0:01:17 that everybody’s been talking about.
0:01:19 And well, quite honestly,
0:01:20 a lot of people have forgotten about
0:01:21 over the last couple of years.
0:01:23 Well, we talk about how we get there.
0:01:25 There’s also some interesting discussion
0:01:27 about what we can learn from China
0:01:29 and what China can learn from the US
0:01:31 because Alvin has spent a lot of time
0:01:32 in both of those countries.
0:01:35 So there’s some very fascinating discussion
0:01:39 around the sort of dynamic between China and the US.
0:01:40 I think you’re gonna love this conversation.
0:01:43 So let’s go ahead and jump on in with Alvin Grayland.
0:01:44 (upbeat music)
0:01:46 Hey, Alvin, thanks so much for joining us today.
0:01:47 How are you doing?
0:01:48 – I’m good, yeah.
0:01:49 Thanks for inviting me, Matt.
0:01:50 And great to meet you, Nathan.
0:01:53 I think it’s gonna be a fun conversation.
0:01:54 – Yeah, so Alvin and I,
0:01:57 we go way back to about a couple of weeks ago,
0:02:01 we got to meet each other at the augmented world expo.
0:02:03 You were out there signing copies of your new book,
0:02:05 Our Next Reality, and you and I got to talking
0:02:07 and I had to get you on the podcast
0:02:11 to talk about the crossover of the AI world
0:02:13 and the metaverse world.
0:02:15 And so I wanna talk a bit about
0:02:19 the sort of crossover of AI and the metaverse, right?
0:02:20 But before we do,
0:02:22 I think we kind of need to define the metaverse
0:02:25 ’cause I think a lot of people have a fuzzy vision
0:02:27 of what the metaverse is.
0:02:30 At one point, the metaverse was very tied towards like crypto
0:02:34 and Facebook went and changed their name to meta
0:02:35 and there was all of this stuff
0:02:37 that was sort of muddying the waters.
0:02:40 So how do you define metaverse, first of all?
0:02:44 – Okay, so I think the easy way to think about the metaverse,
0:02:46 first of all, the metaverse does not exist yet, okay?
0:02:47 So all those people who says,
0:02:50 “Oh, we have the X and X, Y metaverse,”
0:02:52 they’re all just bullshitting you, okay?
0:02:55 The metaverse is actually the internet we’ve been building
0:02:56 for the last 30, 40 years,
0:02:58 but the 3D version of the internet.
0:03:02 And what that means is that it’s a open, interconnected,
0:03:04 global network of instead of websites,
0:03:06 you go to 3D worlds, right?
0:03:09 That’s really the definition of the metaverse.
0:03:12 In fact, the guy who invented or coined the word metaverse,
0:03:13 and I checked with him, I was like,
0:03:15 “This is my definition, does that make sense to you?”
0:03:18 And he’s like, “Well, when I wrote it in 1992,
0:03:19 “there was no such thing, it was kind of,
0:03:20 “I made this stuff up.”
0:03:22 But what you’re explaining
0:03:25 is actually what I was trying to describe in the book, right?
0:03:29 In terms of something that is a large network of worlds.
0:03:30 It’s not a single world,
0:03:33 it’s not something where you go and use, you sell NFTs,
0:03:35 or it’s not just a game, right?
0:03:37 And I think it’s the ability for you
0:03:40 to be able to access it on any device,
0:03:43 anywhere in the world with anybody else, right?
0:03:45 That’s where the value comes in,
0:03:48 because as we know, Metcalf’s Law, right?
0:03:51 The value of a network is a square of its nodes.
0:03:56 So, in a particular game or a particular NFT world,
0:03:58 you’re gonna have thousands of people
0:03:59 or hundreds of thousands of people.
0:04:01 That value is gonna be significantly less
0:04:02 than what we have today,
0:04:04 where we have billions of people
0:04:07 on a giant interconnected web, right?
0:04:08 That’s why the internet is so valuable.
0:04:10 That’s why we go on it every day,
0:04:13 because there’s so much going on, and so much potential.
0:04:16 And that’s what will happen in the 3D side,
0:04:19 because as you know, I mean, we grew up,
0:04:20 we evolved over the last several million years
0:04:22 in a 3D space.
0:04:25 There’s no reason for us to be constricting ourselves
0:04:26 to that 2D screen.
0:04:29 We’ve done it because that was the only option available.
0:04:33 But soon, when that 3D space becomes accessible,
0:04:35 affordable, and ubiquitous,
0:04:37 there is no reason for us to go back
0:04:40 to a limitation of a 2D space.
0:04:41 And right now, we’re looking at each other
0:04:45 through multiple 2D screens, and I can see you,
0:04:47 but I don’t really feel like you’re with me.
0:04:50 When we get into that matter of our space,
0:04:52 we’re gonna be around the virtual table.
0:04:53 We’re gonna see, you know,
0:04:55 photorealistic potential of avatars of ourselves,
0:04:58 if we want, we can make it more cartoony.
0:05:01 But the fact that we will feel together,
0:05:03 and whatever memories we create,
0:05:06 we’ll feel the same as we were together.
0:05:09 I think that’s something that is very powerful
0:05:11 to bring people together,
0:05:13 and to allow us to collaborate more,
0:05:14 to allow us to communicate more,
0:05:17 to allow us to get rid of the miscommunication
0:05:18 and differences that people have
0:05:21 between cultures and languages and age.
0:05:23 – Like, how do you imagine the multiverse?
0:05:25 Like, you know, my background is kind of like in gaming.
0:05:27 I actually was one of the top players
0:05:28 on the game EverQuest when I was a kid.
0:05:30 So I feel like I grew up in this like virtual world, right?
0:05:32 Like, do you see, you know,
0:05:33 it’s almost like Ready Player One,
0:05:35 but gaming is just one aspect,
0:05:37 and like everyone’s living in this virtual world
0:05:39 for like a lot of their life,
0:05:40 and they’re doing business there,
0:05:41 they’re meeting friends.
0:05:42 Maybe there’s also gaming.
0:05:44 Is that kind of how you see it?
0:05:47 – So today, if you look at the amount of screen time we have,
0:05:50 the average American is around 10 or 11 hours
0:05:51 of total screen time, right?
0:05:54 Between TV, desktop, you know, phone, et cetera.
0:05:55 – Yeah.
0:05:57 – And what we’ve seen is that over the last 10 years,
0:05:59 people have primarily moved from,
0:06:02 primarily on TVs to, you know,
0:06:03 a lot of it on desktop,
0:06:05 but to now mostly on mobile, right?
0:06:07 Most of our screen time is actually on mobile.
0:06:10 What we will find is that in the next five years or so,
0:06:13 we will start to transition from something
0:06:15 that is in our pocket to something that’s on our face.
0:06:16 Why?
0:06:19 Because that is already on our screen, on our heads.
0:06:21 And half of the people in the world
0:06:22 wear glasses on a daily basis.
0:06:24 So it is something that’s already natural.
0:06:26 Now, if I can turn the glasses they already wear
0:06:29 into a display, into both an immersive,
0:06:31 as well as a potentially AR display,
0:06:33 so you have both options.
0:06:34 Essentially, with a click,
0:06:36 you can turn it into something that’s see-through
0:06:39 versus pass-through versus, you know, completely immersive.
0:06:41 You know, and when you have that,
0:06:42 there’s really no reason
0:06:45 to pick that screen out of your pocket anymore.
0:06:49 In fact, I think that we will essentially be having,
0:06:51 I would say, majority of our day
0:06:52 viewing the world through this screen.
0:06:54 Now, it could be an augmented,
0:06:55 you could actually most of the time be clear
0:06:57 and just have some few augmented items.
0:06:59 Let’s say, instead of having a monitor,
0:07:00 I can have a giant virtual monitor
0:07:03 and the rest of my office looks the same, right?
0:07:04 And for a lot of people, that’s enough.
0:07:08 But, you know, for us who live in the first world,
0:07:10 most people say, “Oh, you know, I would never want
0:07:12 “to spend more time in these virtual spaces.
0:07:15 “I know you’re different ’cause you’re a gamer.”
0:07:17 But for a lot of the world,
0:07:20 their physical world is not as beautiful
0:07:23 and as welcoming as a potential virtual world.
0:07:25 So for a lot of people who, let’s say,
0:07:28 live in a dorm with 10 other people,
0:07:29 you know, they may actually say,
0:07:31 “Hi, I want to spend more time in this virtual space
0:07:34 “because it allows me to have the freedom
0:07:35 “to do virtual traveling,
0:07:36 “to talk to people around the world,
0:07:40 “to learn things in a space that is not distracted
0:07:41 “by all these other things,” right?
0:07:46 So, you know, and I think that’s the beauty
0:07:48 of what this offers is that it allows you
0:07:51 to pick the environment that you want to be in.
0:07:53 And, you know, whether you want it to be for gaming,
0:07:54 whether you want it for education,
0:07:58 whether you want it to be for work, you know,
0:07:59 we, especially white-collar people,
0:08:03 spend so much of their time working with a 2D screen.
0:08:04 But the difference of that now,
0:08:07 if you have that ability to do it in a 3D space,
0:08:08 I think a lot of them would, you know,
0:08:12 in fact, I know you guys are both users of the Vision Pro,
0:08:16 you know, having that virtual environment that they have,
0:08:20 it really allows you to feel more focused
0:08:22 on whatever topic that you’re working on, right?
0:08:25 So even if you just had a screen of your computer
0:08:27 and in that giant, you know, Yosemite Park
0:08:29 or whatever, you know, the volcano,
0:08:32 you just feel like, “Wow, you know, I can be concentrated,”
0:08:34 ’cause I don’t have, you know, dogs walking around
0:08:36 or people walking outside the window,
0:08:39 that in itself will allow us to be more productive.
0:08:40 In fact, there were studies that we’d done
0:08:44 and we found that kids were six times more focused
0:08:47 when they were studying inside VR
0:08:49 than when they were in the classroom, right?
0:08:52 And they were able to learn twice as fast
0:08:55 versus having human face-to-face classroom education, right?
0:08:57 So I think those kind of things,
0:08:58 it’s a little counter to choose,
0:09:00 ’cause everybody’s like, oh, there’s nothing better
0:09:01 than face-to-face, but the problem is,
0:09:03 when you’re face-to-face, you have 30 other kids
0:09:05 or 50 other kids with you,
0:09:08 you know, the teacher has one minute of time per class
0:09:09 that they can spend on you,
0:09:11 whereas when you’re in a virtual environment
0:09:15 and you have that personalized face-to-face AI tutor
0:09:17 that can be working with you the entire time
0:09:20 and they can adjust and you can actually use
0:09:21 your whole brain for learning.
0:09:23 You know, as we know, although there’s some,
0:09:24 you know, visual learners, there’s audio learners,
0:09:26 there’s tactile learners,
0:09:28 and when you’re in the XR, all of that is available.
0:09:32 Whatever medium is the best way for you to consume
0:09:34 and digest and understand content,
0:09:35 it allows you to do that.
0:09:38 Whereas, you know, maybe if you’re a really good audio learner,
0:09:40 you’ll find in the classroom,
0:09:42 but only about a third of the people are that way.
0:09:45 So we’re leaving a lot of people behind.
0:09:47 In fact, we did a study that showed
0:09:51 when a class that was doing astrophysics,
0:09:53 we found that the worst student in the class
0:09:56 that was supplemented by XR
0:09:59 was better than the best student in the normal class.
0:10:01 And they were already pre-sorted beforehand
0:10:04 to be having equal pre-test scores.
0:10:05 So it’s not about, you know,
0:10:07 oh, this class was actually better.
0:10:10 It’s just the fact that until the reality is that
0:10:11 there’s actually no dumb students.
0:10:13 Everybody’s a genius.
0:10:15 They’re just not being taught in a way
0:10:19 to allow them to utilize a genius as in them, you know,
0:10:20 or they’re not being cared for enough
0:10:23 so that they paid focus and paid attention to the things.
0:10:26 So you really smart kids and really kind of,
0:10:28 maybe, you know, divergent kids,
0:10:31 they have the ability to do a lot more
0:10:33 if you gave them the right environments.
0:10:35 And I think XR can do that.
0:10:38 And particularly, if you have customized AI features
0:10:40 or tutors that can help with that.
0:10:42 – So I like part of the vision that you laid out,
0:10:43 but not all of it.
0:10:44 Like the idea that, like, okay,
0:10:46 so if you live in a shitty environment
0:10:48 that we should just keep that environment shitty
0:10:51 and you should now go into virtual reality instead,
0:10:52 I don’t like that.
0:10:54 Like, I personally believe that with AI,
0:10:57 we should actually make the physical world better.
0:10:58 Right?
0:11:01 – I cannot agree with you more, Nathan.
0:11:03 Here’s the thing is that, you know,
0:11:04 people have been talking about,
0:11:06 oh, how can we create greater equality around the world?
0:11:09 You know, how can we let, you know,
0:11:12 the rich nations help the four nations, et cetera?
0:11:13 And it just doesn’t happen, right?
0:11:15 And or it hasn’t happened yet.
0:11:17 And, you know, the key determinant of success today
0:11:20 is where you’re born, more than anything else, right?
0:11:23 And now, what happens when you actually start having
0:11:25 a global metaverse ecosystem,
0:11:28 is that actually you start to create a parallel economy,
0:11:29 right?
0:11:32 So this actually creates a natural flow of income
0:11:35 and wealth-earning opportunity.
0:11:37 No matter where you’re born, if you have a headset,
0:11:39 if you’re connected to this global metaverse,
0:11:42 then I am actually judged by my capabilities
0:11:45 to contribute to society, whether as a programmer,
0:11:47 as a, you know, technical support guy,
0:11:50 as a consultant, as a tutor to some child,
0:11:52 that’s a thousand miles away, right?
0:11:53 If I was born in Bangladesh,
0:11:56 I could make maybe, you know, $10 a month
0:11:56 or something like that.
0:11:58 If I’m, you know, born in the US,
0:12:00 you know, the poorest people who are, you know,
0:12:02 probably making $1,000 a month or something,
0:12:03 you know, in that order.
0:12:07 So the fact that now you create a global workforce
0:12:09 and it equalizes them because it’s,
0:12:11 people will pay you based on your value,
0:12:14 not based on what they perceive your local costs is,
0:12:16 ’cause they can’t tell where you’re from, right?
0:12:18 That actually, I think, will help to achieve
0:12:19 what you’re talking about, Nathan,
0:12:22 in terms of how do we make people’s lives better
0:12:23 by utilizing tech technology,
0:12:27 essentially by creating a layer on top of the physical layer
0:12:29 so that no longer are you constrained
0:12:33 by who your parents were or by where you were born, right?
0:12:35 Which are the two biggest characteristics
0:12:37 that determine your future success, right?
0:12:39 – Yeah, that’s something I wonder about though.
0:12:41 Like, so if we spend more time in virtual rally,
0:12:44 like when I played EverQuest a lot, right?
0:12:46 I was not good at interacting with people at all.
0:12:49 And I felt like a major detachment for other people.
0:12:50 Almost like they were not a real thing.
0:12:51 Like my game was the real thing.
0:12:55 And so I do wonder if we will see more of that
0:12:57 with humans where people don’t actually value other humans,
0:12:59 if they spend more time in virtual reality.
0:13:01 So I kind of imagine that the best scenario is like,
0:13:04 yes, you have this amazing VR tech
0:13:06 that we spend some time in.
0:13:07 And but we’re so much more efficient
0:13:09 with the time that we spend, whether if we’re working,
0:13:12 okay, we put on the VR headset for 30 minutes,
0:13:13 the AI helped us a lot,
0:13:15 and we got a lot of our work done, right?
0:13:17 And then I can go off in the physical world
0:13:19 and spend time with family and friends and things like that.
0:13:21 – So I think those are two different ways
0:13:23 to approach it that actually would be different
0:13:25 than what you probably experienced back
0:13:26 when you were a child.
0:13:28 ‘Cause you know, I also played every question.
0:13:29 You know, you’re in front of a 2D screen,
0:13:32 you’re talking to fixed characters that have fixed lines
0:13:35 and you’re trying to get through this maze or this quest.
0:13:38 Now, the good thing about the, you know,
0:13:40 a future metaverse, which doesn’t exist yet,
0:13:42 that this future metaverse is that the other people
0:13:44 and there are actually also real people.
0:13:45 They’re not scripted.
0:13:47 They’re not something where you’re out there
0:13:50 trying to solve and fix a fixed problem.
0:13:52 You’re actually interacting with real people.
0:13:53 And then we did a study on this.
0:13:57 So we were doing AI based language learning
0:14:00 and inside with avatars inside VR
0:14:03 versus the traditional classroom learning
0:14:05 or recorded learning.
0:14:07 And what we actually found was that
0:14:10 when people were learning inside VR with, you know,
0:14:13 AI avatars or that was teaching them,
0:14:15 they actually learned the language twice as fast
0:14:18 as when they were learning inside a classroom.
0:14:20 And here’s actually the more important thing.
0:14:22 They were 10 times more willing
0:14:24 to use it in the real world, right?
0:14:26 So why is that, right?
0:14:29 Because when they were inside the VR space,
0:14:31 they didn’t feel like they were being judged.
0:14:33 They weren’t shy about using it.
0:14:37 So they got into the habit of actually using the language.
0:14:39 I mean, you’re living right now in Japan.
0:14:41 And I know a lot of Japanese who,
0:14:43 they can read English great,
0:14:45 but they hate to speak it ’cause they’re always afraid
0:14:47 that they’re gonna pronounce something wrong or whatever.
0:14:49 They’re feeling embarrassed
0:14:51 that they may say something wrong.
0:14:53 But when you’ve actually got used to just talking
0:14:54 and you’re not being judged,
0:14:57 you actually get more confident.
0:14:59 And the more you speak, the more confident you get, right?
0:15:02 And so I think that’s something that is,
0:15:04 that can be gotten when you’re in immersive space
0:15:06 that is a little bit more difficult
0:15:09 when you’re dealing with kind of
0:15:11 pre-scripted characters in a game, right?
0:15:12 So I think that’s one thing.
0:15:15 – We’ll be right back.
0:15:18 But first, I wanna tell you about another great podcast
0:15:19 you’re gonna wanna listen to.
0:15:23 It’s called Science of Scaling hosted by Mark Roberge.
0:15:25 And it’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network,
0:15:29 the audio destination for business professionals.
0:15:31 Each week hosts Mark Roberge,
0:15:33 founding chief revenue officer at HubSpot,
0:15:35 senior lecturer at Harvard Business School,
0:15:38 and co-founder of Stage Two Capital,
0:15:41 sits down with the most successful sales leaders in tech
0:15:43 to learn the secrets, strategies, and tactics
0:15:45 to scaling your company’s growth.
0:15:48 He recently did a great episode called
0:15:51 How Do You Solve for a Siloed Marketing in Sales?
0:15:53 And I personally learned a lot from it.
0:15:55 You’re gonna wanna check out the podcast,
0:15:58 listen to Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.
0:16:03 – The other thing that you didn’t mention actually,
0:16:05 I think it’s really important is that
0:16:07 these worlds will house to be so much more efficient.
0:16:10 You know, like right now I spend
0:16:12 probably 60% of my time on the road, right?
0:16:16 And I’m on, in traffic, in airports,
0:16:19 I’m just spending all this time wasted time.
0:16:21 If I didn’t have to travel, I put on the headset,
0:16:25 I’m in a room with you guys, I feel I were connected.
0:16:27 I have a lot more free time to spend with my kids,
0:16:28 to spend with my best friends,
0:16:31 to spend with people I want to meet, right?
0:16:32 And to actually also stay healthy.
0:16:35 I think that’s one thing that I wish I had more time to go
0:16:38 and exercise and play golf and tennis and other things.
0:16:41 Because I’m working so much, I’m less able to do that, right?
0:16:44 So there’s kind of a combination of things where,
0:16:46 I think it’s natural to fear that,
0:16:48 hey, if you spend a lot of time in a virtual world,
0:16:50 you get disconnected.
0:16:52 I actually think that in some ways,
0:16:54 it could be counterintuitive
0:16:56 that it may be the opposite of that.
0:16:58 – I don’t know if you guys have seen the clips recently.
0:17:02 I saw one clip of like MIT and UCSD working together.
0:17:05 And at MIT, they had an Apple Vision Pro on
0:17:07 and they were moving their hands around
0:17:10 and a robot here in San Diego
0:17:12 was actually taking the same motions.
0:17:13 And then like the very next day I was on Twitter
0:17:16 and I saw another video that showed like a remote worker,
0:17:18 I think in the Philippines,
0:17:21 stocking shelves using a robot in the U.S.
0:17:23 They had like some sort of headset on
0:17:25 and they were actually sitting there going through the motions
0:17:27 of stocking the shelves in the U.S.
0:17:32 So now it sort of like shrinks the sort of job market down
0:17:35 to where if you have access to this technology
0:17:38 where you are, you can actually work anywhere in the world.
0:17:39 – Yep, yep, and in fact, I mean,
0:17:41 you can see that example a couple of years ago
0:17:43 where I know this is a little bit kind of crypto related
0:17:46 but the Play to Earn model, right?
0:17:48 Where a lot of the Play to Earn people,
0:17:51 the ones who were doing the work were actually in Philippines
0:17:53 and they were, you know, getting $50 a month.
0:17:56 But $15, $50 a month to them is a full salary job, right?
0:17:58 Whereas here, people would essentially pay some money
0:17:59 to have them do some things
0:18:02 so that they could save the time of, you know,
0:18:03 grinding through the game, right?
0:18:06 So that’s kind of an early example.
0:18:08 I actually, I think that’s probably not the best example
0:18:11 ’cause I think there’s actually creating little real
0:18:13 kind of social value to what they’re doing.
0:18:15 – That was like the whole Axie Infinity thing, right?
0:18:16 – Exactly.
0:18:19 Once you have a global economy,
0:18:22 people will gravitate to doing certain jobs
0:18:24 that allow them to do something to earn more
0:18:27 than then their natural environment gives them, right?
0:18:29 And I think that will actually create
0:18:31 that rebalancing that we talked about.
0:18:33 So I think that the world can be better
0:18:36 and then we just, you know, it won’t happen all at once, right?
0:18:38 This is why I was saying, you know, Nathan,
0:18:40 I know you don’t want to hear that, you know,
0:18:43 people in the kind of emerging markets
0:18:46 may wear this to escape from their kind of physical space,
0:18:47 but it’s gonna take time for them
0:18:49 to change that physical space.
0:18:51 So as long as we give them the mechanisms
0:18:53 to then earn a greater income
0:18:56 than to create that natural flow of wealth,
0:18:58 I think we will get to that point
0:19:01 where we were much more equal longer term.
0:19:03 – When we talk about metaverse is,
0:19:05 do you see the metaverse is being like
0:19:08 a bunch of separate platforms that all tie together?
0:19:11 Is it like one single thing that everybody agrees
0:19:12 this is the metaverse?
0:19:13 Like, is it decentralized?
0:19:15 Is it centralized?
0:19:16 Like, what is that vision?
0:19:18 – Yeah, so there’s actually a lot there, you know,
0:19:20 just like in kind of the wealth and, you know,
0:19:23 inequality issue, it’s gonna take time to work out.
0:19:25 And just like today, we actually have a lot of, you know,
0:19:27 whether you’re talking about gaming platforms
0:19:29 or social platforms that all claim
0:19:31 to be some form of metaverse,
0:19:32 we will essentially go through
0:19:34 kind of three or four stages, right?
0:19:36 So in the book, I actually equate this
0:19:38 to the metamorphosis of a butterfly.
0:19:40 You know, so we’re at the larva stage
0:19:41 or the egg stage, actually.
0:19:43 So all of these are a single eggs.
0:19:45 They’re all separate from each other, right?
0:19:47 What we will get to soon is kind of larva stage.
0:19:51 We will have a few of these platforms will grow bigger
0:19:54 and be more self-sufficient.
0:19:57 But, you know, they’re still independent from each other.
0:20:00 Soon, we will actually get to the kind of cocoon stage
0:20:02 where they shut themselves off.
0:20:03 So we’ll have like a regional cocoon.
0:20:05 So there’ll be a China cocoon,
0:20:07 there’ll be a US cocoon, a European cocoon,
0:20:08 based on all the regulations,
0:20:12 they will essentially create ways for its own population
0:20:16 to encompass in its own policies, right?
0:20:19 And then, but it will probably create standards
0:20:22 and regulation to allow these different
0:20:24 virtual worlds to talk to each other, right?
0:20:25 Whether it’s communication protocols
0:20:28 or common ID systems or common currency systems
0:20:29 or things like that, right?
0:20:31 And then the last stage will be completely open
0:20:35 where there will be, you know, probably 90% of these worlds
0:20:36 will be able to talk to everybody,
0:20:38 will be able to talk to everybody.
0:20:40 And then we’ll be have 10% that are these micro cocoons.
0:20:43 You know, there’ll still be a small China group of worlds
0:20:45 that the Chinese governments don’t want to go to
0:20:46 and there’ll be a small group of worlds
0:20:49 that European governments don’t want you to go to.
0:20:50 Just like today.
0:20:52 – So who controls this world?
0:20:52 (laughs)
0:20:53 – Never talking about–
0:20:55 – Who controls the internet today, right?
0:20:58 I mean, really, there is no central party that controls it.
0:20:59 There’s a few standards.
0:21:01 Or ’cause there’s like the ICANN that controls
0:21:04 the DNS systems or the URL system.
0:21:05 – I mean, the US used to control it, right?
0:21:07 I think that we handed over control,
0:21:09 like maybe I don’t know if it was like five, six years ago
0:21:09 or something like that.
0:21:11 – Well, I mean, even the US, I think,
0:21:13 helped to define it initially, right?
0:21:16 But I don’t know if you would say it’s fully controlled
0:21:19 because right now the network servers
0:21:22 and the data centers and everything is distributed, right?
0:21:25 So I think we will get to that type of a model,
0:21:27 but it’s not completely distributed in the sense
0:21:31 of not every single data will reside on your local server
0:21:34 or your local PC, but there will still be data centers
0:21:37 and there’ll be big pipes to those data centers.
0:21:39 So I think we will continue to use
0:21:42 the semi-centralized networks that we have
0:21:44 because it’s efficient.
0:21:47 I know a lot of people want to have a fully decentralized,
0:21:50 crypto-focused world, but there’s a lot
0:21:53 of technical limitations, scalability limitations
0:21:54 and so forth.
0:21:57 And I actually think there’s some inequality issues
0:22:00 that the current crypto system imposes on the world,
0:22:02 but we can maybe go on that later.
0:22:05 But I think a lot of the current things
0:22:07 that make the Internet successful
0:22:10 will make this future metaverse platform
0:22:13 or metaverse ecosystem success, right?
0:22:15 ‘Cause we’re gonna be based on the same infrastructure.
0:22:17 We don’t need to rebuild any of that.
0:22:20 Just like right now, but I think one thing we will have
0:22:24 is that we will probably have a global universal ID
0:22:26 that allows us to go to any of these worlds,
0:22:29 bring our assets with us, bring our characters,
0:22:31 we can be whatever, you know, an avatar we want
0:22:33 and depending on what’s the nearest happening
0:22:36 in these different worlds, just like when we, you know,
0:22:39 we have a phone number that no matter where you’re roaming,
0:22:40 what phone device you’re using,
0:22:43 what network you’re on, they can reach you, right?
0:22:47 I think we will need that type of a common identity.
0:22:49 And in fact, I think having that will make
0:22:52 the world behave better in the sense of we, you know,
0:22:55 the anonymity that we have today is part of why
0:22:59 a lot of the kind of harassment and trolling that happens
0:23:01 is because, you know, there’s no ramifications.
0:23:02 People don’t know who you are.
0:23:03 You’re gonna post something negative.
0:23:06 And, you know, I know Matt Vats had some, you know,
0:23:08 experience with that.
0:23:10 But, you know, what we find is when people are faced
0:23:13 to face each other, they actually are tend
0:23:14 to be nicer to each other, right?
0:23:17 Because one, I think it’s just a social norm,
0:23:18 but the other thing is you don’t wanna pinch the face
0:23:20 if you’re gonna be rude to somebody, you know?
0:23:23 And we also find that actually in VR worlds,
0:23:27 when people are in VR worlds, they tend to be nicer
0:23:29 and more courteous and behave the way they do
0:23:32 in physical worlds, ’cause they see somebody there
0:23:34 and it feels to them, even if they’re anonymous,
0:23:36 it feels to them that they’re talking to somebody
0:23:40 and there’s an identity hide to that other party
0:23:42 that you’re interacting with.
0:23:47 So, I’m optimistic long-term about kind of human nature
0:23:51 to adapt to this new environment and to get us
0:23:53 from kind of these various styled worlds
0:23:56 that we have today to a much more interconnected,
0:23:59 interoperable metaverse platform long-term.
0:24:03 – Yeah, hopefully there’s like a metaverse version
0:24:05 of the mute button where if somebody is trolling you
0:24:07 in person, you can just like make them disappear.
0:24:08 – Well, no, no, they actually have that today.
0:24:11 A lot of the social platforms today will essentially
0:24:15 create a bubble where people, they can come within,
0:24:17 let’s say a two or three feet of your space
0:24:19 because some people, I think there are some
0:24:22 harassment issues online, although I feel like
0:24:25 people equate it to physical harassment,
0:24:28 I think there’s still a gap between that, right?
0:24:31 But the fact that you can actually mute anybody
0:24:33 in these spaces where you can block them
0:24:37 just like you do on digital spaces today.
0:24:38 – But that brings up a good point though,
0:24:40 like if everyone’s living in this
0:24:42 and doing all their business in there,
0:24:45 whoever controls that system, they can block people, right?
0:24:47 And then you can basically exit somebody out of the economy,
0:24:49 which is kind of like, from my perspective,
0:24:52 it’s a pretty, you know, a possibility.
0:24:54 – I agree with you, and in fact, in fact,
0:24:56 this was also discussed in the book as well
0:24:58 in the sense of, you know, we’re gonna have,
0:24:59 we’re gonna be a lot more dependent
0:25:02 on this future digital economy than we are
0:25:03 on our phone today.
0:25:04 And you know, when you leave your house
0:25:06 without your phone, you feel very uncomfortable.
0:25:09 In the future, we, if our entire world’s wrapped
0:25:12 in this, you know, glasses form factor and immersive space
0:25:17 and our unique ID, you know, when somebody hijacks your ID
0:25:19 or you get blocked out of the system,
0:25:22 it can definitely have a lot of negative ramifications.
0:25:24 So we need to be careful, how do we manage that?
0:25:26 How do we govern that system?
0:25:27 Who gets to control that system?
0:25:30 These are still kind of unknown questions
0:25:31 that needs to be discussed.
0:25:33 – Right, and I mean, we’re still having those same debates
0:25:35 right now with AI, right?
0:25:37 In the AI world, we’re sitting here going,
0:25:40 should open AI have as much power as they have?
0:25:42 You know, should Google have as much power as they have?
0:25:45 I feel like the same discussions are gonna come up
0:25:49 if this stuff becomes as, you know, prolific as–
0:25:52 – Yeah, I mean, I think we’re having these discussions today,
0:25:53 but even, you know, even open AI,
0:25:56 we’re talking about 100 to 200 million users, right?
0:25:57 So compared to 8 billion.
0:26:01 We’re still a relatively small problem today.
0:26:02 But when we start having, you know,
0:26:05 seven or eight billion people on this, you know,
0:26:08 global network, that’s gonna mean a lot more.
0:26:10 ‘Cause that potentially, that digital economy
0:26:12 could be as big as the physical economy
0:26:13 that we have outside of it.
0:26:15 And in fact, the population of that
0:26:17 is gonna be bigger than any one country is today.
0:26:19 In fact, well, I mean, you have Meta today,
0:26:20 I think with three billion people
0:26:22 is already bigger than any country.
0:26:23 But, you know, they’re not able to govern them
0:26:27 and control them as a country does to its citizens, right?
0:26:31 But in this case, whoever’s managing that platform
0:26:33 could have a level of control similar
0:26:35 to a national government does, right?
0:26:38 So it’s actually quite important
0:26:40 how this will be long-term governed
0:26:44 because of its social impact, economic impact.
0:26:46 And in some ways, you know, by taking you out of the system,
0:26:48 you’re almost in digital jail, right?
0:26:51 And that can be, you know, if you’re blocked off
0:26:54 from interacting with everybody that you know,
0:26:56 the dirt there’s mental impact issues,
0:26:58 the dirt there’s, you know, kind of, kind of just personal
0:27:02 rights and freedom issues that I’ve associated with that.
0:27:05 So there’s a lot of things that are uncertain still.
0:27:07 – You know, speaking of things that are uncertain,
0:27:09 like what do you see, maybe you have an opinion on this,
0:27:11 maybe you don’t, but like what is the path
0:27:14 to this being like a global technology?
0:27:16 Like how do we get to a point where eight billion people
0:27:18 have this if in third world countries,
0:27:21 they don’t have access to the power, the technology,
0:27:25 the, you know, how does everybody get their hands
0:27:25 on something like this?
0:27:28 – So I mean, you know, just like you say 20 years ago,
0:27:30 very few people had cell phone, right?
0:27:33 I remember in, well, maybe 30 years ago, like 1994,
0:27:36 I had my first cell phone and you know, it was, I think,
0:27:39 you know, I was in China, it was like $10,000 for this phone
0:27:41 and it was, you know, the status of when you go to dinner
0:27:43 with your boss friends and you put it on the table
0:27:45 and it’s like, oh, my phone’s nicer than yours.
0:27:46 That was a big thing.
0:27:48 You know, now everybody’s got it, right?
0:27:50 I mean, it took a couple of decades,
0:27:53 but the reality is that technology flows down
0:27:55 and the cost of it, once you get economy of scale,
0:27:56 we’re gonna get there.
0:27:59 I mean, you look at, you know, devices like this
0:28:00 are $1,000.
0:28:04 You know, I know the Vision Pros 3000, it’s kind of,
0:28:07 I think unreasonably expensive for what it delivers, right?
0:28:10 ‘Cause you see soon, I think there’ll be Chinese vendors
0:28:12 are coming out with half the price and, you know,
0:28:14 Apple will come out with something that’s half the price
0:28:14 in another year.
0:28:18 So these products will get to a point where it is no more
0:28:20 expensive than cell phones today.
0:28:22 Right, you can go to a third world country
0:28:25 and get a $50 cell phone that will go to all the websites
0:28:27 that you do, all, you know, cell phone, all the websites
0:28:29 can use all the apps and, you know,
0:28:31 make all the calls that are saved, right?
0:28:32 They may not look as nice.
0:28:34 They may not have an Apple brand on it.
0:28:37 But, you know, I think it will be accessible
0:28:39 for most of the world.
0:28:42 And the difference is the phone that you have today
0:28:43 is really just for communication
0:28:46 and going, you know, online to two websites.
0:28:49 In the future, if you have a glasses that is, you know,
0:28:52 $200, that glasses can be your car,
0:28:55 it can be your plane, it can be your tutor,
0:28:56 you know, it can be your assistant.
0:28:59 It can be all the things that you need it to be
0:29:00 in your life, right?
0:29:02 It can be your entertainment system, you know.
0:29:05 So I think we will essentially
0:29:09 create the experience level of the wealthy class
0:29:10 with all classes, right?
0:29:13 Even, you know, the people who can afford,
0:29:16 you know, $50 phones, that changed kind of the whole
0:29:18 economy in Africa, right?
0:29:20 Because all they needed was a cell connection
0:29:22 on the phone, they essentially now had digital banking
0:29:24 and they could pay each other, they could see the weather,
0:29:27 they could go make trade, right?
0:29:29 And they saved them the hours and walking
0:29:31 to get to a certain place, right?
0:29:35 I think, you know, the transformational capabilities
0:29:39 of a, you know, all-encompassing AI device on your head
0:29:42 that is also immersive, I think that that capability
0:29:45 will be, you know, taking that an order of magnitude higher
0:29:46 in terms of its impact.
0:29:50 And then I, you know, we talk about the has and the have nots.
0:29:53 We’re gonna release really more about haves and have soon,
0:29:54 right?
0:29:55 And the question is really housing.
0:29:57 And for some markets it may take five years
0:29:59 or some markets it may take 10.
0:30:02 But, you know, given the speed of a reduction of costs
0:30:05 on things, I don’t think that will be a lot more
0:30:09 than 10 years for this to proliferate.
0:30:12 – I used to be more optimistic about
0:30:14 US and China relations, quite honestly.
0:30:17 I even like, when I remember Mark Zuckerberg talking
0:30:19 about Facebook and how he thought everyone in the world
0:30:20 would be able to use it.
0:30:21 And then, you know, there’s like internal memos
0:30:24 that they’ve basically given up on that idea.
0:30:25 There’s no longer an idea of this being
0:30:28 like a global social network is because the divide
0:30:30 between the US and China in some ways,
0:30:31 in some ways we’ve gotten closer,
0:30:33 in some ways we’ve grown apart.
0:30:34 And so I do wonder, like I mean, you mentioned
0:30:37 like the whole US cocoon and the China cocoon and all that,
0:30:40 you know, I wonder how, like in reality,
0:30:41 how that would actually play out.
0:30:43 ‘Cause I see it being more likely now,
0:30:44 like based on my, based on my current worldview,
0:30:47 and I’m open to changing my view is it’s way more likely
0:30:50 that there’s just a total separate China system
0:30:52 versus the US system and the global system.
0:30:54 – Well, I think ’cause you look at the internet
0:30:57 as an example, I actually just came back last week
0:30:59 from Taiwan and Shanghai.
0:31:01 So I’ve been both the places that you’re talking about.
0:31:06 And, you know, you need a VPN to access a few places, right?
0:31:09 If you wanna access, you know, some of the social networks
0:31:12 like Twitter or Google, you know, maybe New York Times,
0:31:13 Washington Post, those things.
0:31:16 But the majority of that the web is available.
0:31:18 If you look at the apps, the state.
0:31:19 – But you’re not supposed to do that though.
0:31:20 – You’re not supposed to. – You’re not supposed to do that though.
0:31:23 – No, no, no, no, but the reality is that
0:31:27 there are equivalents locally for those capabilities, right?
0:31:30 But if you wanted to, essentially for, you know,
0:31:32 five dollars a year, you can get a VPN service
0:31:34 for you to access that, right?
0:31:36 But that’s, you know, less than 5%, you know,
0:31:38 less than 5% of the internet is not available
0:31:39 to Chinese people.
0:31:41 So essentially that’s what I was saying.
0:31:42 At some point, we’re gonna get to a point
0:31:45 where there’ll be 5% of these worlds
0:31:46 that will be not accessible
0:31:48 because of political or whatever issues,
0:31:50 but then 95% it will be, right?
0:31:53 And then most of the things that brings you value
0:31:55 are actually gonna be that other 95%.
0:31:59 And in fact, you know, I was there when Zuckerberg came
0:32:01 and, you know, I was trying to do all this thing.
0:32:03 The reality is that he was not actually blocked
0:32:05 from entering China.
0:32:06 He was just given the choice that
0:32:07 if you’re gonna operate in China,
0:32:09 you have to put your servers here,
0:32:11 you have to follow the local laws.
0:32:14 And he said, no, I don’t want to follow the local law, right?
0:32:15 Just like if you look at TikTok,
0:32:16 what does TikTok do, right?
0:32:18 The US government said to TikTok,
0:32:20 if you have to follow local laws, they did that.
0:32:21 And then they said, well,
0:32:22 even though you’re following local laws,
0:32:24 I still wanna ban you,
0:32:25 or I still wanna make you to sell.
0:32:27 So in some ways, I feel like that–
0:32:30 – Yeah, I mean, it’s complicated, right?
0:32:31 ‘Cause like there’s more to that.
0:32:33 ‘Cause like putting your servers in China
0:32:35 also could mean your proprietary data
0:32:36 being sold off to someone.
0:32:38 So it’s not, you know, it’s complicated.
0:32:39 – No, ’cause I operated,
0:32:41 I operated a social network in China.
0:32:44 So I, nobody’s really going in there
0:32:46 and taking your proprietary data.
0:32:48 What they will do, what they will do is every week or so,
0:32:51 you’ll get a list and say here are the 20 terms
0:32:53 that are the sensitive terms for this week.
0:32:55 You know, if people search for these terms,
0:32:56 if people, you know, talk about it,
0:32:59 you know, don’t give an answer, right?
0:33:01 And then, I mean, yeah, honestly,
0:33:04 whether it’s Google or if it’s Facebook,
0:33:07 it would have been better for China and for the world
0:33:08 if they actually followed that.
0:33:11 Because then for the other, you know, 1.5 million
0:33:13 other words that people were looking for,
0:33:17 they would have got a more diverse answer base, right?
0:33:20 So, you know, if you look at Bing,
0:33:21 Bing’s available in China, why?
0:33:23 Because they follow these rules.
0:33:24 Yahoo’s available in China, why?
0:33:25 Because they follow these rules.
0:33:27 So it’s not that, it’s not, you know,
0:33:28 I don’t want to sound like
0:33:29 I’m defending the Chinese government.
0:33:30 – Yeah, I was like, let’s not go to that debate
0:33:33 ’cause I’m definitely on the opposite side of all of that.
0:33:35 – You know, I also work for a Taiwanese company.
0:33:39 So, I’m not biased against, oh, you know, or towards anyone.
0:33:42 And ’cause I’m a U.S. citizen, I was born in China,
0:33:44 I’m mixed race between U.S. and China.
0:33:46 You know, I work for a Taiwanese company
0:33:48 and I’m part Jewish, okay?
0:33:50 So, the point is, I guess,
0:33:53 by having multiple perspectives,
0:33:56 it allows me to understand that why are people prioritized?
0:33:58 Why is the government here prioritizing this?
0:34:00 Why is everyone there prioritizing?
0:34:01 And what do they mean by it?
0:34:02 Instead of taking everything as,
0:34:06 oh, that’s a aggressive move to compete with me
0:34:07 or to hurt me.
0:34:09 You know, I think each country is doing the things
0:34:11 that they are doing for the benefits
0:34:13 that they see for their population, right?
0:34:14 So, I get that.
0:34:17 But I think as long as you see that perspective
0:34:18 and instead of saying, oh, they’re doing that
0:34:20 to try to take over democracy
0:34:22 or they’re doing that to try to keep us down
0:34:24 or whatever the perspective, you know,
0:34:26 the narrative on the two sides are,
0:34:28 nothing is that extreme, right?
0:34:31 So, once you start to understand it and at least, you know,
0:34:33 and like you said, if you know the language,
0:34:34 it actually helps a lot.
0:34:36 ‘Cause, you know, like two weeks ago,
0:34:39 I was at this US-China kind of governmental dialogue
0:34:42 and there was, you know, everybody was,
0:34:45 at least all the US people there were super hawkish.
0:34:47 They were like, how can we slow down China?
0:34:49 How can we keep them from progressing in AI?
0:34:51 How can we cut off more chips on them?
0:34:53 I mean, that was their whole thing, right?
0:34:55 And I was like, you know, when you do this
0:34:58 and you’re public about this, you know,
0:35:00 what China hears is that you’re trying to slow down
0:35:02 and you’re trying to keep me from developing the way,
0:35:03 what am I going to do?
0:35:06 I’m going to create a parallel ecosystem of technology.
0:35:10 I’m going to try to hoard as much technology as I can
0:35:11 while I still have access.
0:35:14 And it becomes a self-sufficient prophecy, right?
0:35:15 Where we really should be thinking about
0:35:17 how can we work more together?
0:35:20 Because half of the world’s AI researchers today
0:35:22 are actually originated from China.
0:35:23 A lot of people don’t realize this.
0:35:28 In fact, 38% of top researchers in AI in the US
0:35:33 came from China, and only 37% of US researchers
0:35:34 were born in the US.
0:35:37 So there’s actually more top US researchers
0:35:39 in the US from China.
0:35:40 So, you know, there’s already that,
0:35:42 that collaboration is already happening.
0:35:45 In fact, there was three times more AI research
0:35:48 that was collaboration between US and Chinese
0:35:51 academic institutions up to about two years ago.
0:35:53 And then it came down drastically,
0:35:55 but then any other country, right?
0:35:58 The next one was, I think, US with England,
0:36:01 which was one-third as many collaborative projects, right?
0:36:05 So, you know, I think if you talk to the academic,
0:36:08 there’s the smartest people in this area
0:36:09 are in two countries, right?
0:36:12 But the politics is making it difficult
0:36:14 for us to make progress.
0:36:16 And then because of that, you know,
0:36:18 everybody sees everybody else as an enemy.
0:36:21 And when you see the other person as me and you say it out,
0:36:25 then people behave the way that you expect them to behave.
0:36:28 So, again, I mean, we don’t want to get too political,
0:36:32 but I just feel like we need to have a balanced perspective.
0:36:33 I want to talk a little bit about, like,
0:36:37 the crossover of AI and XR, right?
0:36:40 You did kind of give one example of, like,
0:36:42 you know, maybe AI tutors that look like
0:36:43 you’re talking to a real person.
0:36:46 So, you get that, like, one-on-one teacher experience
0:36:47 with, like, an AI tutor.
0:36:51 But where are some of the other overlaps of AI and XR?
0:36:55 Like, why is the sort of convergence of these two tools
0:36:57 such a big deal?
0:36:58 So, I mean, first of all,
0:37:00 when it makes everything that happens in XR,
0:37:03 it wouldn’t be possible without AI, right?
0:37:05 Everything from hand tracking, eye tracking,
0:37:09 you know, voice control, real timing,
0:37:12 to, you know, world scanning, all of that is AI, right?
0:37:16 To NPC, you know, being powered by AI models, right?
0:37:22 So, AI is actually enabling XR to be even possible.
0:37:24 Now, if you click the other way,
0:37:27 what is XR doing for AI?
0:37:28 So, a few areas.
0:37:32 One is in terms of a synthetic training data, right?
0:37:35 If you look at what Tesla’s doing, a lot,
0:37:37 they’re actually doing now more training
0:37:41 with virtual models inside AI in different situations
0:37:42 than they are with physical.
0:37:43 And they can learn faster.
0:37:45 They can get billions of miles
0:37:46 instead of millions of miles.
0:37:49 The other thing is you are very soon going to have
0:37:52 giant work job displacement.
0:37:55 We’re looking at, let’s say, 10%, 30%, 40% of people
0:37:57 being out of work.
0:37:59 There will not be a physical economy
0:38:01 for these people to be moved into.
0:38:04 So, you have to create a parallel economy trend.
0:38:07 And I think that’s where this metaverse ecosystem
0:38:10 plays a huge part in terms of alleviating
0:38:12 both the social, the economic,
0:38:14 and also the mental health aspects
0:38:18 of not having a work identity, right?
0:38:21 Many of us identify ourselves with our work.
0:38:23 When you introduce yourselves like, “Oh, what do you do?”
0:38:25 That’s kind of the first question.
0:38:28 Where in the future, maybe we’re gonna have
0:38:31 managing a virtual world as my job,
0:38:33 or I can create virtual environments.
0:38:35 I could be a virtual tutor to somebody
0:38:37 that’s a thousand miles away or whatever, right?
0:38:39 This now creates that parallel economy
0:38:42 to give you an added purpose, right?
0:38:45 And it also allows you to be educated much faster.
0:38:46 As we mentioned earlier,
0:38:50 the education aspect of it to essentially,
0:38:53 right now, probably the most rare asset
0:38:54 is a good teacher out there, right?
0:38:57 ‘Cause the most talented people usually go
0:39:00 to where they’re paid most and they’re not teachers.
0:39:01 Right, I mean, I’m not downplaying.
0:39:03 I think there’s a lot of great teachers out there,
0:39:04 but there could be a lot.
0:39:09 And it’d be great if we had this now virtual classrooms
0:39:11 that people who really love teaching
0:39:14 and love their students could then create a income
0:39:18 for themselves that would be able to help
0:39:20 and support students around the world.
0:39:23 In fact, that is the epilogue of the book
0:39:25 talks about kind of the educational scenario
0:39:26 and how that plays out.
0:39:27 So I don’t know if I mentioned,
0:39:29 but the book is actually a debate
0:39:31 between myself and my co-author.
0:39:33 So I’m the optimist in the book
0:39:35 and my co-author is a pessimist.
0:39:36 And so every chapter essentially,
0:39:39 we go through that the two potential aspects of,
0:39:40 here’s all the good things
0:39:41 that can happen from this technology.
0:39:42 Here’s all the bad things.
0:39:43 And a lot of people are like,
0:39:45 “Why would you create this that’s confusing?”
0:39:46 I’m like, “No, actually, the problem is,
0:39:48 “most people, when they buy books,
0:39:52 “they buy books that coincide with their existing beliefs.”
0:39:53 And so when you read it,
0:39:54 you actually don’t learn anything,
0:39:55 you just feel better,
0:39:57 ’cause you’re like, “Oh, see, that book says I was right.”
0:40:00 But you never really listen to the other arguments.
0:40:03 And we want people to see both sides of the arguments,
0:40:03 because once they do that,
0:40:06 then they actually feel stronger about their beliefs
0:40:07 that they actually do have.
0:40:10 And then we give them actionable activities
0:40:11 that they can do to help bend it
0:40:12 towards that positive outcome.
0:40:16 ‘Cause it will never be as positive as the utopia outcome.
0:40:18 It will never be as bad as the whole dystopian outcome.
0:40:20 But if we don’t do anything,
0:40:22 it actually will probably lean towards the dystopian,
0:40:25 just like we’ve seen with a lot of technologies today.
0:40:29 So, and in this one, because of how powerful it is,
0:40:31 we actually do need to take action.
0:40:33 And particularly people, I think in policy,
0:40:34 people that are corporate leaders,
0:40:36 people that are in the ALF,
0:40:39 they have such an immense ability to impact
0:40:41 where the world is going.
0:40:44 And to make sure that we have the UBI and the UBS safety,
0:40:46 and that’s so that when people do lose a job,
0:40:49 they’re now on the streets, causing havoc,
0:40:51 because that’s what happens when people lose a dirt.
0:40:54 And we go back and we look at the lead-eyed movement, right?
0:40:56 What happened there was,
0:40:58 they actually, if you have a chance,
0:41:00 read the book, “Blood in the Machines.”
0:41:01 I used to think, oh, lead-eyes,
0:41:02 these guys are anti-technology.
0:41:04 Actually, they were not anti-technology.
0:41:07 They just, over a 30-year period,
0:41:09 where we’re kind of removing their jobs
0:41:11 and the factory owners didn’t give them options,
0:41:13 didn’t smooth out the transition,
0:41:15 and just said, okay, you’re fired,
0:41:18 and you have no severance, you have nothing.
0:41:20 And they’re like, I have kids to feed, what can I do?
0:41:24 And they just, over several decades, this happened,
0:41:27 and then it led them to be like, okay, I gotta do something.
0:41:30 I gotta stop this, otherwise, my kids are gonna start, right?
0:41:33 And so if there was a social safety net
0:41:36 for that group of people who were being replaced,
0:41:37 we could have prevented that whole thing.
0:41:39 And because a lot of people died,
0:41:40 a lot of damage to equipment,
0:41:42 we probably slowed down progress,
0:41:44 more than we could have or should have, right?
0:41:47 So there’s a lot of things that if we learn from history,
0:41:49 I think, you know, ’cause so many people say,
0:41:51 oh, you can’t have this social welfare system.
0:41:54 It’s unfair to the people who work and blah, blah, blah.
0:41:55 The reality is actually,
0:41:57 if you have another book, you should have a chance.
0:42:01 It’s called Utopia for Realists.
0:42:04 And it talks about the whole kind of,
0:42:07 the justification of the whole UBI model,
0:42:10 and how, over time, there’s actually been dozens of studies
0:42:11 that’s been conducted around the world
0:42:14 that showed more value were actually created
0:42:16 when you provided these kind of things
0:42:17 than you put into it.
0:42:22 So it’s not a value depreciating type of an investment.
0:42:25 It actually helped to create more stability.
0:42:26 People learn more, they actually worked harder.
0:42:28 You know, a lot of people say, oh, you give them stuff
0:42:29 and they’re gonna stop being lazy,
0:42:31 and they’re gonna drink, and they’re gonna smoke.
0:42:34 And actually less money was put into drinking, smoking,
0:42:36 more money was put into self-education,
0:42:38 buying equipment, starting businesses,
0:42:39 you know, those kind of things.
0:42:42 So it’s a lot of what we’ve been told
0:42:45 is actually not supported by the evidence.
0:42:47 – Again, it’s all complicated.
0:42:49 I’m in the point where like,
0:42:51 I think socialism is bad, I’m worried,
0:42:52 ’cause there’s been a lot of examples of socialism
0:42:54 going very, very wrong.
0:42:55 And at the same time, like, yeah,
0:42:57 maybe we do have to have something like UBI in the future,
0:42:58 ’cause like, I don’t know,
0:43:00 there won’t be enough jobs for people
0:43:02 to like have food on the table.
0:43:03 – You look at the examples of what happened today.
0:43:05 You look at places like the Netherlands,
0:43:07 you look at places like Finland,
0:43:09 you know, Germany, you know,
0:43:13 there’s a lot of, you know, democratic socialism, right?
0:43:16 And if you look at the education levels there,
0:43:17 you look at the employment levels,
0:43:19 you look at the fulfillment levels,
0:43:21 they’re all higher than the U.S.
0:43:22 They’re income levels a little lower,
0:43:24 but they’re actually happier.
0:43:25 They’re more educated, they’re more peaceful,
0:43:26 there’s less crime.
0:43:29 There’s a lot of other things that from a social level,
0:43:32 you know, would you rather be 20% less wealthy,
0:43:33 or would you rather live in a place
0:43:35 where, you know, your kids can walk to school
0:43:38 and you’re not afraid, and they have, you know,
0:43:39 they’re feeling good about themselves,
0:43:42 there’s less loneliness, there’s less, you know,
0:43:43 mental health issues.
0:43:47 I mean, I think there’s a trade-off
0:43:48 that we should think about, right?
0:43:52 And the reality is that what’s made it difficult
0:43:53 in the past was that, you know,
0:43:56 we’ve had a relatively slow increase in productivity.
0:43:59 What we will see now with AI and robotics coming in,
0:44:01 is that the productivity problem
0:44:03 that has kept us from allowing
0:44:06 these types of social services is going to,
0:44:09 those obstacles are gonna go away, right?
0:44:11 – Yeah, Elon Musk recently said that he hopes,
0:44:12 instead of UBI that we have,
0:44:15 what was it, like universal abundant income,
0:44:16 or something like this.
0:44:19 – I think he’s at universal high income.
0:44:20 – Oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, exactly.
0:44:24 So I agree with that, ’cause I think his concern is like,
0:44:25 if you do get people money that,
0:44:27 and you combine that with like, okay, yeah,
0:44:29 then also virtual reality gets great,
0:44:31 and then yeah, sure, hopefully people in virtual reality,
0:44:33 do a lot of business with each other,
0:44:34 but look, I’m a gamer.
0:44:36 Like if you give me, like,
0:44:37 if you give me Baldur’s Gate 3
0:44:39 with like 10 times better graphics,
0:44:41 and I can create worlds forever,
0:44:43 I could definitely, you know,
0:44:45 if I didn’t have professional goals
0:44:46 or things that were going well for me,
0:44:47 I could definitely see me just like,
0:44:49 I’m just gonna sink into that.
0:44:51 I’m just gonna, that’s my new world.
0:44:53 And so I hope that we do use these tools more and more
0:44:56 to like, get people things to do, not, yeah.
0:44:58 – And then we actually, we’ve done studies on this,
0:45:00 in terms of, you know, is VRAR,
0:45:03 is it more addictive than traditional 2D gaming?
0:45:06 And what we did find was there’s about 2X more addictive
0:45:08 from various aspects of addiction.
0:45:11 So it is something that we need to be conscious of, right?
0:45:13 But if you look at, I mean, I know,
0:45:15 here’s an example that, you know, you may not like,
0:45:17 but in China, they actually have this
0:45:19 kind of child gaming law, right?
0:45:23 Where children under 18 can only play three hours a week
0:45:25 of network games.
0:45:28 And it’s tied to your national, yeah,
0:45:29 it’s tied to your national ideas.
0:45:32 I mean, I’m glad you agree, ’cause I’m a parent.
0:45:35 And I wish there was these kind of laws in more places,
0:45:38 ’cause I would rather have my kids be studying
0:45:41 and, you know, even watching YouTube to learn things
0:45:43 than to be playing a game that, you know,
0:45:45 maybe has need for mental value.
0:45:48 But, you know, there’s a diminishing level of return
0:45:50 that you get from most gaming, right?
0:45:52 So, and then particularly today’s gaming is really,
0:45:54 it’s designed to be addictive.
0:45:56 It’s designed to make you, you know,
0:45:58 go to the next level and keep trying.
0:46:00 And, you know, I think there’s some things that teaches,
0:46:02 but I think there’s a lot more value
0:46:04 that they could be had with their, you know.
0:46:06 So, those are the kind of things that we found was that
0:46:10 to make this addictive medium less addictive,
0:46:14 you actually have to create some system-mandated policies.
0:46:17 So, and these policies could be mandated by your parents.
0:46:20 It could be mandated by lessing the government
0:46:22 for some cases, you know, which actually for laws,
0:46:24 we have a lot of things like, you know, gun laws
0:46:26 or whatever, pornography laws.
0:46:28 I mean, there’s rules that we already have in the world.
0:46:31 I think having some rules where we know that, you know,
0:46:33 if these things are going to do hard for society,
0:46:35 we should protect society in some way.
0:46:36 – This has been fascinating.
0:46:39 But I do want to, you know, shut out your book again.
0:46:41 You got our next reality.
0:46:43 A lot of the stuff that we talked about on this episode,
0:46:44 you go into a lot more detail.
0:46:48 And you also have a lot of the counterarguments in here too,
0:46:51 with your co-host or your co-author, Louis,
0:46:53 sort of taking some of the opposing viewpoints.
0:46:54 – Yeah, thanks again for inviting me.
0:46:57 This has been a fun, fun chat between, you know,
0:46:59 few folks that actually know the space a little bit.
0:47:02 And if you want to follow me, you can go on Twitter.
0:47:05 It’s @aygraylin or @alvingraylin on LinkedIn.
0:47:05 – Well, awesome.
0:47:06 I have a copy of the book.
0:47:08 I really appreciate the time.
0:47:09 This has been a fascinating discussion.
0:47:10 – Thanks again for inviting me.
0:47:11 It’s been fun.
0:47:14 (upbeat music)
0:47:16 (upbeat music)
0:47:19 (upbeat music)
0:47:21 (upbeat music)
0:47:25 (upbeat music)
0:47:27 you
Episode 17: How will Extended Reality (XR) transform the global job market and our daily lives? Nathan Lands (https://x.com/NathanLands) and Matt Wolfe (https://x.com/mreflow) are joined by Alvin Graylin (https://x.com/AGraylin), the Global VP of Corporate Development for HTC and and bestselling author of “Our Next Reality”.
In this episode, Alvin Graylin delves into the critical intersections of AI and XR technology, the evolving metaverse ecosystem, and its potential to reshape job opportunities. He explores the role of advanced AR glasses in bridging economic disparities, the impact of a universal basic income on societies, and the future of personalized education in virtual environments. The discussion also touches on Alvin’s book “Our Next Reality” and the implications of AI-driven transformations in global industries.
Check out The Next Wave YouTube Channel if you want to see Matt and Nathan on screen: https://lnk.to/thenextwavepd
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Show Notes:
- (00:00) Value of large network of interconnected worlds.
- (03:47) Transition to 3D space for collaboration.
- (06:54) Virtual space offers freedom to focus, connect.
- (12:51) Future metaverse allows real interaction, faster learning.
- (15:37) MIT and UCSD collaborate with remote robot workers.
- (19:50) Internet infrastructure will shape future metaverse success.
- (21:13) Anonymity impacts behavior in digital and physical worlds.
- (24:30) Growing digital economy presents governance challenges.
- (28:02) Digital banking, trade, and immersive AI impact.
- (33:08) US-China rivalry in AI calls for cooperation.
- (37:06) Virtual world jobs create new educational opportunities.
- (40:01) Over decades, catalyst for social change discussed.
- (43:37) VR/AR gaming more addictive than traditional 2D.
- (44:35) Encourage progress, use policies to mitigate addiction.
—
Mentions:
- Alvin Graylin: https://ournextreality.com/author
- “Our Next Reality” https://ournextreality.com/
- HTC: https://www.htc.com/
- Universal basic income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income
—
Check Out Matt’s Stuff:
• Future Tools – https://futuretools.beehiiv.com/
• Blog – https://www.mattwolfe.com/
• YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@mreflow
—
Check Out Nathan’s Stuff:
- Newsletter: https://news.lore.com/
- Blog – https://lore.com/
The Next Wave is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Darren Clarke // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano