Reema Moussa 0:00 From the Internet Law and Policy Foundry, this is the Tech Policy Grind podcast. Every week, our fellows chat with leaders in the technology and internet law and policy space on recent developments and exciting topics such as privacy, internet governance, cybersecurity, tech legislation, and more. I'm your host, Reema Moussa, and I'm a member of the fourth cohort of Foundry Fellows. The Foundry is a collaborative organization for law and policy professionals who are passionate about disruptive innovation. For the past few weeks, we've been covering the basics of the metaverse as well as its implications for privacy. In this discussion, we take a more interdisciplinary look at more complex issues with the matters, such as adversarial interoperability, and barriers to inclusivity in the metaverse. The conversation for today's episode features Roberto DaCosta of VR Networking, Ryan Kieffer, Chief Metaverse Officer of TerraZero, Michael Novak, Senior Advisor of the Open Voice Network, and Sanjit Singh, XR Software Engineer of Hoth Intelligence. The conversation is moderated by class for fellow Ashwini Natesan, who is a legal consultant in tech media and telecommunications, and is based in Sri Lanka. Ashwini Natesan 1:37 I will let the panelists add a little more about their work but before we move into their introductions, let's start with the question that's ringing in many of our minds on the definition of "metaverse." What according to you is the metaverse? And can you also explain how is the metaverse any different from technologies that have existed in the past like AR and VR? So let's start with Roberto and Ryan, Sanjit, and then Mike. Roberto DaCosta 2:10 Sure, I don't its think is anything different than what we've already understand the Internet to be the only thing that we're adding as we keep adding to our experiences online is an actual environment that we get to participate in together. And that's that's what I think the metaverse is, currently. Ryan Kieffer 2:35 Yeah, I'm adding to that. I also think that with AR, there's, we're really going to be adding a virtual layer to our everyday lives. Whether that be you know, most probably through glasses, we're already kind of doing it pretty heavily now through phones and apps and filters and things like that. But it's going to be more, you know, on your face all the time. It'll be maybe subtle, but sometimes way more immersive. You know, if you go to a concert, and now there might be things that are all over the place versus, you know, just the performers just there. Sanjit Singh 3:07 The way I see the metaverse is you know, it's a whole new immersive, interactive or virtual world or a new way of socializing in a way we never have done, especially with VR and AR added towards it. They're just a whole new realm and a whole new world just to explore. Michael Novak 3:27 And I guess from my perspective, I always hate going last for these. So I would agree with my fellow panelists that there's that aspect of number one when people ask me, you know, "what is the metaverse?" I asked them back "Do you have a website?" "Well, yeah, of course we do." Okay, you're done. You know, for now, for the next couple of years, all you'll have is perhaps a button that you'll push on your website and that'll take you to another page. And it'll be more interactive. I'll be able to walk around see people engage in a more interactive fashion using my browser, or potentially I think a Ryan had brought up there might be something I would wear to be more immersive more. But at the same time, there's the other aspect of the metaverse where it's the the coming together of what we can currently do in that space. But there's also some of the infrastructure and sense of if I go to a metaverse, a website that has interactive capabilities, maybe I will want to purchase goods or services. Maybe I will want to learn more about things that I encounter in that Metaverse, so therefore, it'll bring in other technologies, you know, based on distributed computing, things like e-commerce through various technologies. So to me, that's the metaverse. I get excited because it's the extension of the cloud but it's convergence of these emerging technologies, including things like using your voice for identity. I don't want to have to use a user ID and password that I have to type in. I will want to say "Hi, I'm Michael Novak" it'll know who I am and let me gain entry to that website. Once I'm in the website, I will use it to navigate you know, "excuse me, where's the room number 12?" It'll talk to me in my language. And then I will converse with other people using my voice. And then if I want to engage in some sort of finance transaction or e-commerce, it will engage in payment systems through payment providers by using my voice. Ashwini Natesan 5:50 Thank you for that. So now to just a follow up on that question on defining or understanding the metaverse, can you perhaps share examples of any metaverse related tools that you're using? Or any metaverse examples that would be helpful for the audience to understand what really is the metaverse? Well, let's go with examples and use cases that each of you have used. So maybe we start with Michael why don't you go first? Michael Novak 6:20 Yeah, so my organization, Open Voice Network, we're a Linux Foundation Fund, a nonprofit. focused on making voice worthy of user trust. And this is because again, we're at that early stage where when I tell people I work for Open Voice, they assume oh, that's telephony. What do you know about 5g? And I say, No, we're focused on the human to machine component, you know, how will the machine understand what I say, be able to have a conversation, not just a query in response. So when we talk about some of the tools that would be used, there's a variety of different companies that are building natural language processing products to help companies build out their NLP and NLU capabilities. Certainly, in the consumer world, there may be one or two or three companies, you may be thinking of that have smart speakers in your house, I may have a mobile phone. So those types of tools that we already use, can be used again. But the difference is, if I'm going to use my voice as well in the metaverse, what about the ethics? What about privacy? What about security? So a lot of good legal issues to be addressed and governance issues around what are we going to do in a metaverse environment? Ashwini Natesan 7:53 Thanks. Ryan, do you want to give some examples of your own use? Ryan Kieffer 7:59 Yeah, so I'm pretty frequently we're building, my company does a few different things, but from the metaverses that we currently use, we build heavily in Decentraland, Sandbox, Portals. Somnium Space. Those are different worlds that we're currently you know, actively building and we built for, you know, Bacardi, Molson Coors, Estee Lauder, CBS, for their television show Ghosts, Jimmy John's made like a get your own virtual sandwich which then made a real sandwich that was delivered to your home. So we're working on a bunch of different platforms that really, you know, make it so you have a full immersive experience. And we're slowly getting companies to get more and more comfortable with having this digital connection that sends back to the physical and the physical back to the digital. So that's what's been really exciting. Ashwini Natesan 8:48 Okay, Sanit? Sanjit Singh 8:49 So my company, the company I'm with is Hoth Intelligence. We're using metaverse technology, especially for real time operations in the operating room, such as developing virtual worlds that can help surgeons out during performing procedure during skull surgery, even when they're not exactly in the same location, you know, because in real time, especially, it's super difficult, but in a virtual world, you can get that interactive training, especially other trained surgeons around, it can really make that difference. And outside of that my group has been utilizing the metaverse technology for stuff like mission to Mars. As you know, one of the projects we've been doing is Mars virtual reality. So you know, how we can train astronauts from different locations to have that training when they're ready to go to Mars. Another example we're doing is also virtual reality for tourism for STEAM education, especially, you know, from K through 12th grade how we can kind of use the metaverse to make like a sci-fi like environment, especially in tourism to give like, it's like a NASA Virtual Reality museum we're creating to help you know the next generation STEM students learn in a very sci-fi like way of how they can really get involved in STEM and really to excite them in that immersive educational environment. So we're using metaverse for a lot of really cool things Ashwini Natesan 9:52 Roberto? Roberto DaCosta 10:08 Oh, well, first, I'm blown away by everybody's ability in and where they are in what they're doing in the metaverse to relate to anybody I would relate to Sanjit, not in the medical sense, but we are running business events in virtual reality and that that can kind of relate with you, Ryan too, where we are trying to bring human connection to more people, business connections, specifically and our job right now is to design better experiences so that people feel more authentic in their connection, where it's not just a come to pitch pitch experience it's it's a, an authentic relationship being built, that lasts long term, and actually really does change the way your business does business. And so we are trying to think about what what different applications to use applications that allow for events, easy access. Right now we use Alt Space VR, and we're digging into Horizon, Roblox. Those are things that are moving into the into the future see where opportunity lies for more businesses to dive into the metaverse for the first time and understand its actual utility, which is human to human connection on a on a level that's never been done before. Ashwini Natesan 11:39 Excellent. Thank you for all those really, I think enlightening answers. But to kind of sum up, what we see is the metaverse is about greater immersion. And in your own experience, can you say that we have achieved immersion as to the extent that has been that is supposed to be achieved through the metaverse? Are we able to reproduce real physical world experiences to those in the metaverse? So we'll start with Sanjit on this. Sanjit Singh 12:12 Absolutely. In fact, you know, I think a lot of there's a lot of you know, replications of real world inside the metaverse that, you know, the virtual world is able to replicate, replicate, such as you know, going to a conference, especially during the COVID time period. It was so hard to travel the places but the way you have all space VR and the young people are able to create these exact same social experiences in VR through the metaverse, it's just amazing. It's like, you can actually have that connection from like, human to virtual world or to human to physical world. It's like you're replicating those exact same feelings, you know, and one of the things I think we can replicate now is like the touch sensation and that real connection, if we can really utilize it to that full peak. You know, I think, especially the metaverse, we're headed in a great direction. Ashwini Natesan 13:00 That's my cue, Michael would you like to add to that? Michael Novak 13:03 Yeah. So you know, again, it's hard to disagree with people I agree with. You know, it's amazing. That capability, you know, that that confluence of capabilities. One of the things that we're exploring in the Open Voice Network, though, is that immersion at certainly at a voice level, you may have heard the term "voice" or "deep fakes", you know, how do I know that's really you on this Zoom? How do I know in the metaverse, that's really you? If it sounds like you, is that really you? And I get some pushback on that. That you know, "I don't like this metaverse thing. It's got deep fakes. That's horrible." And I come back and say, "Well, yes, that exists of course, I acknowledge it." But at the machine level, we're smart enough just like we are if we have the artifacts in a virtual universe, who was it, Sanjit was talking about in the medical world or medical industry, I can replicate an open heart surgery and have everybody on this call participate as if you're really there, you have the sensations of being there. So we have that machine level capability with voice to detect whether that's really you or a copy of your voice. And so, you know, I agree this immersion in this capability to enhance what I can do to approximate real life for whatever reason, whether it's because of pandemic or because you're in Colombo, and I'm halfway across the world. That's all good stuff in the metaverse. Ashwini Natesan 14:43 Ryan? Ryan Kieffer 14:45 Yeah so from my perspective, we're pretty early, I think still scratching the surface. We can do a lot of the things that everybody's talking about, but from the graphic fidelity to making it where it's more accessible. I think that's really the biggest issue right now is the accessibility. A lot of people don't have the hardware equipment in order to, you know, do these things. And if they do have the hardware equipment, they're also like, either have to like for to go into some of these metaverses you have to have, you know, pretty, like we have like gaming computers that are made specifically for this, the average person's like, you know, on a Chromebook or something like that. Their computer won't handle it, or it won't last very long before it melts, maybe. But you know, I'm joking. But there's, you know, there's a large level of, you know, hardware and consumer adoption that needs to happen before this can like fully go, I think, global, but from terms of data from a daily active perspective, it's going to happen, it's happening pretty rapidly. People are engaging with AR every single day, for the most part through Instagram, or through Snapchat or Facebook. So they're already using the technologies, people might not be aware that they're already interacting with the metaverse, in a way or shape. But there are most of the things are browser based, so that's easier. But things like VR, that's a expensive, you know, entry level to get in. It's like 4 or $500, even with the Meta Quest. And then there's a whole other set of issues on if you like, you know, privacy and all these different things that are starting to come into account. So it's gonna be interesting. And that's why I like the Web3 version of I guess the metaverse versus the, I guess, the Meta version of the metaverse. Ashwini Natesan 16:33 Oh, excellent. Roberto? Roberto DaCosta 16:36 Yeah, you know, I think I think we just have to wait till Elon Musk perfects that neural link. And then we can I see, I know, Michael wants to jump right on that boat. I think on a serious note, no, I think, you know, it's like, psychologically, we really, we can tell the difference. But when we're in an experience, we tend to forget reality, right? Once you're in there, you're immersed you see a color it resembles something you see a shape that resembles something. And your mind has a hard time differentiating that it is a metaphysical, it's not actually real you can't touch it, but your mind doesn't, doesn't relate. So our experiences can can be really real, you know, to a point, until we have technology that can replicate scents and texture and smells. We have come really far with even you know, the standalone headsets on the type of quality of experience that you could have shared experiences, where I am instantaneously in the same meeting room as you guys. As opposed to me being on Zoom, I'm looking at my computer right now, every 80 Something keys on my keyboard. But if I was in the headset, and we were all there to it, and we're in an actual panel on stage, I'm there like, I'm not at my home. I'm now here with you guys. And that experience is real. And so to say, you know, we've hit it somewhere, we've hit something. But, you know, to say that "real reality"? No. We're still far from that. Ashwini Natesan 18:16 Michael I thought you wanted to say something to Roberto's comment? Michael Novak 18:21 So yeah, I perhaps it's the difference between, you know, my focus on the practical application of emerging technologies versus the aspirational activities. There are certain companies that have changed their names, in my view as a marketing gambit. They haven't changed their business model. Okay. I, I anticipate that that's fine. It serves their purpose. However, you know, again, the metaverse to me is that objective. It's a goal. You know, in 10 years, if we have the same conversation with the same players here today, we will still be discussing, you know, what is the metaverse? Is it here now yet? What's different than back in the days of the you know, 2022? And it's a matter of that progression. Or remember when the cloud was first invented? And I had similar thoughts. It's like, okay, cloud, this is neat. You know, I can understand that concept of, you know, things, the hardware and the capabilities aren't under my desk. They're somewhere up there in the cloud. Oh, yeah. But keep in mind, what that means is, they're actually in a server farm in northern Virginia, in the United States. You know, it's a piece of hardware in a warehouse, running off electricity. It just doesn't sit over here behind me. So in the metaverse again, as we spoke about it exists today at a certain level, but could it be better or in 5-10 years more immersive? More realistic? Perhaps I wouldn't need to wear something physical because there are, you know, human accessibility issues. Some people are colorblind, some people have difficulty using their body. So what if it could be something that I could engage in without the artifacts I have in the real world? Okay. I believe that could happen, when? Not in five years. Maybe five plus "n" years. So I could go on, but... Ashwini Natesan 20:36 Okay, great. So just to follow up on the point that Ryan had made on accessibility, and the barrier of entry that metaverse creates, because you need certain hardware that we're talking about. And I know several people who've never had access to any hardware, although they've been, you know, gaming or doing other things in the sort of metaverse. So what do you think we can do to kind of bridge this gap? So maybe start with the yes, please go on? Michael Novak 21:10 My first thought to that I've thought about this is the library. You know, back in the day books were very expensive. And I had to know you to borrow that manual you have behind you in your bookcase. Potentially, there could be businesses that pop up, whether they're public libraries, or private sectors that say, "yeah, we have 25 pieces of hardware, we have the capability to provide this to you for a minor fee per hour per day, per minute," or, you know, some business model that would work and I'm curious, like for you, Ryan, what do you think of that? Ryan Kieffer 21:53 Yeah, I mean, there's definitely we've seen, um, you know, met people who want to either get into the metaverse or like, want to build their own places, a lot of like, what happened previously, it was like NFT, land sales and all these different things, and, you know, prohibitively expensive. So, you know, there's other options there, um, hopefully coming up soon. And then from a hardware perspective, you know, it's all about making things in a way that's consumer-based versus on, I guess, you can, there's like an enterprise grade, there's like a gamer grade, and then there's like a normal consumer grade. So having the ability to toggle, you know, the fidelity of the graphics between, you know, seeing ray tracing, and all these different things versus, you know, this is simple, but you can still get to it. Those are the things that people probably need to think about a little bit more when they're creating. Not everybody, I mean, I'm running off of like, a really expensive MacBook Pro that I would require to need. It's my job. So. But if I didn't have this, like, if I didn't have this job, what would I really be using maybe a MacBook Air? You can access the metaverse pretty easily with a MacBook Air, lease Decentraland and Sandbox too, but other route, other metaverses and other things like you'll just start, that computer will start getting really hot really quick. And, you know, we just people just need to realize that and then also browser based things versus having them be mobile. I think that's one of the biggest issues right now is that most of these metaverses aren't available on a mobile setting. So you should be able to take your identity with you wherever you go, whether that's your physical or digital identity. And right now, with a lot of these worlds, your digital identity stays at your desktop or your laptop, rather than going with you all the time, wherever you are. So that's one of the other things that we need to you know, add accessibility for mobile on a much broader base. Sanjit Singh 23:57 Yeah, you know, I really think the hardware accessibility, this has been a big issue, especially, you know, especially when the latest gaming computers going on, you know, it's really the graphics card that's like, you know, really that makes a difference because especially when you're in the metaverse, the resolution and the rendering, the graphics, it's really all about that, you know, if you look at like, the early days with Nvidia, you know, they gone walls with graphics card, you know, for they originally started making the technology for the gaming market. And you know, it's especially since then, gaming has been booming. And now you see the gaming technology that's like being used in so many variety of applications, especially in VR, but the question is still, you know, how many people can really afford this technology? This is really, you know, a big thing, especially, you know, first of all, buying a VR/AR headset isn't exactly cheap. You know, going into the metaverse isn't exactly cheap, and then needing a computer that can really render all that isn't exactly cheap, either. Especially, you know, the more powerful the graphics are, the more expensive the system is. That's from at least the pattern I've seen. And like one example is you know, like, a lot of my group and I and we do a lot of VR in using this game engine known as Unreal. But in order to run such a powerful engine like Unreal, you really, really need a good computer plus, on top of that, a really good computer that can really run the virtual reality simulation and that for that aspect, it's getting that type of hardware. It's just it's been very, very difficult. And, you know, I think accessibility, especially for the cost, that's something that really needs to be looked at, especially if you want to get full world access to the metaverse Ryan Kieffer 25:27 Just to add super quickly to that from an accessibility point. We're also in a massive, like chip shortage. And just then like so on top of it, it's making things take longer to get to people, and then it's even more expensive for them to even order it in the first place. So it's it's not making it any easier, I guess, right now. Ashwini Natesan 25:50 Roberto, do you? Roberto DaCosta 25:51 Yeah, I have, yeah, I have some points to make a counter. But you know, I generally agree. But I think that if you take away the chip shortage, because that's just a, you know, a factory and a delivery system error issue. If you think about the technology itself, we we carry around every day, a pretty supercomputer compared to all computers in history. And there they sit in a small little device that fits in our pocket. But if you compare that to a gaming computer, it is not, you can't. So a gaming computer will always outweigh a cell phone. For the metaverse for people to participate in the metaverse, I don't think that they need necessarily the highest of all graphics, they actually just need a very bare minimum. And I think that if we just create a, a compact headset, and this, this needs to be, I think five years down, we'll have something that's lighter, that has more technology inserted into it, not less. We don't dumb it down anymore. We keep things simple, we add more. So our phone, our apps, so we integrate all the things that we need our phones for, into a little headset, that we can easily slip on and off and be able to enjoy the day. Then Verizon comes in and says hey, you know what, for $100 a month, you can get this headset and your Verizon plan. We do this now. Like it's not about a price point. It's about technology integration point. I think we just need to hit a point where a headset is usable everyday for the common person. And then they'll jump into the metaverse way more easily. And for businesses to be able to find a business model that works for them. So that that way they can sell you a iPhone that is $1,300 for you know, $60 a month type of package with your phone bill. And I think that'll that switch will change the way the market sees metaverse and how people, when people decide to jump in. Ashwini Natesan 28:11 Oh, these are really insightful answers. And we actually have some solutions that you've suggested, which is great. But drawing from this, there's another related point on representation and inclusivity. When it comes to decision making you we have to have the global north and the global south coming together. In deciding on how the metaverse works. What do you see that happening? And how is this going to play out in the times to come? How do we achieve that? I mean, it's the ideal. What would you think we can do to move towards that ideal? Who would like to go first? Ryan, do you have any points? Ryan Kieffer 28:58 Sure. One of the things that was gonna have to be is going to be through, you know, technology leaders, and through social movements and groups I wouldn't count on on this is just me, usually government aid governments or government agencies to really be pushing, you know, the standards and what it's going to be to be in the metaverse and what representation needs to be there. I think there's right now I think luckily, the metaverse for the most part is about representation. Being yourself or trying to be as much as yourself representing yourself as much as possible. And we see that you know, through wearables, and all sorts of other things, but when people are creating these experiences, they need to, you know, think about what body types are, you know there. I know from a technological standpoint, that when we're building things, you know, it's a lot easier to have to form fitting body types than it is to have you know, love you know, something that you can like literally put on a scale or like change drastically because then it becomes like In actual, you know, fitting that you'd have to do per item for every single thing. So from that standpoint, we have to understand that like, maybe representation from a technological perspective is a little bit it's going to be slower because it takes longer to create things. But from a, you know, skin, religion, however people want to identify themselves like, people are already doing a pretty good job. I feel like but it needs to continue. And it needs to be pushed more from a social movement I feel than any government or any agency type. Ashwini Natesan 30:34 Michael, you do, what would you like to answer that? Michael Novak 30:37 Yeah. I just had a question for you to clarify. What's your definition of global north and global south? Ashwini Natesan 30:45 Very loosely set to just say that you have all the power blocks in the world coming together in the physical world coming together as opposed to only those in the in certain countries where these metaverse organizations are incorporated. Michael Novak 31:05 So more, again, with Ryan was talking about the the avatar appearance more so than the accessibility I can't afford to get access to a metaverse? Ashwini Natesan 31:16 Yes, accessibility. We did address that. But also in the ways that the metaverse is going to function, the decisionmaking off the metaversus how do you make sure that all power blocks and even the minorities are included in this from the smaller groups? Michael Novak 31:34 So that's fair. And so again that's a great question. And it is one thing that we're trying to address in the Open Voice Network. Because as many people may know, if I even use a textual, a chat bot to try and translate from English to Hindi, or Urdu or Russian or Spanish, number one, there's only so many languages it may or may not support. And the method in which it supports them many companies will default to take whatever the language coming in is making English and then English translated to a localized language. So again, it's still one of the rough spots that companies are working on, but it's it's a ongoing issue. And so certainly in the metaverse, this will still be an issue. You know, I show up in the metaverse in the form that I wish to look. Oh, you guys don't support English. Oh, so I have to speak Pig Latin or Esperanto or, you know, pick another language. "I'm sorry, that API has not been yet developed." Okay. so this is still a immense issue. The other piece I was going to add to that, that comes up in the metaverse is what about, again, those people that literally have difficulty speaking because of physical issues or neurological issues, and in healthcare, this is been prominent, but it applies in education, it applies across the board. There are companies working on this, so that again, I can use other pneumatic means to express myself in a metaverse environment, and have you on the receiving end decide how I'm going to interpret those signals if I'm using ASL, American Sign Language versus BSL British Sign Language and I believe, you know, several different variations on sign language in the metaverse I would anticipate and expect that those types of translations could be done and should be done to improve that accessibility just as much as if I want to appear with the hair I had when I was 20 years old up there not down here. Ashwini Natesan 33:59 Fantastic. Roberto? Unknown Speaker 34:03 Same about the hair up here. Unknown Speaker 34:05 [Laughter] Roberto DaCosta 34:09 You know, I don't know too much about you know, the fine points on how the perfect medium is going to look like on for appearances making everybody feel equal or heard the right way that they want to be heard. But I do believe in markets, and I think that ultimately there will be it won't be you know, just Meta and Microsoft there will be 1000s of different metaverse applications all fighting for the kingdom. But underneath that there will be plenty of space for different people to to vote with their participation. Michael Novak 34:54 As many metalverses as there are websites? Unknown Speaker 34:57 There might be actually I mean, why not? My website can have its own, like if I'm, I sell websites and SEO, why can't I just a place where people can come and talk about website design and SEO? And that's the only that's the only thing that we do there. Right. So if we're talking about inclusiveness that I don't think that humans have ever been a super inclusive species. We're tribalists. And so we work best with with our tribe, when we have a designed space for ourselves that we can quarter off and, and vote with our participation. I think that that's the way that this will evolve. And I think that that will drive faster ethics. Ashwini Natesan 35:41 Okay, Sanjay? Sanjit Singh 35:45 You know, these are all really great points. You know, I think it's really the technology and really needs more development side. But in terms of getting the whole metaverse out there really getting it global this can be a big revolutionising thing. And, you know, if you look at I think, you know, as Mike was mentioning, you know, the translation especially people from different countries, how to translate different languages inside the metaverse really, you know, enable that communication, but at the same time, really, how you can connect the world globally in the metaverse. This is something that I think you know, could really be a big breakthrough if we can enable that. Reema Moussa 36:21 We'll be right back. The Internet Law and Policy Foundry's 2022 Policy Hackathon is the Foundry's third policy hackathon happening this October 14 through 16. The Policy Hackathon is a three day event that brings together creative, technical, and policy professionals from around the world to tackle emerging and long standing problems related to the intersection of law, policy and technology. The theme of this year's Hackathon is "Privacy, Trust and Safety in the Metaverse." Additionally, the Foundry is holding a writing competition, and a series of virtual events about all things metaverse. For more information about the Hackathon, the writing competition, and other Hackathon related events you can visit the Foundry's website ILPfoundry.us, or our social media pages. Ashwini Natesan 37:21 Since we're talking on the multiple metaversus, how do we achieve interoperability?Because we are talking about one "Metaverse" with a capital M, which is not what we all want. Everybody wants a level playing field with multiple metaverses not uncapped. So how are we looking at interoperability? And in your experience, how do you think we should grow on the subject of interoperability? So we'll start with Roberto on this? Roberto DaCosta 37:55 Yeah, okay. Um, you know, I, I would like it, I would love an inter interoperable metaverse, I just don't believe that that is going to happen. I think that we are, I live in the US and most of you are in the US right now. So we live in a capitalist society. For us to say there's one thing is insane. But we can't process that. I can't certainly. I think that we do a better job without the interoperability and the ability to just hop from one operability system to another. Everything is a competition. And if we don't have things to compete, we just start slacking. And that's not every time but I think that in general people, you have to stop seeing opportunity in new way. Michael Novak 38:47 Could that be just terminology? I mean, you know, I think about again, the cloud. Well, when I say the cloud, we all know what the cloud is that what you mean is "Roberto's site" or "Ashwini's site". So, you know, it's the level of abstraction when you say the metaverse, okay, I understand it, but you can still I think, have multiple metaverse enabled websites, and still call it "the metaverse" would you agree Robert? Roberto DaCosta 39:15 Are we using "Ready Player Me?" Are we using this wallet? Or that wallet? Right? Are we merging all of them? I don't think that that's possible. I think that we're the only interoperability in our future is that we're all plugged into Wi Fi Six. You know, that's, that's as interoperable as I think we're gonna get everything else that's going to be "Ready Player Me" versus this guy versus that guy versus Microsoft versus Meta. It just doesn't make sense to merge together. Ashwini Natesan 39:48 Ryan, your thoughts on interoperability? Ryan Kieffer 39:52 Yeah, a little bit different. But I think that there's going to be a good amount of interoperability I think is just going to take time that you really depends on, I think a lot of these meta verses that have popped up will probably go away, at some point, what they'll either run out of funding or they were never actually funded to begin with they were, you know, somewhat scams. But um, we'll find that out at some point soon, probably. But I think there is a way to create, you know, some sort of interoperability where you can connect from one Metaverse jump and jump to another and make it a seamless transition. I don't think you're necessarily with "Ready Player Me" you can it has access and you can have an avatar that goes to these different places, but every metaverse is gonna have its own you know, look and feel it's gonna have its way it's gonna you're gonna move around, things will be you know, a lot of people are building you know, on Unity or Unreal right now, and, frankly, doesn't look like there's too much variability on like a lot of the new stuff I'm seeing, which is kind of sad. I have a background in animation and like, I love doing different styles and different things. This isn't like we don't want to make one homogenous metaverse. That's kind of boring. It should be you know, different styles and different art directions. If you want to go somewhere, you should actually be able to go somewhere, whether it's made up or real, and they should have a certain aesthetic to it. So from an interoperability standpoint, your avatar will probably look different. But it's still you'd still have your data because if it's connected to a wallet or something like that, you can still carry those things with you and that information with you. By you might you know to someone if you buy something, you might say, "Hey, this is this wearable or this T-shirt's available in 'blah, blah, blah metaverse', but not in and but if you go to another one, sorry, it's not compatible yet." And therefore, you will just default back to a normal, you know, white t-shirt for for instance. So I think it's I think there will be some factors, but do I think it's going to be like a full one kumbaya thing? Definitely not. Michael Novak 41:54 So Ryan, can I ask you a follow up question? Ryan Kieffer 41:56 Yeah. Michael Novak 41:57 I've been reading a couple of books recently on the metaverse that was very educational. And one of the issues that was brought up had to do with that specifically about the interoperability at the artifact level. I create something in one metaverse, and I want to bring it over to another. And the arguments were made that well technically, that may not be possible because the APIs may not be supported in your metaverse or equivalent in my metaverse. So that makes a something to overcome. So the question is what happens then if I create, you know, a suit of armor in my metaverse, and I come over to yours, and you don't support that? What would you hope to be the fallback? Or what would you expect to have happen? Ryan Kieffer 42:48 Yeah, I mean, in order to, you'd have to have these agreements between these different metaverses, or you have to have some sort of open forum or standards that need to be implemented across multiple metaverses so its like, "Hey, we're going to be following this, it needs to be this, this file type. You here's the way to if you need to, if you already have that file type, and we need to make slight adjustments, but you only have this amount of triangles available." You know, so its of them are like Decentraland is very low quality, Sandbox is literally Voxel. So you're not gonna be able to make something that's going to work for both of those just by default. But moving forward, you know, you can do your best, but the best thing you have is, you know, standards and try to have uniformity that everyone can agree upon. Is that possible? Probably not. But you can at least probably have a group. I mean, I know there's like the Metaverse Standards Forum that's like trying to be created. We'll see how that all shakes out, um, hopefully positively. But, you know, Microsoft can do whatever they want they have the backing and Meta can do whatever they want. They have the capital to do it. Activision, I guess is now Microsoft. They can do whatever they want. So there's gonna be, Sony. So all these big players can make whatever they want. And the big players in the game, it's going to be are little people or the little smaller metaverses gonna have to capitulate to them? Or are those bigger guys gonna have to capitulate to the interoperability. Or are they going to create walled gardens? It's kind of like, I don't know how that I guess the system's gonna play out. But we'll find out probably over the next 5 - 10 years for sure. Roberto DaCosta 44:27 Yeah, I I just want to piggyback on that. It's because of the way that we've just historically looked at. If you look at the way the internet has gone, they've spoken about a singular internet and it just never happened if anything splintered off even more. Like it just that is the path of of Michael Novak 44:52 Did it splinter though? I mean, I could argue both that I would say that it's specialized because I don't like fishing so I don't want a fishing website all the time I want to have a bicycle or soccer website. Roberto DaCosta 45:05 Yes, specialized but in that not so much just the website part but like, you know, different languages. Are you PHP are you Python? Are you a full stack? Are you doing everything all in the singular? Michael Novak 45:20 Who your payment provider is? And what API's they support? Roberto DaCosta 45:22 Yes. And applications don't work together, so I can't always, Zapier is a solution. Right? So applications don't work together, they all had to like a whole new market needed to be created. So historically, looking at if we're going to reflect off of how we act as as, you know, dreamers and doers and entrepreneurs, I want my thing I want my name, I want me thing, right. It's just that the ego, even though we might not all be egotistic. wants its own. And I think that that is the way that we're going to start seeing things evolve. For the better, I think, I think at least Michael Novak 45:25 So we're all equal, you're just more equal than us, right? Roberto DaCosta 45:42 [Laughter] yeah. Sanjit Singh 45:47 You know, when it comes to inter operability, I do think in the long term, we're gonna get there. And I think, you know, Ryan, Roberto, and Mike, you guys brought up some really good points, especially Ryan, like you brought up some of these companies, you know, it's like, every company is trying to build that metaverse. But there's like, so much competition between every company. But another thing is, like, you know, I think about accessibility. Like, if you look at the internet, it's like, you know, in America, we got access to places like Google, but if you go go to places like China, like a lot of that kind of stuff is restricted. So you know, how is that going to be a similar logic like this for the metaverse? How we can, like, make an exchangeable and you know, in terms of every place, like make it more accessible in terms of like that, or is it going to be mostly competition and restrictions? Ashwini Natesan 46:59 Yeah, that's a, that's an excellent point. And it also brings us to this discussion on whether we really need to have cooperative interoperability or we are okay with just even adversarial interoperability. To audience who don't know we are still trying to fit into standards without the consent of the other developers. So there is still an option for interoperability, to achieve interoperability without agreement. That's just one other point. So we do have that as well. And we also have examples of interoperability that have been required by state by governments, for example, in the UK, you have financial institutions being required to enforce certain interoperability standards. So yes, I think all your perspectives really add value to the discussion on interoperability. I'd love to chat so much more on this, but we're running out of time. So a reminder to all our audience, please add in questions that you may have in the Q&A option so that we can raise it with the panelists. In the meantime, I'd also like specific questions to each of you on your work so that we would understand it better. So let's start with Ryan, in your legal background, and in your work in the metaverse, if I were to ask you three current issues that you see that need to be looked at or probably be highlighted. What would it be from a legal standpoint? Ryan Kieffer 48:31 I can tell you you based on the legal departments that we speak to on a regular basis at these companies, I can tell you: security, its privacy and its IP protection. Those are the three biggest things that we consistently see as legal questions. You know, a lot of these platforms are open source a lot of these platforms if they're not open source, they're kind of run by a Dow so what is it? What is a Dow? How does it work? It's kind of difficult for some of these people to understand because it's they're normally dealing with corporations and corporations work in a very particular way and that's not how Dows work at all, for the most part so there's that. From an IP protecting standpoint, you know, someone could spin up, you could rent land or buy land from somebody but then someone next to you could buy land, and then you didn't put enough space or a barrier in between you and you know, they can put your company sucks right next door, and you couldn't do anything about it, you know, and there's no who you're going to go complain to? Nobody. So there's, those are things that you know, you can protect yourself from very easily. But, you know, if you go with, you know, an agency or something like that, that are alone and you haven't thought these things through or they just don't have the experience with it, then these are issues that are going to show up and then from a security and data privacy standpoint. Once again, there's you we don't track anything and we don't use any platforms that track personal or identifiable data. That's just not really what we're interested in. But even so people, people are starting to think that avatars or having an avatar name or wallet address could be technically personally identifiable based on how much information they give. So what is data? How is it being protected? Are we gonna have to, you know, is the GDPR, and all these different data regulations going to have to, you know, open up even further to include wallet addresses, and Avatar names and how that information is being used, slashed, protected, slash not distributed. So those are the three big ones I'll let other people talk now too. Michael Novak 50:43 So what's the answer? Ryan, you got the question, what are the what are the answers? Ryan Kieffer 50:47 It depends on the company and their legal team and what they're what they're comfortable with. I guess it's really all about. Ashwini Natesan 50:54 Okay, and just a follow up on that point that you had made about privacy laws. As far as privacy is concerned, we have these competing laws between different jurisdictions and we face that in the cyberspace. But when the GDPR applying or the law in India apply or law in Sri Lanka apply the same issues would translate to the metaverse. How do you think they're amplified in the metaverse? Are they even being amplified? Michael Novak 51:26 So can I take a swing at that one? You know, the Open Voice Network, one of the things we do work on is developing guidelines. We don't issue policies, but we try and develop guidelines as it relates to privacy, security and intellectual property of my voice. How is that going to work in the metaverse currently? As you probably can guess there are no regulations in effect that have been adjudicated in court to cover those areas in the metaverse. What we try and look to do, though, is again, get people and companies to start considering "wow we should you know, how are we going to implement our product, our service in the metaverse in a way that is ethically legal? And will comply with what we believe the law should be or will be?" And it's a answer that we continue to work on. There is no final answer yet. Some of the issues that have come up with me specifically in privacy area and also IP is if I'm in a metaverse and I create an artifact whether again, it's my, my features or my voice. That could be good. You know when I'm at your metaverse, I want to sound this way. When I go to a different metaverse, I want to sound differently. But wait a minute, if I wanted to not use my voice because of privacy concerns, I want to rent Ryan's voice and I'll pay him what protection is there? And currently the answer is it's the difference between property law and service law. Now again, I'm not a lawyer. I don't play one on TV. I've just talked with lots of lawyers about this. Because if I create something an artifact, a voice or something else in a metaverse and I say I want to revoke that. Why? Well, because the site that manages has gone out of business or changed their terms of service. I don't own that thing. And that goes for NF TS or my voice avatar. It's a service contract, not a property contract. I don't have it with me. And there's again, this is an open question. What do we do about this? In the perfect metaverse, I would love to again move between different websites that are metaverse enabled, let's come up with a different term. But currently the law does not allow or have redress for "Hey, you stole my voice or my artifact in your metaverse." Is that right? No. But then it comes into the geopolitical side where, you know, in cases of privacy, privacy, everyone can agree on we need privacy. What does that mean in your country specifically? What does that mean in your neighborhood? And then it's also temporal. You know, right now, I am steaming mad because my product doesn't work. My privacy. I want to take it all back. Tomorrow, I might be in a hurry, and under duress, and I need this now. Oh, please provide five factors for identification. That's not privacy. So again, it's that temporal or contextual value for my artifact that I'm building into metaverse. This is an area that's going to be rich, a rich area for investigation by the legal and regulatory bodies. Ashwini Natesan 54:57 Superbly. I couldn't have said it better. Thank you. Michael Novak 55:00 I bet you could have you're a lawyer, you could have said it much better. Ashwini Natesan 55:04 So Roberto, coming to you on relating to the work that you do on VR networking. Can you tell us a little bit about how this is transforming traditional networking? And what do you see is the challenge for VR networking in the metaverse? Roberto DaCosta 55:22 Yeah. So VR networking is all about connecting people. And the it's about connecting people in virtual reality for business right to connect about business to do remarketing to your networking to become friends, partners, you know, growing that. The problem where you're we're seeing is that VR is is worse with attention span, then even if a cell phone not so much like when you are engaged, you are fully there. But if you are the very least bored, it is so easy for you to disappear and clock out right. The task at hand is to make every encounter engaging. So it when you are when you talk about content creation, and as we move from video content creation, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok into Metaverse, content creation, it is it is a huge task. It is so much more than creating a script, having a nice background, nice lighting, and then saying something to a camera. You really need to think about every individual's experience from their own point of view and their own perspective and their own background, and how that's going to affect them. In that space. It's much like a real world environment. But in a real world environment, I can't just disappear. So if I come to your crummy event, I'm kind of there, right? And I'm gonna I'm gonna force myself to exist, because I can't not exist. But in in the metaverse, it's not an, it's almost not an option, right, you have to make something almost, you know, almost perfect for everybody. So that way, you can keep people in the space to do the job that you're set out to do, which is engage, connect and drive content in some form. And that's the hardest. That's what we're working on now thinking about how to design that and how to systematize it. So you can do it more rapidly. So you have a shorter turn around. And then how do we package that? So we teach other people how to do that, too. It's just completely new and you know, boggles my mind. Michael Novak 57:37 So Roberto, can I ask you a follow on question, or may I Ashwini, I don't know if we have enought time. Ashwini Natesan 57:41 Please go on. Michael Novak 57:42 So one of the areas again, surprise, focused on voice. One of the conversations that's come up is with professional voice actors, where they look at the metaverse and go, "Oh, my goodness, this is horrible." Why is that? Well, there could be someone who's faking my voice or using it and I wouldn't get paid for it. That's my voice this is my job. And that's evolved into a scenario where, wait a minute, this is a good thing. Because what you're just talking about that social arena and being able to have a metaverse, I could be in four or five different metaverses is at the exact same time without having to travel anywhere. It would be my representation, it would be my voice that represents me. And guess what, because I could store that information on a distributed network, but they call it blockchain. For those people who don't know what that is. It's a distributed network. So every time my avatar or my voice is used, I would know about it, and therefore that intellectual property- see I knew I would get back to Ashwini- I can account for that and still make money off it by going to multiple metaverses and encountering and having those social interactions at the exact same time. Roberto DaCosta 59:03 You can, but you can't police that. You can only police it to a point right? Michael Novak 59:09 Police it? What do you mean, I'm sorry. Roberto DaCosta 59:11 You can't enforce whether you get paid or not for somebody to use that because I can I can rip your voice and create my own universe and have that exist there and not pay you. Michael Novak 59:23 So yes, but no. Again, you know, speaking of voice, there are companies that are developing voice prints, like a watermark voice watermarks. So if I come to your webinar, or if I come to your multiverse, metaverse, I would embed a signature sub audio signal. So if you decide to just hold up a microphone and record my voice and run away, you would be accounted for. Certainly people will probably do it and get away with it. But at scale the answer is no I would know, every time my voice popped up, there would be a record of it. And therefore, I would have recourse through a legal system to come after you and say, "Hey, stop doing that, or I will take legal action." Roberto DaCosta 1:00:13 The counterargument to that is pirated movies. Michael Novak 1:00:17 Absolutely. Roberto DaCosta 1:00:18 That's, that is a giant market, and there is no recourse. So if I have servers and- Michael Novak 1:00:23 Well there is but let's just say it's a scale, you know, am I gonna go after Mom and Pop? Maybe not? If I go through Netflix, then I can take recourse and get something done. Roberto DaCosta 1:00:32 Sure, Netflix, but Netflix wouldn't break the law in the first place? I don't think. Michael Novak 1:00:37 Okay, fair, fair. Roberto DaCosta 1:00:39 If we're talking about dark agents- Ryan Kieffer 1:00:42 Pirate Bay or something like that? Roberto DaCosta 1:00:42 Extactly, they are making millions upon millions of dollars every year on ads, ads on their website, because they are showing you what you want to watch for free. Not that I go there but- Michael Novak 1:00:55 Hypothetically speaking. Roberto DaCosta 1:00:56 Hypothetically speaking, I'm talking about my friend here. What the the implication here is that, just because the laws apply to you, and everybody here in your country, it's not going to apply to everybody in the world. And so if somebody steals your voice, and they live in Afghanistan, and they built out this whole server that selling your entire identity, right, like the Afghan government is, is that well, maybe maybe they would, but I don't know. They wouldn't do anything. Especially I mean, Panama is its own dark market like theres, they don't need to apply. They are in partnership with the US and they don't need to give any information digitally to the US, they don't need to enforce anything. So it's a strange, Panama's is a strange place that, you know, dark people, dark agents could exist and never have recourse. Michael Novak 1:01:50 Agreed. I mean, I certainly agree that we have crime in general, it happens. I mean, in the case of voice specifically, I will point out, I learned that with voice actors, there is a international agreement as it relates to voice productions specifically, however, you're absolutely right. It doesn't mean no one is going to violate it. It's just the case of we have the technologies in VR, and AR and XR to manage it in the white web, not the dark web, the light web. Yeah, the light web, the light metaverse. So there will be a standard, at least that countries that sign up for it just like we do with any an international agreement, if your country signs off, and yes, I agree to these principles. They're on the hook implementation will vary. But at least you have that standard to look at and say "yes, everyone agrees this is good, or this is bad." And I was just pointing out that with voice, this is an active issue about six months ago it came up is, "gosh, how do I prevent this?" And then as we started examining it, we said, oh, but you know, this is a good thing, because you literally can be in multiple places at once. And there is a technical way to track the usage. Roberto DaCosta 1:03:07 Yeah, sure. Ashwini Natesan 1:03:09 Yeah, yes. Yeah, there's a, it's, it's a very important discussion. And one, we we all agree that there's really no foolproof method, especially when it comes to enforcement, across jurisdictions. But quickly, because we have to end the panel discussion. Sadly, we're out of time. Sanjit, can you elaborate a little bit on XR software engineering that you do? And how is it different from other software engineering? And then all the panel members, let's do a lightning round your future predictions for the metaverse in under a minute. So Sanjit, let's start with you. Sanjit Singh 1:03:46 Sure. So a Hoth Intelligence, you know, we're working on the next generation of augmented reality, or something that can really save lives, especially for skull surgery. So we collaborate a lot with neurosurgeons. And what we're trying to do compare to different other software engineering methodologies is we really want to bring you know, the XR to the real operating room in real time, like overlay an environment, especially during small surgery operation, and one of the beliefs we share is, you know, sort of power of technology innovation, we can really save a lot more lives. So we're really our focus compared to like, you know, especially in traditional healthcare and traditional engineering is we want to bring that real time precision and really enable more informatics for like, the heads up displays for that device, and also create an immersive environment where ther surgeons can practice even when there not in the same operating room altogether. So compared to all the other engineering, you know, like we're, we're trying to create something that, you know, it's real time, it's immersive, it's fun, and really can make that difference. Ashwini Natesan 1:04:48 Right, let's go with future predictions. Yes. Who wants to go first? Sanjit? Sanjit Singh 1:04:57 Yeah, yeah, I can I can start off so The future predictions like on just to confirm in terms of xr in general? Ashwini Natesan 1:05:04 Just the metaverse. Yeah, anything. Sanjit Singh 1:05:06 The future of long term timeline, the way I see the metaverse is really how we can really do to ties our minds into creating like that immersive virtual experience, kind of like in the Sci-Fi realm. That's where I see like having that vision of virtual game pods, and, you know, kind of making these connections like touch and all that like, you know, sensation of the brain and really replicating all these actual experiences, like a whole new realm of virtual world. Ashwini Natesan 1:05:35 Ryan? Ryan Kieffer 1:05:36 Yeah. At least five, hopefully, five years from now, people have, they'll be really good AR technology or the metaverse will become this virtual layer that you can engage with, at all times during the day, if you choose to. And the hardware capabilities will be easier for people to you know, get have have everything done at home or at work, or, you know, just while they're out and about. Ashwini Natesan 1:06:07 Okay, Roberto? Roberto DaCosta 1:06:10 I envision glasses like these by the end of my lifetime. And I envision being able to go for a walk and have a phone call will still call them phone calls, and have my mother appear and be able to walk with her even you know, on a 40 minute walk not that she would walk that long. But you know, going on nice little hike with with a family member a loved one and spend time with them in new spaces. Not not too much different, just way better than today. Ashwini Natesan 1:06:45 And Michael, closing comments? Michael Novak 1:06:47 Yeah. So again, thank you very much for having me today. This has been very educational for me, and I appreciate the opportunity. What you haven't known is this is my avatar, and you've been talking to me for the last hour. So I see definitely I have that objective of yeah in the metaverse, there will be a time when it will be easier and more transparent to move between different websites that are metaverse enabled. That will include voice as well as other channels to be identified to get in, number two to navigate and communicate while you're at the website, and number three, to engage in e-commerce and, and banking and all of the infrastructure that goes on, preferably by voice as the primary means based on the needs and accessibility of the users. But thank you all I appreciate your time. Roberto DaCosta 1:07:42 Yeah, thank you everybody. Ashwini Natesan 1:07:43 Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks a lot for joining. Reema Moussa 1:07:48 That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening, and be sure to check out our final episode in this metaverse series next week on Trust and Safety in the Metaverse huge thank you to Lama Mohammed, our Social Coordinator and Allyson McReynolds, our Accessibility Coordinator for their help in making this show happen. See you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai