Source: Golden Finance
The early, middle and long periods of the metauniverse.
We believe that the early days of the meta-universe wereMulti-dimensional mutual trust networkIt is a new digital world based on blockchain, which is a fusion of reality and reality, driven by creators, and creates, governs and shares together. With the evolution of time, its connotation will gradually expand. In the medium term, it will become a collaborative network of creativity, and in the long term, it will be a smart earth built by consciousness, as shown in the following figure.
Metauniverse is such a magnificent digital new world. How should it be constructed? Let’s take the "Meta-Universe" in Ready Player One, that is, Oasis, as an example. Imagine what is needed to satisfy the protagonists in shopping, driving, dancing, training, playing games, making friends, listening to music, watching videos (historical archives) and so on, and explore from the application scene layer by layer to build a meta-universe.
Let’s first look at this layer adjacent to the application scenario, but below it:
1. First of all, you need to wear a VR head display and a sense of body clothing, so that physical people can join the oasis in the form of digital incarnation;
2. Many objects and environments in the oasis, such as buildings, are similar to the real world, but also completely different, which are unique to the virtual world;
3, each avatar has its own identity, and when entering and leaving some special places, it is necessary to check the identity; When buying props or clothes, you need money circulating in the virtual world;
4. Colorful scenes need to be created, whether they are physical people or digital avatars, or even AI;
5. Obtaining keys shall be carried out according to certain rules of the game; The whole oasis also has rules, for example, the boss of the big villain IOI company can’t do whatever he wants.
People, things, fields and events in this layer are all virtual, exist or occur in virtual space, and do not exist in the real physical world. So how can this virtual space run continuously for a long time from the "desert" to the colorful "city" and even "world"? Simply put, IT is the continuous input of all kinds of computing power from the IT infrastructure in the physical world, involving all kinds of IT software hardware and algorithms in the physical world.
From this, we have explored ten technologies of the metauniverse (as shown in Figure 1) to support various integrated applications.
1. Five pillars: interaction and display, digital twinning and digital nativity, identity system and economic system (including blockchain), content creation and governance rules;
2. Five foundations: computing, storage, network, security and AI.
New delivery mode: centered on the right to use
Let’s look at the five pillars of the metauniverse. If we put aside the technologies related to governance such as rules, consensus and laws, the other four are technologies related to interaction and display, digital twinning and digital nativity, blockchain and content creation. The ideal meta-universe, these four technologies will be used, but at present, on the road of each technology, it has just gone far, about 20~40%. On the whole, compared with the ideal meta-universe, I personally think the degree of realization is about 1-2%.
Observing the five foundations of the meta-universe, it is not difficult to find that computing power such as computing and storage is also a bottleneck. Centralized computing, such as cloud computing with low latency and high performance (such as the number of transactions per second or high bandwidth); Decentralized computing represented by blockchain meets the requirements of front-end business for confirmation, fidelity and credibility. In addition, you can also use the idle resources of the equipment at the cloud edge; There are start-ups in China that are trying to pool the resources of edge and end devices and rent out computing resources, such as musys. Combined wITh the incentive measures of blockchain, it is expected to explore a different delivery mode from traditional cloud computing: the "three-power separation" of blockchain IT infrastructure, that is, the construction of IT facilities, has changed from "using it doesn’t have to own it" (public cloud) to "operating it doesn’t have to own it". The core of sharing modes such as Airbnb and Didi Shunche is to greatly reduce the organization, management and scheduling of supply-side resources by operators.
If Bitcoin realizes database sharing (ledger) and Ethereum realizes lightweight virtual machine sharing (running smart contracts), the future trend must include heavyweight computing storage and network resource pool sharing. These three categories are all organized in a decentralized way, so as to build an end-to-end decentralized system and lay the foundation for the sustainable operation of the meta-universe. This is also consistent with the concept of Web 3.0/Web3. Users will not have to worry that their "home" in the virtual world (including data, digital assets, virtual people, objects and scenes, and social relationships, etc.) is controlled by a single entity (such as individuals, enterprises or organizations). This has already included some explanations about the relationship between blockchain and meta-universe, and we will introduce it in detail later.
AI and blockchain are the "feet" of the meta-universe.
We find that some people can’t easily distinguish the difference and relationship between the metauniverse and the next generation Internet (Web 3.0). We believe that the metauniverse is the application scenario of Web 3.0; Web 3.0 is the network foundation of the metauniverse, which supports the free flow of value; The metauniverse also has DAO as its community foundation, and VR/AR as its interaction (and front-end technology) foundation.
As a kind of distributed database (distributed ledger, original meaning), blockchain is the underlying technology of metauniverse and Web 3.0, as shown in Figure 3.
In the past six months, I have seen more and more people hold similar views. After all, the metauniverse is a new digital world of life, work and entertainment, with a wider scope.
Let’s turn our attention to AIGC. What role do the most popular topics such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Baidu ERNIE Bot, ali tong Yiqianwen and Shang Tang play in the meta-universe, as well as the contents generated by artificial intelligence such as MidJourney and Stable Diffusion?
We believe that the emergence of the meta-universe is mainly to meet some spiritual needs of everyone.Enrich everyone’s experience at lower cost and more conveniently.. Traditional PGC (professional generated content) and even UGC (user generated content) are not enough, because they can’t meet the customized spiritual needs of so many individuals, and some needs will change rapidly. The leap of AIGC actually contributes to the development of the meta-universe. In short, AI helps thousands of people: efficient supply and intelligent matching, as shown in Figure 3.
If the time scale is lengthened, we may find that AI and blockchain are like the "feet" of the meta-universe, and they are indispensable, otherwise they can only limp forward. AI cannot be separated from the blockchain because:
1. Where did the training data come from? The more private data is, the more valuable it is. When data becomes assets and power, no one or organization is willing to give it away. In addition to administrative means, the market will eventually evolve, relying on the Token incentive of blockchain to promote data providers, operators and users to create common governance and sharing.
2. While AI empowers thousands of industries to improve efficiency, it also brings about an explosion of digital production, and the content creation is muddy and mixed. How to be true (or consistent, can’t deny what has been said or produced) and how to confirm the right? Need blockchain
3. The endless pursuit of reducing costs and increasing efficiency will definitely promote the depth and breadth of AI’s gradual participation in decision-making. Therefore, AI will definitely be given more rights, including but not limited to, it can pay; It or the organization behind it can "back the pot" and compensate; It has more authoritative credit and is recognized by more people or organizations; More and more personified. AI gradually needs the process of identity, credit and assets, and also needs blockchain.
We believe that AI is an extension of human physical and mental strength, representing productivity and corresponding efficiency; Blockchain is an extension of equality and cooperation between people, representing production relations and corresponding fairness. Without fairness, high efficiency cannot be sustained; Only paying attention to fairness, inefficiency will lead to common poverty. As shown in figure 5.
We believe that AI will have consciousness one day, and the inflection point may come from when AI can feel time and space. The meta-universe, which is based on the blockchain (timestamp-assisted sequencing) and 3D virtual space, will give AI the opportunity of continuous iteration, that is, evolution. Then, man-machine symbiosis, that is, human beings and AI (including robots) learn and promote each other, work together to get rid of the fate of common destruction with the sun after 4.5 billion years, and build a new community of destiny (a smart earth built by consciousness).
About the author:
Ye yurui,Author of Top Ten Technologies of Metauniverse, chief architect of Inspur Information, initiator of blockchain storage concept, vice chairman and co-secretary general of Metauniverse Industry Committee of China Mobile Communications Federation, researcher of Hengqin Digital Finance Research Institute, co-secretary general of Metauniverse Professional Committee of China 3D Industry Alliance, and researcher of Political Economy Center of China University of Political Science and Law. Author of Software-Defined Storage and translator of VMware Software-Defined Storage. Participated in the recording of popular science programs of "Everyday Up" and "Metauniverse" of Hunan Satellite TV; Invited to interview with CGTN (China Global Television Network) Metauniverse; Invited to the high-end students of Tsinghua Wudaokou Finance College, EMBA students of Renmin University, research institutes of central enterprises, listed companies, enterprise observer and many other institutions for training. At the same time, he is also the author of "Happy Life and Love IT Plus" in WeChat official account, and the manager of Yanyuan Yehua, the video number "Happy Life and Love IT".
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