Neal Stephenson on the Future of the Metaverse - a16z Podcast  ## Metadata - Author: **a16z Podcast** - Full Title: Neal Stephenson on the Future of the Metaverse - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/51d69f0a-93dd-4b13-9bf7-c372819a6c1f ## Highlights - AI and the Metaverse Summary: I'm glad you brought up AI because it is such an important theme, at least within the zeitgeist currently. How will these AI's generate a bunch of objects, maybe even generate games themselves eventually? And then who owns those things? So do the people who supplied that data own the eventual creation or have you started to think about how that might work? My other co-founder, Atlanta One, Peter Vestanus, has actually been thinking a lot about this. We talked about interoperability before. Can you move that between different engines? How do you think AI will interoperate with IP, if that makes sense? Transcript: Speaker 2 I'm glad you brought up AI because it is such an important theme, at least within the zeitgeist currently. Another important theme as it relates to the metaverse is the idea of IP, who owns a particular object. We talked about interoperability before. Can you move that between different engines? How do you think AI will interoperate with IP, if that makes sense? How will these AI's generate a bunch of objects, maybe even generate games themselves eventually? And then who owns those things? Obviously, the AI is trained on many different data sets. So do the people who supplied that data own the eventual creation from the AI or have you started to think about how that might work? Speaker 1 My other co-founder, Atlanta One, Peter Vestanus, has actually been thinking a lot about this. ([Time 0:30:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f86a8d52-251c-4374-99f9-fe9e93b3037e)) - Is There a Way to Replace All That Machinery to Create a Waterfall? Summary: In the classical application of blockchain, you're just sending money to people. That all works, but it's notoriously slow and cumbersome. So is there a way to create a waterfall that basically just works through smart contracts? "That is actually not a bad fit for crypto," he says. Transcript: Speaker 1 That all works, but it's notoriously slow and cumbersome. So is there a way to replace all of that machinery to create a waterfall that basically just works through smart contracts and just automatically distributes a revenue stream among people who contributed to a particular project in varying proportions? And that is actually not a bad fit for crypto, going to a ton of detail about it, but crypto has got smart contracts that just can route money to wallets. The whole point of a blockchain is that you can announce that at a particular moment this transaction happened. And everyone on that chain agrees that this is true. In the classical application of blockchain, you're just sending money to people, but in an IP-centric implementation, you could say, you know, I, Neil, wrote a book on such and such a date with a magic sword in it. And here's what the magic sword kind of looks like. You know, maybe copy-paste some text. It's about yay long and it's sharp on one edge. ([Time 0:33:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/46dd1713-16df-49c8-82d2-1444fd294486)) - Social Media and the Revenue Model Summary: When we look at Google Earth today, I think the vast majority of its applications and overlays and stuff are interesting creative purposes. And there's a few ways in which it can be abused. So we see Google kind of managing it fairly well in the sense that they go out of the way to blur out faces and so on. There's not built-in biases towards bad or good, but I do think that one really important bias has to do with the revenue model. Transcript: Speaker 1 When we look at Google Earth today, I think the vast majority of its applications and overlays and stuff are interesting creative purposes. And there's a few ways in which it can be abused. So we see Google kind of, I think, managing it fairly well in the sense that they go out of the way to blur out faces and so on and try to prevent kind of darker or less constructive uses of The technology. There's not built-in biases towards bad or good, but I do think that one really important bias, technological bias that is kind of baked in to current social media has to do with the revenue Model. I don't think that just was like evil people coming up with an evil scheme. I think the engineer is saying, okay, let's give people more of what they react to. So as we all know, as I think we all understand now, social media platforms tend to have built-in feedback loops that feed people more and more emotionally powerful content regardless Of whether that is constructive. And the reason that they have to do that is because that is their revenue model. ([Time 0:44:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d6a8f719-3308-49d8-81be-7fb38c8ac07f)) - Get Paid to Build Experiences in the Metaverse Summary: We think that for some of the reasons that I was mentioning, having to do with how content creators can get paid to build experiences, that there's an opportunity to make a new layer one chain. Smart contracts then are built on top of that. There's various knobs that you can turn to optimize a chain to carry out specific functions. Seeing things good for those people, for those experienced creators is the key to having a successful metaverse. Nobody's going to go and use the metaverse unless there are experiences there that they enjoy having. Transcript: Speaker 1 Smart contracts then are built on top of that. There's various knobs that you can turn to optimize a chain to carry out specific functions. We think that for some of the reasons that I was mentioning, having to do with how content creators can get paid to build experiences, that there's an opportunity to make a new layer one Chain that works for them and that's integrated with the tool sets that they are in the habit of using so that they don't have to go out and become crypto experts and learn all kinds of new Capabilities just in order to do their jobs. Seeing things good for those people, for those experienced creators is the key to having a successful metaverse because nobody's going to go and use the metaverse unless there are Experiences there that they enjoy having. People who don't want to make those experiences right now buy in large work in the game industry and they're good at using game engines and the tool chains that feed assets into those Game engines. If we can find ways to integrate the financial infrastructure that they need to get paid into the tool chains that they're already using, then we'd like to ([Time 0:51:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cb66ce4d-0f00-4fdc-8d8a-c6a188d76a3b)) - Snow Crash Summary: I'm very impressed as I read Snow Crash just to even get my mind around this idea that you were able to come up with these terms, but more than that, to imagine a future where we are immersed. A lot of times it's because I've got some contact with the actual technology that's being described. So in the case of Snow Crash, that emerged from a project I'd been working on for a couple of years and was trying to push hardware to do things it wasn't quite ready to do yet. We're actually doing an episode on carbon removal. Very interested in this space and glad that you're pursuing it as well. Transcript: Speaker 2 We're actually doing an episode on carbon removal. So very interested in this space and glad that you're pursuing it as well. I want to dovetail this into the final section, which I would be remiss not to ask you about, which is just how you think about the future. And we talked earlier about this idea of the metaverse being coined 30 years ago, just to put that into perspective. That's actually before I was born. And so I'm very impressed as I read Snow Crash just to even get my mind around this idea that you were able to come up with these terms, but more than that, to imagine a future where we are Immersed. I mean, this is like when we had dial up internet or even before that, right? And so that's impressive, but you've also done this across a myriad of your books, right? So you've been involved in kind of the early stages of FinTech and we've talked about crypto. You've now written a book termination shock about carbon removal and what's going on with climate change. And so I know this is a broad question, but where do you get these ideas from? Where do you actually synthesize the seeds of these books when they're so far before what many other people come to see in reality? Speaker 1 A lot of times it's because I've got some contact with the actual technology that's being described. So in the case of Snow Crash, that emerged from a project I'd been working on for a couple of years, previously in computer graphics, where I was writing code, a lot of code. I was trying to push hardware to do things it wasn't quite ready to do yet. ([Time 1:03:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f67e088d-3362-4bd8-a5ab-d3112592f29f)) - Is Science Fiction Turning Back? Summary: I wonder whether science fiction becomes reality much more quickly due to the exponential nature of technology as an over time. Like things are happening faster than science fiction can really anticipate them, at least in kind of digital. I think it's not just decreased but that it's swapped around and so now science fiction is turning behind. Transcript: Speaker 2 Yeah, I think the topic of carbon removal is really fascinating. And I want to ask you one or two questions about that. But something that I've reflected on as I thought through all of the books that you've written about and also just this genre of science fiction is I wonder whether science fiction becomes Reality much more quickly due to the exponential nature of technology as an over time where if you were to take a book from the 90s, the evolution of that or aspects of that entering our Reality maybe took a couple decades and whether because again, art the technologies that we engage with tend to be exponential in nature and also the number of people engaging with Those technologies tend to come online in an exponential way as well. Whether that timeline is decreased, do you have any thoughts around that, whether that might be true? I think it's not just decreased but that it's swapped around and so now science fiction is turning behind. Speaker 1 Like things are happening faster than science fiction can really anticipate them, at least in kind of digital. I mean, you're talking about big engineering rockets and spaceships and that kind of thing. ([Time 1:11:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dad6f7a2-7f1f-4e17-afb9-4e2390387428))