WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?

YOU’VE LIKELY BEEN UNABLE to avoid talk of the metaverse in the past few months. The term, first coined by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson in a 1992 novel, has become a vision of the future of technology in our lives. And if the hype is to be believed, it’s where we’ll be living the rest of our digital lives.

“The metaverse is a further convergence of our physical and digital lives,” says Cathy Hackl of Futures Intelligence Group. Put plainly, the metaverse is a 3D virtual space that can be accessed through virtual reality goggles, adding elements of the digital on top of our day-to-day lives. You could attend concerts and conferences in the metaverse, staged in a 3D digital representation of a nightclub or conference centre. Elsewhere, you’ll shop for shoes in a virtual Nike store or order food in a virtual McDonald’s and have it delivered to your real-world home.

“It’s the future of the internet. But it’s also about further connectivity,” says Hackl.

So far, most of the attention around the metaverse has been focused on the company formerly known as Facebook, which rebranded last year as Meta in an indication of how strongly it believes in the future of the metaverse. Founder Mark Zuckerberg wants a billion of us to live, work and play in the metaverse by 2030.

But Hackl warns people not to view the social media giant as the centre of the metaverse. “It’s not just one company,” she says. “No single company can build it, either.” It’s also not enabled by a single technology, even though right now the way to ‘enter’ the metaverse is to strap on a pair of virtual reality goggles.

While the early running may be made by Meta, the momentum will be picked up by others. And just because we have an idea of what the metaverse will look like now, it doesn’t mean that’s what it’ll end up as, Hackl cautions. “The way I explain it is, we’re in a high-speed train, destination metaverse,” she says. “We don’t know the stops, but we kind of know where we’re heading.”

Something to think about: Currently, there are no laws specifically governing the metaverse. However, the same laws that apply to the internet, such as copyright, defamation, contract and the like, also apply to the metaverse and other virtual realms.

“It’s the future of the internet. But it’s also about further connectivity”

SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS often turn into a dystopian nightmare partway through – and for blue-collar workers who are the bedrock of the labour force, there’s a suspicion about the way the robot revolution story will end. By 2035, one in three jobs could be automated by robots, predicts business consultancy Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.

“Robotics is traditionally applied to problems that fall into the categories ‘dirty’, ‘dull’ and ‘dangerous’,” says robotics expert Jonathan Aitken. “Automation of a repetitive process is always achievable. The lack of variability means that the process is the same, time after time. This is the reason that robots fell naturally into car production.”

It’s been the case since the first robots appeared on production lines. But it’s not just blue- collar jobs that are feeling the squeeze from the rise of the robots. White-collar roles are also affected, particularly those focused on data sorting, a task suited for artificial intelligence. Financial services is one area that has turned to automated robots enacting trades. When a computer can pick stocks better and quicker than a human, it makes sense to utilise them, and almost all Wall Street firms do.

Jobs where workers are less likely to be replaced by robots include those in health care, although surgical robots, which are controlled by remote medical professionals in order to carry out more precise procedures, are already being used in hospitals. However, the gentle touch and caring reassurance of a well-trained nurse or doctor can’t be replicated by a robot. “It’s important to ask the question of whether we want robots doing certain jobs,” says Aitken. “In replacing a human, especially in a human-facing role, we’re being asked to accept the robot. This is something that’ll take time to achieve. People still like people.”

By 2035, one in three jobs could be automated by robots

FEW THINGS worth US$44.2 billion are as misunderstood as NFTs, but then few things have captured the zeitgeist like NFTs. The letters stand for the words non-fungible tokens, which are one-of-a-kind digital objects that can’t be exchanged for each other or copied because of their encryption.

“What most people see as an NFT is art,” says Nick Donarski, founder of ORE System, a company that deals in NFT technology. For example, instead of owning a physical painting, you could buy ownership of an NFT, an original piece of digital art. Some of the world’s biggest celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Jimmy Fallon, proudly show off their NFT collections.

Celebrities have often spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the right to an NFT from collections with themes such as bored apes and pixelated punks.

But despite the big-name endorsements, NFTs have faced criticism. NFTs have ended up being stolen or found to be using images that don’t legally belong to the artists behind them. Other NFT projects have been uncovered as get-rich-quick scams for the creators, while those who own the artwork are left holding the bag.

If NFTs can overcome the bumps and bruises of their early negative publicity, they could become a commonly used bit of technology. The key word is ‘if’.