Bad Meta image kills the joy in the metaverse

Starting and running a deep tech startup and turning it into a hyper-growth business in the Philippines is nearly impossible due to many factors (I will write a separate blog about this). However, I am optimistic that we can progress because if the first-world technology/innovation-driven economy model is quite an ambitious model as a reference, we can learn from our rising neighbors like Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Considering that VR or XR is too raw for adoption, I am thinking of closing Stock Knowledge because we are not as big as Meta, Apple, or Microsoft to have huge operational expenses for "waiting games." Still, I keep moving because I love creating technology that will significantly impact society. I keep going because I fell in love with innovating, engineering processes, science, and technology, embodied by a product that solves societal problems and improves the quality of life. Although it may be full of challenges that I chose to make and create, it is addicting to build something- this keeps me alive! I knew down to my core this was what I wanted.

XR tech is powerful and makes it more meaningful if it is well-designed that makes sense for the users, which I call the right technological design.

I wanted to be isolated with my opinion and always be cautious with my words because, at my size, I couldn’t afford to have unnecessary enemies by being candid. However, remaining silent worsens things, and I can’t tolerate it anymore. Soon our bodies will die, but our ideas and impact immortalize us. So, I go as if I have nothing to lose. I will try to be very diplomatic. ;)

I am writing this article because I was initially surprised with how Lex Fridman viewed the eventual usage of VR, which has more of a sci-fi fascination with the Matrix movie rather than an impactful technology to leverage to make life better. In his exact words on his podcast discussing with David Kipping:

“Creating a virtual reality…in engineering perspective… doable in the next hundred of years, creating a world where we all prefer to live in the digital world. And not like visit…you’re required.. it is unsafe to live outside the virtual world. And it’s interesting to me from an engineering perspective how to build that because I am somebody that sort of loves video games, and it seems like you can create incredible worlds there and -stay there-…. Wearing the headset”

I look up to Lex because he is so smart, and I understand that “living in a virtual world your entire life” is a nerd discussion of the possibility of exciting things. However, these are influential people that have a significant effect on people’s opinions and take on things. And I wonder how many intellectuals have this obscure notion of what having a metaverse technology would be like? As a developer of XR software, I know that living in a virtual world your entire life is ridiculous. I understand the playful nerd assumptions entirely because, me too, there are areas where I have surface-level understanding and do not have in-depth experience. So I would arrive at silly deductions and imaginative wrong assumptions. 

Although "living your entire life" is just a playful thought that resulted in possible theories and Gedankenexperiments in Lex and Kipping's discussions, it is dangerous to us who are really at the tech development and implementation frontline. We needed help convincing regulators, funders, users, and society because they needed to take the beauty of the technology seriously. For example, before listening to the Lex podcast, I talked to a government official about optimizing learning outcomes by leveraging gamification of lessons, immersive and experiential learning via AR and VR, and adaptive learning through AI. However, I felt intercepted when he mentioned Meta's failures and their anxious investors about this venture, and an XR company that sells virtual properties to him. I completely understand his inquiries and doubts. His decision is affected by what he read, listened to, or watched on supposedly reputable journalism, which is probably true or overly antagonized for click baits. I do not know. Funders also rely highly on Meta's bad publications, slowly becoming critical and veering away from the technology. When we say metaverse, it is a synonym for the Meta company and painting a Mark Z lousy image, which is frustrating. 

Mark Z is undoubtedly a super-intelligent human being building gigantic companies. Whatever I say would be nothing to him. Still, if he is serious about saving his billions of dollars in investment, I recommend things based on my experience working on the ground. Since Mark Z aggressively dominated this space and positioned himself as the leader, he has to go beyond his nerd room. He has to go outside, talk, empathize with real users, take feedback as positive criticism to improve the tech, and emphasize the already successful evidence-based use cases and excellent applications of the XR in education, healthcare, and training on his PR. Also, I realized that implementing a “new way” requires political and marketing positioning, which Mark is missing in his strategy. I must be candid because I want us to move forward successfully. (We built a fantastic product because we worked closely with real users (students, teachers, and even parents), collecting feedback per iteration and deploying features based on our learned failures and insights.)

Like here, I am not sure how effective the VR in real courtroom cases:

People's reaction

To mass market, the (standalone) VRs, or XR in general, has high technological demands to meet affordability, accessibility, and convenience. From the developer side, I imagine the hardships in developing the optics and hardware systems to have mobile hardware that is convenient to carry in your pocket anywhere. It is something that Kim K can strut around. The rich 3D simulations also require low latency and high-speed Internet, the most critical infrastructure to run the software and applications. (We have determined these challenges and addressed this head-on. So, we opted for the most affordable and accessible one.)

With the increasingly exponential technology revolution, policymakers and legislators, who are mainly experts on drafting policies and don't necessarily have a heavy tech background, are overwhelmed with new ideas involving complex concepts and processes. We, startup founders and innovators, have two taxing jobs. The first thing is to develop a fantastic (novel) technology. Since this new tech can disrupt an industry and "change" how we do things, the next step is introducing it to users for mass adoption. Most people naturally resist change, so we have implemented digital transformation strategies. In our case, the education sector is highly regulated. So, imagine our financial, logistics, marketing, and tech pains. Despite all these, we must actively engage in productive conversation with them and establish beneficial collaborations. Also, I learned a lot about their processes by talking and listening to them. I understand they are also prudent in spending public funds on technologies that have yet to prove their long-term benefits and sustainability. But lengthy talk and sale cycles will instantly kill startups since most of our funds and support in third-world countries are limited. In that case, what a significant loss of having a potential hyper-growth company that could enormously boost the economy and improves a third-world country's lives. 

From the key observations that I experienced first-hand as a founder of deep tech, I recalled my seven (7) years old blog: the three key barriers to speeding up sustainable technologies are: (a) slow growth of innovative technologies due to various processes like testing, financial stability, and consumer trust to be undertaken in order to be fully implemented; (b) yesterday’s infrastructure that don’t support new technologies which might require government regulations and certain protocols; (c) lastly, building trust among members of the society because not all new technologies are accepted right away. Innovators are entitled not only to be clear with the objectives of their technology, but also being transparent about the risks that the new technologies could entail if we are to use it long term. The three keys to going forward in spite of these barriers. These are: (a) managing risk to balance safety and sustainability; (b) harnessing inspiration to drive transformation; and (c) close collaboration among sectors of the society to achieve common goal faster, which could direct us to the transformation that is much needed.

I just thought that to simplify and speed up things… what if there's a regulatory template that new technology needs to pass some tests to integrate and adopt to target industry processes readily like the Turing test.

VR is undoubtedly proven its worth in gaming. But beyond gaming, I like VR or XR in:

1. Education- Sample here

2. Corporate training- study here

   

   

3. Healthcare- XR healthcare

4. Phobia or Anxiety therapy

5. VR as a collaboration tool for manufacturing and other engineering tasks that require building big life-sized equipment and machinery, e.g., building ships, airplanes, and others. Virtual construction and simulations also reduce risks and are cost-efficient by determining and eliminating errors before making costly physical gigantic systems.

     And also, we can use it to demo the product to clients, e.g., if this is, say, a car that needs a pre-order, it allows users to explore, experience the beauty of the product, do virtual driving, and what not to convince them to buy. This applies to any industry, like pre-construction investing in real estate, etc. 

6. Medical training and assistant 

   sample: virtual reality helps doctors separate conjoined twins

7. Military training

I don’t like VR or XR in:

1. I'm not too fond of VR in Fitness because the size of the VR hardware is too heavy on my face, weighing down my skin. Not good at all. And the weight on my face is a hassle when I do jumping and other intense physical movements. Also, the sweat and bacteria stuck in the headset foam around the eye and nose are hazardous.

2. Total living in VR. It is not plausible at all! Also, wearing VR for a long time cause dizziness because the body functions contradict what the brain is processing. Imagine in a virtual world you are riding an accelerating roller-coaster, so your brain processes that information, activating your senses, but in reality, your body remains static. 

3. Purchasing digital properties in the metaverse, like the one described to me by the good government official purchasing a digital real estate. Personally, I want an actual real estate, I want a natural beach (in the virtual world, you cannot breathe fresh air), I like natural land, I want a real beach house, I want real clothes, and I don’t want a virtual automated robot lover. I pray that I keep myself sane or not pathetic enough to desire a virtual/robot lover! for Christ’s sake! And this is what everybody wants.

4. VR as a remote collaboration tool for 30-minute to 2.0 hours meetings that requires sitting, thinking, and talking because we have Zoom, Miro, Asana, Jira, Google products, etc.

I completely understand that Mark was trying to grab the big opportunity in this market of remote work set-up during the pandemic and post-pandemic. Hence, he built the Meta Horizon Workrooms. However, again the tech is incredible, but the technological design needs to satisfy the users' needs. I love my Oculus Quest but won't put it in this kind of meeting. It is a hassle. 

People would wonder why our startup and I still exist while most of our fellow startups of the same batches have gone, especially since I am a female solo founder. Me too, I am perplexed.

I am incredibly excited about XR technology and would gladly take the lead, but I don’t have resources like Mark to keep up the fight. I am exhausted in resources but not in spirit.

Anyway, going to the assumption of living in a virtual world your entire life as an eventual fate of this tech is silly. I would demonstrate a real immediate scenario rather than have a lengthy argument that this is not feasible:

We would gladly build the virtual world you want to live/stay in your entire life. But promise me that eat a virtual apple when you are hungry, and when you poo, do it in your virtual self and restroom, don't complain if your real stomach aches. If interested, please shoot us a message at this email: info@stockknowledge.org