20 The Times Magazine
special meeting room, which has a virtual view
of a very pretty virtual lake. Cleverly, I’ve been
able to tell the headset about my own real-
world desk, which means I can put my virtual
hands out and feel physical sensation when
they touch the pretend desk in front of me.
I’ve also managed (weird, this) to tell it about
my actual, real-world computer and keyboard,
which means I can type.
What we can’t figure out, though, is any
bloody way of getting Tom into the damn room
too. This may be because his headset is linked
to a Google Chromebook, but there also seems
to be a problem with his Facebook account. The
app keeps telling him that it is “not of good
standing”, although it’s very hard to figure out
why. I’ll ask his wife. Either way, we mess
around for literally half a day and the best we
can manage is getting his real-world face onto
a TV screen floating at the end of my table.
“This is maddening,” he says. “I’ve got a
degree in computer science.”
“Thanks for trying anyway,” I say in my
pixellated way.
“Nice nose ring,” he says.
To be honest, I’m not clear in what
circumstances a meeting like this would really
be useful. I also have a glimpse of just how
horrific this experience would have been if I’d
been trying to set up a meeting with somebody
more important (no offence) than Tom.
Although, that said, after Tom had logged
off, I had to leave the house and head into town
for a meeting for real. I had to shower and
dress, it was freezing outside and the Tube took
about an hour. And that wasn’t super either.
There is a lot that is maddening about the
metaverse, at least in its VR form. It can be
hard to set up. It’s also hard once you are in
to check your phone, which might sound like
a small beef but probably matters quite a lot
to the early adopters it needs to woo. It is
a massive hassle for journalism, because
how even to hold a pen? It is also, quite a lot
of the time, irritatingly cute. Imagine, for
example, the Taliban giving a metaverse
press conference. Insane, right? It would
be like something out of The Simpsons.
In fairness, nobody claims that the
metaverse is a finished product. The Facebook
stuff in particular is still what you might call
a Meta beta, with bugs still being ironed out.
As Zuckerberg puts it, it is all just intended “to
give you a feeling for what this future could
be like”, and it does. Irritating, finickety and
fundamentally pointless as it may be, it is
possible to glimpse what could be happening
ten years from now or less. You’ll put on a pair
of glasses that look like your normal glasses,
and through them, while still looking at your
own real-world room, you may see an avatar
of your friend sitting on your sofa. Meanwhile,
through their glasses, they’ll see you. And that,
even outside a pandemic, sounds amazing.
It’s probably worth also pointing out, though,
that not everybody thinks this is necessarily
how the future will look, or even ought to.
Jaron Lanier, an internet philosopher and
once a VR pioneer, has described Zuckerberg’s
dream as “like some megalomaniac took
my stuff and filtered it through some weird
self-aggrandisement filter”.
Name change or not, the idea of Facebook/
Meta being at the heart of this, with all its past
failures on privacy, fake news and incitement,
is not wildly encouraging. Social media sites
have moderators, but virtual worlds have
gods. Is this the god we want? On past form,Zuckerberg is very good at knowing how he
wants his products to be used, but very bad at
knowing what to do when this turns out not
to be how people use them. Everything
Facebook did badly, from child protection to
bullying to generally making us all bonkers,
could happen so much worse here.
None of Meta’s big competitors seem all
that interested either in the technology or the
concept. Recently I asked a senior Google
executive about Facebook’s pivot to Meta.
While he didn’t exactly roll his eyes, it wasn’t
far off. For Google the future is more about
artificial intelligence, although inevitably the
two futures will run together.
Within the metaverse, after all, how will
you know whether an intelligence is artificial
or not? The ethical considerations are
mindbending. Up top, you may remember
that I told you a computer game wasn’t really
the metaverse if it blinked out of existence as
soon as you left. What, though, if that gaming
world is populated by artificial minds as clever
and aware as your own and you kill them all
every time you press a button?
In the end, I suppose my advice would be
not to worry about it. Not so long ago, after
all, the idea of arguing with distant strangers
on the internet about diseases and racism was
the hobby only of lunatics, and now look at
your uncle. Perhaps before long you too will
be buying expensive clothes that don’t exist
and wearing them proudly in places that don’t
exist either. And perhaps you will wonder,
looking back, how you ever coped without. nEVErythinG fAcEbook did bAdLy, LikE MAkinG us
ALL bonkErs, couLd hAppEn so Much WorsE hErE
A beginner’s guide
to the metaverse
Work
Pretty much anything that can be capitalised
in real life could be in the metaverse too.
At the moment the biggest earners are
game developers making millions from
in-game purchases. But as these virtual
worlds develop, such as Horizon, Facebook’s
meta-planet, there will be more digital goods
and services to buy. Right now, virtual
offices, such as Horizon Workrooms, act
as boardrooms where you brainstorm with
your colleagues’ avatars.
party
Festivals, gigs, comedy shows. For the music
industry the metaverse is a goldmine. Imagine
the hype around Beyoncé’s first live concert in
the metaverse. Do we all get to be front row?
Is she a 3D Beyoncé right there in your
bedroom? Will we be having a mad weekend
at meta-Glasto? You can camp in the garden
for extra effect.
shop
To most people the metaverse and NFTs and
all the associated jargon sound a lot like
spending your money on intangible things
that may or may not appreciate in value.
That is pretty much what it is. When digital
art exploded earlier this year, so fast-moving
was the market that Sotheby’s and Christie’s
had to “go meta” and embrace this new
multibillion dollar opportunity with virtual
versions of their auction houses. In the
fashion world, there are sought-after “drops”
of new virtual sneakers and digital designers.
Nike is building Nikeland, a simulated
sneaker-themed playground.
Eat
Your meta-you could buy a Big Mac NFT. The
metaverse will be a marketing mecca: on
Halloween the Mexican food chain Chipotle
created a virtual restaurant on the gaming
platform Roblox where users could come
in for a “Boorito” and get a voucher for an
IRL burrito. Watch this space for a virtual
Deliveroo-style “brand” – using your avatar
to order food in the metaverse which is then
delivered to your actual front door.
Work out
At-home fitness fans will become members of
a virtual gym where they’ll bump into regulars
and get to know their trainers.
play
It’s not just about Fortnite and Minecraft: in
a second life you can play golf in Hawaii after
work or sit around a poker table with friends.
invest
Early adopters are buying up “space” in digital
worlds such as Decentraland and the Sandbox,
where users can work, socialise and play.