Live … from the metaverse!

collective future? Technically, it's defined as a network of three D virtual worlds focused on social connection. Thank you, Wikipedia. But otherwise the only real consensus seems to be that it's going to be huge. How huge? Well, Google, Apple, Snapchat, and Microsoft have all made mega meta investments, and Facebook

founder Mark Zuckerberg even renamed his company Meta. I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the Internet, and it's the next chapter for our company to Honestly, this meta moment kind of reminds me of another seminal moment in our tech evolution back in You know, a lot of people use it and communicate. I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers. Allison, can you explain what internet is. Yeah, that's right. I've always been on

the cutting edge of technological revolutions. So I meet a date with Wall Street Journal tech columnist Joanna Stern. Is really nice and funny, by the way, to meet me in the metaverse, so I could see for myself what this whole thing is all about. A small spoiler alert, we and not just me seemed to be in the

dial up stage of the metamorphosis. So I'm very excited, Joanna, to have you as a tour guide today for my exploration into the metaverse, because you're an old hand at this right, I will say I have spent quite a bit of time in the metaverse. Um, I you know, I had a twenty four hour stint in the metaverse. I have been frequently putting on my headset here in my office. So I'm I'm ready to show you wherever

you'd like to go. I guess I know you wrote this article for the Wall Street Journal, and I'm curious what advice you would give me or anybody else who's sort of a metaverse novice. Yeah. I mean the first thing is kind of like understanding that the metaverse right now is is not really a thing. Right it's this

potential of a future thing. So what I have written about is virtual reality and meta The company formerly known as Facebook has been saying is that virtual reality and other forms of our digital our devices are going to help us get to this metaverse, which is a digital virtual world where we have avatars that ourselves and we do things in this metaverse that we do in the real world. Right We work, we work out, we play, we play games, we do other sorts of activities, and

so we can do it in this other world. And one of the ways to get there is virtual reality right now. And so right now what we kind of have a virtual reality headset um. There are a number of them out there, but the most popular one is made by Meta. It's called the Quest Too, and it really is virtual reality. There are some apps that give you a glimpse of what the metaverse could be or will be. One of them being a meeting room area where we could meet and we could have a conversation

around a virtual conference room table um. There are others where they are sort of like playgrounds, virtual playgrounds and virtual campfires, and there's kind of other games and things like that. But right now, all of this is very it's in its infancy, and it's not quite the metaverse. We seem to be in a very meta moment though, I think, Joanna, and when I hear you say we can work out in the metaverse, that sounds absolutely ludicrous to me, because you know, I am a physical being.

If I have my avatar doing a pilates class, oh, isn't that great? But it's my avatar getting into shape and and working on its core instead of me as a human being doing the same. Well, this is where we can get really meta, as you say, we can get really deep and psychological and philosophical. Will these avatars be us? Will we be different people in these avatar bodies? But again, like sort of, this is the word about the metaverse, right like people are talking about in these

vague ways right now. Actually, one of my favorite things, if not my only thing I actually really like doing and VR is working out. And I know that sounds crazy, but there's an album you mean, like playing tennis or box. Yeah, so there's an app, paper and troll and you don't

actually have an avatar. It's just you just see arms, right, and you see your hands and yeah, like I'm working out I'm at the base of Machu Picchu with some instructor who, like every other instructor, is you telling me and motivating me like my peloton instructors, like my soul psycho instructor to keep hitting the things and pick up my space, my pace and do all of these things. Um again, Like, is that the metaverse or is that just the virtual reality game that's kind of working out? Okay,

so let's do this thing. Okay, let's let's see if we can do this thing. Let's go into the metaverse, Joanna, I will see you as an avatar Katie, so join us wet too in the metaverse right after the break. Hi, Joanna, Hi Dad, Getting me I am and getting here has not been half the fun. I mean, this has been a bit of a ship show. We had to do a lot of behind the scenes tech work and put this on hold while we figured it out. So I guess to say the metaverse isn't quite ready for prime

times a bit of an understatement. Huh. I'm not happy you experienced all this, but I am also sort of happy you experienced this because this is what it's like right now. And so where are we, Joanna? In terms of the development of the metaverse early stages. Well, funny enough that you asked us on stage, literally we are on the early stages of this kind of weird looking stage. But as you have experienced and just trying to put your avatar and my avatar in one virtual room, it's

a lot. It's hardware that you've got to put on your head. You've then got to navigate this weird software and figure out on top of that a social network layer where we both look like avatars. And so all of that right now is just early days in terms of the technology. And then you have to think about, just like any technology, then there's the adoption, right the how do people accept this technology, how do they think of this as a thing that they would like to use,

what is the reason they want to use it? And then looming over all of that, I like to say, is this question of trust. Are we going to trust this technology? And is again back to that second point, is there enough here that makes it worth us trusting in us doing so all of that is to say, is it's a lot, Katie, It's a lot. It is

a lot. It's a lot, Joanna. Meanwhile, your hands are kind of floating looks like you have handcuffs that are not attached to your You don't have any arms, first of all, and you don't have any legs, Joanna, I'm sorry to tell you, Katie, you don't have You don't have arms or legs either, and you're wearing like shorts. Is my outfit based on what I'm wearing or did

we select an output for me? Well, even if you selected an outfit for you, I will tell you that this app does not have very high fashion choices or many choices. We did have to do this in all of space, which is a little bit um. The experience here is is not as realistic as some of the other social VR platforms. But you, even with that, doesn't it sort of feel like we're in the room together. And do you feel a little bit uncomfortable when I come close to you? Um, you're you're well, I don't

feel you're okay now, but come a little closer, Joanna. Right, but this is weird. Now You're definitely invading my personal space, Like yeah, right, And if I'm like screaming in your face, what if I'm saying something inappropriate or I'm yelling at you or I don't know, if we these were hands that actually had more movement and I punched you, it might feel a little real, yeah, and threatening, and it would feel more real than on a two D iPhone,

right on a two D story. And so even though this is so rudimentary and basic, you are getting the sense of how real it could feel. And wow, that's exciting. It's also scary. Well, I have a question, Joanna. I mean, you look like a cartoon character, as do I. So the question is will these avatars eventually be replaced with real looking figures so I could actually be conversing with you instead of a cartoon character of you. So there

are already some options that let you do that. One is called spatial and you actually really upload a photo of yourself and it it doesn't look great, but it will take your face and sort of try to make it a three D s scan on top of a avatar body. And so even when you speak, your mouth moves too. So that's one thing that they don't have, or we don't have enabled in this all space right now.

And then there are lots of different technologies that are going to let us actually sort of scan ourselves and look like holograms. This is something Microsoft's working on. Lots of other big tech companies are working on this. So you would basically have a three D selfie of yourself, and right now it's tough to do. These are bigger files.

You need special cameras. But imagine that sort of just coming to your iPhone or to your webcam and being able to scan your face and jump into here, and you look like you and maybe we also have some nicer clothes, and we sort of feel like this is our holograms. They're talking, well, let's let's kind of help listeners describe where we are and what we're scene. And then I want you to tell us about all the space because I don't even know exactly what that is.

But we're basically in a small theater that looks like it would be maybe somewhere in Tribeca or the Village. It's got brick walls, Um, it's got a stealing with with lights, and we're at a sort of a semicircle desk with microphones, and there's a big screen behind us that says next question with Katie currct the name of this podcast, and um, it's almost as if we're at some kind of conference right a tech conference of some kind. Yeah. No, it feels like we're on there's a round table stage

with microphones on the table. Um, I'm actually I'm sitting in a chair. Are you sitting in a chair in real life? Yeah, you're, well, you're you're kind of kneeling on because you don't have any legs and it doesn't show you sitting. You're kind of just you're the end of your dresses on the chair if and your blue shorts, and you have a sort of a heel shirt with polka dots and a nice haircut. I was going to say, what's my hair look like? Does it look good? Um?

I mean I saw your hair in real life. It looked better in real life than it does it in virtual. But the nice thing is like, if there's a breeze here, nothing, nothing messes up your hair, so you never have to brush it and it always looks like this, So that's good. Um. But yeah, no, we're I. I I do actually feel like I'm sort of sitting next to someone. Um. And because I also hear your voice coming from that area, I know to look towards you over here and talk

to you. Yeah. Almost, it feels like we're probably somewhere in Manhattan downtown, right, Yeah. And I've actually so I've gone to a number of virtual events and these kinds of spaces in all Space, and all Space is a social platform for virtual reality. You can think of it as sort of a early remember the AO ALL chat rooms, Uh huh. So I thought to think of it a little bit like that, because they are these can be

pretty public. Me and you are in a private room right now, but we're talking, and people can join public rooms like this. And I've been to a couple of these rooms where people One of the ones that I went to in a project that I was working on was a comedy show where somebody stood on a stage like this, and then lots of other avatars were in the seats in the audience, and those people in the audience couldn't talk, but you could just hear the person on stage. You can make the room so everyone in

the room can talk um. But there are all these different ways to configure what are really virtual events or virtual spaces where people can meet up. And so I kind of think of it as those like early days of the A O L chat rooms where you go in and you sort of meet random people and you just start chatting with them. So this is Mark Zuckerberg's new big at right, and tell me about what his dreams are for the metaphors and why Facebook wanted to

plant their flag so early. Honestly, I think that he's looking at this sort of interaction that we're having right now in a virtual world together two people socializing as what Facebook needs to be doing. Right. If you think about what we did here, we went on, we made accounts, we dressed our avatars, we gave them names, we put on the headset, we came to a place to talk, right, That's what Facebook has been for the Internet, right, a

place where people are congregating and socializing in a virtual space. Now, if the future is in headsets and we are all wearing glasses, let's say in five years down the line, what company is going to dominate there? How does Facebook make sure that it is one of the main companies dominating in that space, like Apple and Google have dominated in the phone space. So Facebook brings to the table their social networking, but they're also here making the hardware.

The headset you're wearing right now is made by Meta Sorry I keep going on Facebook, but formally known as Facebook Meta makes that headset that you're wearing, and so they're here in the hardware business to sell you hardware, but then they want you to put on that headset and live in their social network. But Joanna, if I wanted to talk to you, why can't I just face time you on my phone? And I don't you know, I would prefer that. Is that just because I'm old.

The thing is that I actually did get into this sort of vur world, sort of communal space a lot during the pandemic, and so there was a couple of times where I would meet some colleagues around a conference room table like this, and it felt far more real than the zooms we had been doing day after day after your day. It did feel more real than a FaceTime, even if we were avatars. And that's because of the presence.

That is, because you like, I'm looking at you right now here and I'm in my basement, but like, for some reason in my head, I also I'm like Katie's like kind of in the corner of my office on my printer. Like that's weird. You know, there's this melding of the virtual and the real world that that happens when you're wearing this that you don't have with FaceTime, but you could see the potential. And this is what

augmented reality is about. Where your virtual hologram, as we talked about before, comes into my living room and you sit on my couch and I'm wearing my glasses and you're just sitting on my couch. You won't look like a cartoon. You'll look like a like you. Right, You'll be wearing what you're really wearing. Maybe you'll customize it and you'll have your real face, and you won't feel

like a cartoon. And that might feel more real than holding up a phone or a tablet or you know, a sort of a green that you've put on your kitchen counter. So who else is getting into this space other than meta slash Mark Zuckerberg. Eventually all the tech companies are going to get into this space. Right now, Microsoft has started They have what they call a hollow lens headset that is more aimed at businesses and enterprise. They are working towards more of this. In terms of

the metaverse, we expect Apple and Google. Lots of rumors already that Apple has been working on headsets and that augmented reality, which is different than virtual reality. This is virtual reality right now, so we both don't see anything around us, right, I just see this virtual space. Augmented reality would be you see your real space and some digital objects. So apples working on the latter part, the augmented reality part of that. Snapchat is working on this.

They've already got some prototype glasses. They're working on augmented reality in their apps. Um some other big sort of startups that have received a lot of money, but all the big tech companies are going to be in this. More of my exploration of the metaverse with the Wall Street Journals. Joanna Starn coming up, I want to ask you about scary situations that can happen in the metaverse.

This woman from the UK, there was a group of people and she says she was sexually assaulted in the metaverse. And what did you make of that? Well, let's let's look at this situation right now. Me and you are two avatars right and in here. This feels a little bit more personal than a text chat on a Facebook group, right right, or a text message back and forth. Earth when I come up to you and I'm gonna do this again, this this is a good answer to what

we were talking about. But when I come up to you, it sort of feels like I'm in your space, right, Like I'm I'm invading your personal space and you're hearing

my voice. So if I said some abusive things or some mean things, or I was yelling, that would probably feel worse than let's say, writing all caps in a Facebook, because you've got more of your senses, Like I'm looking at you even though your mouth isn't moving, I do feel like I'm talking to you in this weird space in my basement, but you're So this is all to say you can see how something like harassment or abuse in these areas, which has been a common thing on

the Internet since the beginning of the Internet, can feel more real to people and think about the challenges on the internet. You can kick someone out of the group, right because immediately if you see some sorts of curse words, you can quickly say that's bad, right, right, that that that person is not abiding by our guidelines in this room or in this in this space on our platform. Here it's live audio, it's much harder to say, oh, that's a bad thing somebody saying or that's that's not true.

That person saying information that's not true. We're sharing information that's not true, and now they were going about abusing people. That's that's a much harder thing to police and to moderate with live audio and eventually live video like this. But I wonder the idea that you're talking to what seems to be more of a real person instead of a thumbnail picture on some platform like Twitter or Facebook. Do you think that might reduce the amount of nastiness

that we that is so prominent online. It's a really good question, and I think it will change some social Danna X. But the one of the biggest things we've learned on the Internet is that bad people in real life are bad people on the internet, right, I mean just and and sometimes the Internet can make it easier to be a bad person. Sometimes it could make it easier to be a good person. Right, But when you enter spaces with other people, people and human nature is

going to happen. And what are the tools that some of these platforms give people. What are the rules and the regulations that make people act within the guidelines of the companies set forth. That's the big question about how they're going to be able to even moderate that. Well.

The tech companies aren't really known for their sensitivity. I mean a lot of them are run by pretty brollique guys, and I'm curious if they're starting to think of some of these other issues that might be pervasive once this technology is perfective. They're definitely starting to think of it. But the and you have heard Mark Zuckerberk, he said already that we need to be smarter this time around. As we're creating this, think about the potential problems before

the problems happened. As we know they did it in many cases with the last number of years. But with every new technology, there's going to be old problems. They're going to be new problems. And so are we all confident that there's not going to be problems now? They're going to be problems. So what is the difference between the metaverse and when people talk about web three? That is a very good question, and I wish more people

even knew what either of those terms meant. I will say I am often confused now reading both of those terms, and I see them just sort of being thrown around like marketing terms. I will say, web three is this idea of the next generation of the Internet, and there are a lot of buzzwords that people are throwing around with that metaverse, blockchain, crypto, n f T S. Let's say that that is what people are saying, is this

next generation of the Internet. There are some central tenants that kind of tie that all together, but the ideas that the biggest central tenant that I've heard and the most compelling thing is that we're more control right we we are not going to be run by big tech companies in this next version of the Internet. So I'll leave you with that. On the web. Three on metaverse, the idea is really a virtual world that we all

have virtual selves and we live in it. So some people will actually say we already have a metaverse, right um, where you interact with anything online. We live in a in a virtual world. You'll hear like things like roadblocks or Fortnite or other places which are communities that are built around a virtual space. Are versions of the metaverse. You'll hear Mark Zuckerberg say he wants to build a metaverse like us where you have a virtual avatar and you can go to all these different apps and do

things there. So I would say the two are cant line as in the metaverse can be the future in this Web three and may be a component of Web three, but they are not the same thing. And also, I just won't I'm not gonna bullshit you if no one really knows, they're just saying these terms because they want to get excited about some new technology on the horizon. And so how many years away are we from you know, feeling comfortable in the metaverse for a few hours doing

some activity. Um is it? How five years away? Ten years away? It depends on who you ask. But even the biggest CEOs of these companies right now are saying augmented reality, where these glasses are smaller and more comfortable. And literally, I just got to pop up that says my battery is about to die in my headsets to the battery life lost last longer it all of this, they're saying five years at least, this is where we

are right now. These are where we are right now, and this is the best we really have out right now in terms of accessibility, affordability. And these are not expensive headsets too. That's a nice thing about this. It's more accessible to people. This is not you know, this is maybe it's but yeah, like this is where we are right now, and my head hurts and my batteries about today. So my head hurts and and my battery

is probably about to die too. And as much as I've enjoyed talking to your avatar, I prefer talking to you on a zoom honestly, And I I think this is interesting, but I'm pretty happy in the real world too. Same same me too. Well, Joanna, I know your battery is about to run out. Thank you so much for the tour. I'm gonna go play pickle ball on a on a real pickle ball court, um, which with fresh air and the sunshine and human beings hitting the ball back at me. And I'm excited to get out of

this headset and get out of this virtual world. Well, I'm gonna go see my real sons in real life and hopefully not crashing into a wall trying to take this headset off. Thank you, Joanna. This was really fun and really interesting. Thank you. Okay, and I hope I get to meet you in person one day. I hope so too. I will wear a nicer outfit to my real interview with you. Okay, take care, tell your kids

bye bye. Thank you so much, The Wall Street Journals, Joanna Stern for taking me on my first and probably last for a while tripped into the metaverse. Thanks for listening everyone. Until next time, I'm Katie furring Ye. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Couric, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fasio. The show is edited and

mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.