Musk
Wen | Feng Ma Niu (WeChat public number: Feng Lun Feng Ma Niu)
01
"Two horses" clash
Media reporters are "bad". When they interview a celebrity, they always like to ask him/her what he/she thinks of another celebrity so that there is an article to do, even if they have guessed the answer in their minds.
Musk was recently asked by a reporter, what do you think of Mark Zuckerberg's metacosmology?
Iron Man bluntly said that it would be uncomfortable to wear a virtual reality headset (the equipment needed to enter the metaverse) on his face, not seeing anyone tie this screen to his face all day. He also used ancient wisdom as evidence: just like when we were young, our parents told us not to sit too close when watching TV, it will ruin your vision.
In 2014, Facebook acquired VR headset maker Oculus
Musk is also not optimistic about the prospects of the metaverse: I don't think people want to leave the real world forever, and this kind of thing will not happen.
"It is not too late for a gentleman to take revenge." Musk's words are a counterattack against Zuckerberg. In March this year, the media interviewed Xiaoza and asked him to evaluate the brain-computer interface technology of Musk's company Neuralink. Xiao Za also did not save face for the old horse: I don't think people would be willing to drill their heads open in order to use VR/AR.
Now Musk has responded with a similar reason, even the sentences are similar.
Musk, who has always been known for his pioneering and out-of-line, is not at all interested in the concept of metacosmity, and it is really a little confusing. Of course, you can say that he is as discerning as a torch, seeing through this bubble in the morning, a "marketed concept", and disdainfully associating with it. But why is he also enthusiastic about digital currency, carrying the banner of the currency circle, and enjoying it as an NFT platform circulating in the virtual space? What's more, Musk's own brain-computer interface experiment last year also caused great controversy.
In the eyes of the melon-eating masses, these things are not much more decent than the metaverse.
In order to draw a line with the metacosm, Musk is even willing to present himself as a technological conservative. He claimed in the interview, "I'm very old, I like people who were dismissive of the Internet in the '90s, don't care about fashion or things that will never have any practical significance, we prefer to call, write letters, etc., to communicate with others." 」 Musk may really be older, suffering from intermittent amnesia, and suddenly forget that he is a heavy Twitter user.
Excluding the fact that the "two horses" have always been discordant, if you think about why Musk is so disgusted with the metaverse, you may find something interesting.
Let's put a bold hypothesis ahead: Zuckerberg's metaverse scenario could shake the foundations of Musk's ideal world.
Why?
Since Facebook changed its name to Meta at the end of October, Zuckerberg has been the object of ridicule by the people of the world, "as long as meta doesn't face". In fact, putting aside this vague concept, before and after the name change, Zuckerberg's ultimate goal and underlying logic for the company have never changed: just like the plain-named movie "Social Network", it has always been social, and Zuckerberg has always hoped that people will get a more efficient and enjoyable social experience on the platform he created.
Only now, he has given the company the cloak of "meta-universe", but the core has always been consistent. In that interview in the first half of this year, Zuckerberg made it very clear. Let's pick out a few of his core points:
For me, I did AR/VR because I hope that one day people will be able to move around.
In the future, people's conversations shouldn't take place over the phone or Zoom (an online conferencing platform), but should teleport you to my couch (via AR devices) or to you and sit face to face.
People can upload themselves to a common virtual space through VR devices, and people in different places can meet and meet, reducing the use of planes and cars, greatly saving transportation costs and avoiding being dragged down by a lot of commuting and trivial chores.
Remote work is a continuous trend, and I think it's a very big economic and social problem. Now many people feel that they need to move to cities to get good economic opportunities and jobs, many cities do not do a good job in management, and the cost of living has gotten out of control. In the future, if you have that drive, you can live anywhere you want to live, basically moving to any other place in an instant to work, I think it's going to be far-reaching.
The movie Ready Player One created a virtual reality world called Oasis
Summarizing Zuckerberg's key words for the future vision: mobility, transportation, urban management... Isn't that also a key word for Musk?
02
Musk's territory
Looking at Musk's career map, it is not difficult to find that many of the things that the Silicon Valley Iron Man cannot tolerate are related to inefficient and unreasonable travel.
The two companies that people are most familiar with: Tesla, which is used for short-distance daily travel, and the environmental label blessing, which is most compatible with The SolarCity acquired by Musk in 2016; SpaceX, commissioned to go to space, is the means of transportation for people to immigrate to Mars in the future, serving "ultra-long-distance" travel.
Between the two extremes of short-haul and ultra-long-haul transport, there are also two intermediate options.
In 2013, Musk unveiled a "Hyperloop" plan, which is a pipeline transportation mode that uses vacuum, low voltage, magnetic levitation and other technologies to complete intercity transportation, which is faster and cheaper than the general high-speed rail.
A traffic jam in 2016 inspired Musk to set up a "tunnel company." He named the company "The Boring Company" (nicknamed the Boring Company) in an attempt to weave an underground urban transportation network that was independent of the subway, allowing private cars to drive through it, and treating congestion in big cities.
Between heaven and earth, Musk chose the latter. There are also companies working on flying cars, but Musk believes that people don't like the buzzing threat overhead, or that it's safer to be underground.
From Tesla to rockets, from short-distance to intercity to outer space, the above four companies carry Musk's ambitions in the transportation industry, and they are all-encompassing. Describe him in one sentence: a man who offers a one-stop travel plan. Although some have not yet been realized, some are not the first, but because he is Musk, there are many loyal believers.
However, the emergence of Zuckerberg's metaverse may shake the foundations of Musk's career, at least not as important as he thought. Optimism about the metacosm predicts that "non-essential travel" will decrease or even disappear in the future. Among the basic needs of human beings, "food, clothing, shelter and transportation", the virtual world can really replace only "walk".
For example, Musk's boosting company was inspired by traffic jams and used urban space at multiple levels, which is a good idea, but Zuckerberg came up with a solution directly from the root: with the metacosm, people can be in a virtual office, remote work, commuting is saved.
The car is not used, do you see the traffic jam? In the virtual world, people only need to enter the coordinates of the destination to complete the teleportation. Activities in the meta-universe are more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than any means of transportation, and can also solve the traffic congestion problem in the real world and reduce traffic accidents. Why not?
At that time, Musk did not have to worry about people's complaints about the lack of charging piles and the "electric daddy" in winter. New energy vehicles will no longer be the focus of attention. That's right, your Tesla is cool, isn't my teleportation cooler?
For example, the starting point of Musk's Hyperloop is to help people realize their dreams of living in one state and working in another state – for example, it takes only an hour to reach Shanghai from Beijing – and to facilitate business travel needs.
Xiao Za dismantled his platform again: with the meta-universe, you can live anywhere in the world, and at the same time choose to work anywhere, completely breaking through the space limit. Let the world truly become a global village.
Musk also has his own brain-computer interface company, Neuralink, but has nothing to do with the metacosm, but out of fear of the development of artificial intelligence. Musk is worried that AI will surpass humans sooner or later, so it must make the human brain more powerful, and the brain-computer interface is the key to achieving human-computer fusion and brain enhancement, just like implanting a powerful chip in the human brain. In the future, humans will be able to coexist with AI and will not be destroyed by AI. Neuralink's second largest use case is clinical medicine. Musk doesn't care about the virtual world, he wants to beat the virtual world.
But with the metaverse, who cares about the true universe? That's probably what worries Musk the most.
From a problem-solving perspective, Musk and Zuckerberg follow two sets of logic.
Musk University majored in physics, he advocated the first principle of physics, based on reality, thinking about problems from the essence, breaking through the limitations of the external environment is still physical, just like the path that traditional inventors follow - seeing that birds can fly, they hope to insert a pair of wings for humans, so there is an airplane.
Zuckerberg, on the other hand, played cards completely out of the ordinary, and their approach was that of a science fiction writer: taking the virtual world, simply building a new continent, and enforcing a new set of rules.
03
Outer space or metaverse, which do you choose?
If the meta-cosmic ambitions of the giants have anything to do with our "hit workers", then solving the problem of remote work and commuting can be regarded as a big blessing and worth looking forward to. Thinking more deeply, it may be possible to form a new employment relationship that will change the form of social organization and the mode of production.
Zuckerberg's vision was affirmed by his Harvard senior, Bill Gates. Gates's most optimistic application scenarios for the metaverse also serve the "hit worker".
This month, Gates mentioned in a year-end letter that the COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionized the workplace, and that these changes will only intensify in the coming years, with telecommuting pulling more people into the metaverse, a 3D space with a "virtual avatar." People attend meetings in virtual spaces, where they interact with the avatars of their colleagues to create a feeling of being in a real room. Gates also announced that it has reached a partnership with Meta. Both companies will apply the technology to collaborative office apps developed by their own companies.
At the end of October, just a day before Xiaoza announced Facebook's name change, Gates spent his 66th birthday at a resort off the coast of Turkey. In order to welcome the guests, he dispatched private planes and yachts to bring the guests to the venue, which took great pains.
If the future metaverse can really develop to the stage described in the PPT of major companies, Gates may wish to hold one of his birthday parties in the metacosm. Celebrities from all over the world attend the banquet in digital doppelgangers, wearing digital costumes of major brands – in fact, many luxury brands have already launched the virtual world and seized the pit – and raised a toast to Gates in the virtual space. It's like the Oscars of the tech world, give us a sample first.
If realized, this extravaganza would be the best advertisement for the metaverse.
Columbia University set up its campus in My University(a sandbox game) for its graduation ceremonies
Stop here. The above ideas about the metaverse are still stuck on the blueprint.
The basis of the digital world is computing power, the larger the space and the more content, the higher the computing power required. To build a digital world with a highly simulated environment that can accommodate tens of thousands of people at the same time, the computing power requirements are extremely high to handle computing needs such as massive data and image rendering. This poses great challenges to chip design and manufacturing, server systems, communication systems, and data center construction. Until these infrastructures are in place, the metacosm is difficult to climatically.
Today's Zuckerberg is like Musk, who was ridiculed by the world; today's Musk has achieved fame and stands against himself, opposing a technology that looks more illusory and may pose a threat to himself.
So, which of Zuckerberg's metaversms or Musk's Martian colonization is more unthinkable and which will become a reality sooner? They are racing against time, but also against people's patience. Musk still has several shields to take turns to defend himself, but Xiao Za, who claims that All in the meta-universe, if he fails to come up with a revolutionary product in three years and five years, I am afraid that shareholders will not agree, and young users will abandon him.
For us ordinary people, it is okay to have good expectations, and the performances of the giants are wonderful, but we still have to cover our wallets.
Resources:
[1] Zuckerberg's 45-Minute In-Depth Interview: Revealing the Next Decade of VR and Brain-Computer Interface Ambitions Translation: Wisdom Stuff
[2] "Musk claims to be old, doesn't like the "metaverse", and has nothing to do with brain-computer interfaces" Translation: Wisdom stuff
[3] Former Universe, Chushin Publishing Co., Ltd.
[4] "Metaverse Has Dealt with the Conference Again" Source: Tiger Sniff
[5] Bill Gates: Most virtual meetings will turn to metaverses in the next two to three years Source: Associated Press
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Author: Wind Horse Cow
Source: FengLuntalk