Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about the Metaverse. He’s been following its development with great interest, excited to see where the technology will go. I’ve really not been following it all that much as I never really understood it. As far as I was aware, Mark Zuckerberg’s vision was to take Zoom and put it in VR - a prospect that sounds like the worst kind of corporate headache. I can see it all now. Executives in a boardroom, all adorned with clunky VR headsets, meeting in a virtual room identical to the one they’re currently in. I see eye strain setting in as the HR director drones on about the latest policies. Down the table a little ways, someone starts feeling the early signs of a migraine set in, but doesn’t want to interrupt and be rude. At the other end of the virtual room, the one guy lucky enough to be working from home is still asking, “Can you hear me now?” Overall, the whole scene looks uncomfortable, a bit dystopian, and very, very unnecessary. It’s a no-go from me.
“Why don’t we go for more of an Augmented Reality instead of a Virtual Reality?” I ask, “Wouldn’t a Jedi style hologram boardroom be better than a VR one?” To that, my friend patiently corrected the error in my thinking, “You can’t build an iphone without first inventing the brick phone”
That’s when it hit me. This awkward VR Zoom idea is all just a prerequisite to the good stuff. That’s when I got excited about all the places this could lead.
In my last post, I described how Mark Rober’s latest video perfectly encapsulated a couple economic models of growth. These models hinge on the assumptions that short term growth is dependent on efficiency and long term growth is dependent on ideas. To recap that into a quick little blurb that doesn’t do the original thinkers much justice (sorry Solow and Romer!), a developing country can catch up to wealthy countries through improving the efficiency of the capital they have on hand. They’re not at the frontier or progress, so they don’t have as many barriers to break through. By improving their capital (I like to very loosely define this as their tools), they can turn small villages into bustling metropolises. Once they hit that upper limit, it’s going to take a new big idea to push the boundaries of possibility out a little more.
Augmented Reality (and sure, we can use the Metaverse to get there), is one of those game changing ideas that could launch humanity forward to our next frontier’s edge. There are several applications for Augmented Reality that immediately come to mind as this could be useful in all walks of life. To start simple, we could see those Jedi council rooms where participants each enjoy their own hologram at the table even without being present. Another easy example would be that a tattoo artist can superimpose an image onto their client’s arm so as not to make any critical mistakes. Moving on to more impressive/fantastic uses, AR could help engineers identify at-a-glance supports that are under too much strain and where to place an extra. Maybe early warning systems for natural disasters such as hurricanes could show residents visual aides in the real world as to what areas are most dangerous to stay in. It’s hard to say what exactly it will be capable of when it’s all imagination, but that’s exactly where to begin. Afterall, once the technology exists and the frontier has been pushed out yet again, the market can show us which uses are the most appealing to humankind and that’s the direction it will go.
While there are limitless scenarios where AR will be helpful, I want to draw attention to the classroom. While I was in my intermediate microeconomics class during my undergraduate studies, we were learning all about the utility curve. Without going into too much detail, this curve maps out an individual’s preferences by plotting one good on the x axis of a graph and another good on the y axis, at any given level of utility.
In this helpful diagram, you can see that at l0 utility, there’s a nice curve illustrating that you can have more x2 than x1 or the other way around. You get a similar choice at l1 and l2, but each is at a higher level of utility. Make sense? Good.
What blew my mind was when we learned that the utility curve actually exists in three dimensions thanks to utility being measured on its own axis. These curves we’re seeing are just topographical cross sections of the real utility curve at any given level.
Now imagine being able to actually see this superimposed in the air in the middle of your classroom! Imagine how much easier it would be to grasp that concept if you could stand up and walk under the curve? Visualizing this stuff would help everything click so well. AR would be an incredible tool for educators.This is what won me over to the idea of reaching AR through the means of the Metaverse as a stepping stone.
If AR is made accessible to classrooms, then we could raise a whole generation who can more readily understand concepts that were difficult for us to grasp 10, 20, 50 years ago. After all, the better the education our kids receive, the more likely one of them will be to have the next breakthrough idea. If we increase the efficiency of our capital to increase the likelihood of the next big idea, we’ll progress to greater heights. I’m pretty optimistic about what we can accomplish beyond VR Zoom sessions. While the Metaverse sounds uncomfortable to me, the layman, I can see it as a necessary first step towards something greater.
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