Written by Antai Liu 2022 Cohort
Every breakthrough in technology will have an immediate impact on our society, such as agriculture, steam-powered locomotives, and microchips. Agriculture brought people plenty of food with less risk of being eaten by wild animals, which resulted in the formation of a safe living environment. The steam-powered machine is the milestone of everything. Microchips, needless to say, computers, airplanes, phones, spaceships, etc. However, with all of these breakthroughs in technology, the ugly side of progress made its appearance. Agriculture led to monarchy, steam-powered machines polluted our planet, and microchips, on some level, made people think less. In the case of Metaverse, there will be some difficulties ahead.
As I mentioned last week, there may be physical and psychological problems. In my opinion, those are just minor problems that can be solved. When the real Metaverse is here with us, there will be a significant impact on our society. By real Metaverse, I mean at least it requests an advanced VR goggle with a fully functional haptic feedback suit and movement gears, the whole setup. Or an ideal approach, Neural Interface, like the Matrix.
Will you be able to tell the difference between Metaverse and the real world? I think many people won’t. So, which social rule do we follow? More importantly, whom are we going to become? The one fighting in the real world or the one who rules the virtual world? I am with the latter.
If everyone immerses in Metaverse, what happens? Could we still call ourselves humankind? This is a vast subject, I’m not an expert on anthropology and sociology, and I don’t have an answer now; I do hope for the best, though. What do you think?
Another thing is that if we successfully develop a Metaverse, no one can operate and maintain it. We have to let computers do the job for us. Which means a sophisticated artificial intelligence will run our virtual world. Wouldn’t it feel spooky when a computer AI plays god in your world?
Now some say it is unlikely that AI will develop its mind. However, with more advanced neurone technology, AI may someday gain consciousness. People are already scanning their brains into computers, and when Metaverse becomes more popular, more human behaviour will be saved to their database. It feels somewhat wrong that all that data are living in the same place…