Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
Generative AI is helping me write code, make drawings and learn. Crypto is helping me make international payments, use more open social networks, and get a new class of supplementary news via polymarket. What is the metaverse doing? (Genuine question, not an attack) https://x.com/edzitron/status/1833914016240222715
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emilee
@emilee
I'm lucky enough to have been a Meta employee during an all-hands in which Zuck discussed his view on the metaverse. It may have changed since then, but TL;DR the claim was "we already live in a metaverse" Adopting this stance, my claim is that a metaverse (the public internet and access to it) has transformed the world, and what modern metaverse companies are doing is wandering through the idea maze to find (1) what the next set of interfaces are to interact with the metaverse (I don't know of a single person who *likes* the fact that hanging out IRL involves distractions from phones) and (2) where the limits are for how the internet can continue to provide opportunity for people that IRL can't. Crypto is currently still 0->1 but Metaverse is 1->2, so imo they can't be compared directly without some extra work to set context first
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Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
hmmm this feels to me a bit too much like if someone said "actually crypto is already being used everywhere, look at HTTPS and Signal, therefore join my blockchain company"
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emilee
@emilee
hMMmmmM that's a good point. this is certainly where my take breaks down, but i'm inclined to argue this analogy still has some holes, gonna think aloud here
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emilee
@emilee
i believe i'm claiming that "a metaverse" isn't a technology, it's more of a concept in the social sciences space. it's a way of interacting with the world enabled by the internet (specifically, the "world wide web" version), adopted by the majority of humanity’s global society, and woven into our fabric
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emilee
@emilee
- "internet" a concept representing connecting a bunch of computers together and enables instant access to information stored in remote locations (as opposed to a book in the library). supported by numerous transfer protocols - “The Internet” the World Wide Web, colloquially referred to as “the internet”, leveraging a number of transfer protocols to power it. This implementation has been adopted by the majority of humanity’s global society, and importantly it is a virtual space where people go to query for information but also conduct business, accomplish tasks, be entertained, socialize, etc. importantly, the internet leverages a key set of inventions that unlocked the ability to transmit data faster than humans can physically travel and store it in a small amount of physical space. an internet implementation via RFC 1149 🦅 wouldn't have provided the emergent social behaviors we see to power a "metaverse" -- the (near) realtime component is key
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emilee
@emilee
Let's try this for "Crypto" now: - "blockchain" a concept of a distributed ledger enabled by cryptography, distinguished primarily by the algos & protocols used. The same blockchain can have multiple instances in practice, and what differentiates them primarily is the underlying data stored on chain - "Crypto" a collection of emergent technologies, human behaviors, etc. enabled by blockchain technology - "Web3" honestly i don’t have a working definition of this importantly, when thinking about blockchains, for them to be useful to people, we must assume (1) there exists a way to transfer data quickly and store it in small places (i.e. an "internet" implementation) (2) enough people participate in hosting and validating the data such that unless some catastrophic worldwide event happens tomorrow (a la meteor that took out the dinosaurs), it will continue to exist in the shared human consciousness and can be treated as "real"
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emilee
@emilee
so while I think it's fair to compare, say, Ethereum protocol to HTTPS or Signal, it's not fair to make the leap from "cryptography is used in protocols elsewhere, so my company {that is involved in some way with} blockchain is therefore great and you should join" It's the ubiquity of adoption that makes what we live in today, a "metaverse." I hold that Crypto is enabled by today's metaverse, as is AI. Whether they know it or not, Metaverse companies are interested in either expanding the internet's capabilities or improving the UX for interacting with it the key difference imo between Crypto + AI and Metaverse is blockchain & AI adoption aren't ubiquitous yet but internet is
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