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I have non-trivial stakes in 2 of the 3 (web3 and AI) and trying to develop one in the third (metaverse). The one I was personally most interested in a few years ago (IoT —> AVs —> robotics) is the runt of this litter. I first flagged the set in 2017
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Reason I mention stakes, which I rarely do, is that true believers are exhausting. They think anything short of 100% enthusiastic belief is techlash-grade commie hostility. If upside scenarios don’t pan out I’ll lose more than most. That’s cause to be more rigorous, not less.
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This is partly why I tend to actively work on the quietest active fronts, and stay largely passively invested on the more frenzied ones. Right now the quietest active front is robotics. There’s a ton of interesting things happening but fortunately no crazed true believer crowd.
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In a way robotics doesn’t belong in this cohort. It’s the equivalent of mobile for web1/2. Once web3, metaverse, and AI get to a point of development, the iPhone of robots will become possible. In the meantime, enjoy Boston dynamics dancing robots and early IoT/internet-of-shit.
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The cost and performance on batteries, motors, sensors (esp vision), hydraulics is almost there. What’s missing is robot-social-media (web3), better brains (low-cost ML hardware), and environment (metaverse… robots will live in suitable VR+AR simultaneously)
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Btw I think “metaverse” is here to stay, much as kids might ridicule it as boomerverse. The terminology of AR/VR/XR/MR was floundering because the device level is the wrong level for visioning. Metaverse is “smartphone” grade cringe, not “info superhighway” grade cringe.
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I suspect it will come together in the way streaming did, not as a frontier but in a way where incumbents ally with high-value back-catalog owners to create properties. Linden labs approach relied too much on created content. Extending movie and gaming universes will be easier.
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I think metaverse narrowly viewed as a Facebook idea is vaporware, likely with some cynical calculations attached, but industry wide (include Microsoft, Nvidia, Disney, gaming studios) there’s a there there. I’d point to Pokémon Go as the genesis event.
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The biggest difference between this tech wave and the last few is the radically darker societal context. On a scale of -10 to 10 of broader pessimism to optimism: PC: 4 Web: 8 Mobile+cloud: 6 Web3+AI+Metaverse: -4 Covid+climate+culture war+inequality = nasty global environment
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It’s the “into darkness” tech wave. A dark age tech wave. Part grimdark part hopepunk. Pity “dark tech” already has a different conflicting meaning. Need a good name that’s not “4th industrial revolution” or “second digital revolution” Gaiatech? Cavetech? Doomtech? Hopetech?
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