Creating a Hyper-realistic Metaverse Sooner with John Gaeta - Step into the Metaverse podcast: EP34

Good day everyone and welcome to the Step into the Metaverse podcast. My name is Marc Van Reimenam and I'm also known as the Digital Speaker. I'm a future tech strategist and I think about how emerging technologies change organizations and society. This podcast is part of my new book called Step into the how the Immersive Internet Will Unlock a Trillion Dollar Social Economy. The book is available as an ebook, hard copy and audiobook. As part of this book I did nearly 100 in depth interviews with the stakeholders involved in creating the open Metaverse, the investors, the developers, the artists, the collectors, etc. And I've turned a selection of these interviews into this podcast as I think that these conversations are too valuable to leave them on my computer. In this final interview for my book, I interviewed John Gueda. John is a creator, inventor and an Academy Award winning designer, best known for his work on the Matrix trilogy where he pioneered form bending innovations such as bullet time, virtual cinema and volumetric capture to envision human hero and godlike moments. He was also involved in the Matrix ofAwakens from 2021 as executive creative development, Executive Producer, writer, and in the ultimate Unreal Engine 5 demonstration featuring the universe of the Matrix, which I really can recommend anyone to watch on YouTube if you want to know how close the Metaverse already is. During the interview we discussed how important AR and VR are, especially when it comes to hyper realistic content. We discussed the role of user generated content in the Metaverse and the infrastructure challenges of creating a hyper realistic metaverse. Enjoy this final conversation of this podcast series.

All right, briefly give a background of yourself, what you do and how you are involved in the Metaverse, which equals the Matrix almost.

Well, I guess it's hard to really sum up any one thing that I'm doing, but I work with collaborators to try to evolve forms of media and human experience. I suppose I began in cinema because the collaborators I was working with then wanted to tell stories and depict worlds that could only really be realized with future technologies like Metaverse like systems. It began to push me into communities that were actually developing some of these systems. So I've had a career that began in concept and illusion and has slowly marched its way into communities that are attempting to actualize some of these concepts.

Nice. That's great to hear. So you have been involved in this space for a very long time. So you have seen this space come and grow and develop. If you had to describe this metaverse, which is now a big hype, what would it be according to you?

It's a difficult question. I have heard many ideas and interpretations as you have, and none of them are really wrong and none of them are really right. Mostly because it's never quite possible to predict the way new paradigms will evolve and our lives intertwined within them. You know, one way I might put it is, is that the metaverse will be a forthcoming state, as in a state of systems, a state of mind. And once we reach that, I suspect that a number of things will happen. I'll give you a few things I think might happen. I think that humans will be amplified. They'll be sublimely amplified. And evolved human perception is very likely as it becomes fused with machine perception. That's one thing that seems to be happening, a convergence of human perception and machine perception. I think that whole new social paradigms will be catalyzed. I think that as many do, that there will be a limitless creation of virtual identities, you know, massive in a miniature, immersive worlds and realities. I think that, you know, whole new economies and forms of education and governance will be created. All of this stuff is slowly happening already. And without doubt, the metaverse will be a new source of freedom, a source of control. It will lead to renaissance and revolution, and it will very likely impact our survival.

That's the most broadest definition of the metaverse I've heard, and I've heard 200 of them in the past six weeks.

I'm throwing a wide net on this one.

It's good. I like it because a lot of the words that you state very much make sense to me, and I think it resonates very well with how I'm writing the book, for example, the freedom versus control, Renaissance versus revolution, and how it's going to impact society in ways that we are probably can't foresee yet. So from the perspective, it's a great definition.

Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's probably going to be all of those things, but there's no arrival date. It's just one day. We're just going to know that it's here.

Yeah, I think it's the same thing with the mobile Internet. When first iPhone or iPhone 3G arrived, we didn't say, okay, now the mobile era has arrived. Only hindsight, we were able to say, okay, that was sort of a key moment in history when we moved to mobile. And I think I agree with you. The same will happen with the metaverse.

It's probably the best analogy that you're giving. Or also, how about just our lives with computers, our lives with the Internet, I mean it was really a very slow motion sort of new way of thinking and a new way of living. So what was your question? How long will it take?

Yeah, what's your estimate? Like 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years? Very broad estimate.

Okay. There's maybe two ways to answer the question. I mean there's the pace that it might happen if all groups that potentially have influential systems that need to be intertwined, if all groups agreed to do so. But it's often the case that something is possible technologically but doesn't really come to fruition for a much longer time because there isn't really a market driving deployment. And this time around, as time goes on, things seem to be accelerating, so maybe will happen faster than things in the past. But I would say that inside of this decade, I really do think that we will fuel the beta of the metaverse and I think inside of 20, that sublime knowing that it's part of the fabric of our lives. I think that'll be the following decade, across the following decade, just getting the system of systems to work and interoperate and all of so many things, so many subjects will come to bear. I'm not a person who thinks it's simply, you know, just a virtual place. I think it's the convergence of many, many different systems. Particularly, you know, it's as much to do with the convergence of world sense systems as it is with, you know, spatial Internet and XR interface and all of those things.

Yeah, that makes sense. The next question I have is sort of twofold. On the one hand I'm curious your perspective for the book obviously. But on the other hand, also from my personal because we are working on the startup that aims to enable hyper realistic VR and ar. How important do you think that ar, VR and XR will be for the Metaverse? And predominantly how important do you think like hyper realistic, like as you the example with Matrix Awakens will be because we see of course the roadblocks and the sandbox of this world, which are cute I would say, but not necessarily think that that's the future. What do you think?

You know, the low fidelity early precursors like Roblox or even Fortnite or others, those are essentially the sandboxes for social interaction. And those new social paradigms I think are being incubated in things like that. They're rapid prototyping sandboxes, even VR chat, which you know, you could call lo fi by comparison to. I know what you're implying, flawless simulation. That's it's Fairly lo fi, but things like people creating whole new forms of expression to communicate to one another or to express their feelings or ideas, et cetera, et cetera, these things are being trialed in early stages in things like that. But with companies like Nvidia and Unreal around, there's only a matter of time before we're able to serve true realism at scale. There's a lot of people who would like that. Why you might want that is a different matter. And whether all people will want that is a different matter because a lot of people spend most of their lives trying to escape realism, reality. And so they're perfectly happy and joyful to go into something that's more imaginative. So I think that, you know, we'll probably see, you know, again like half a decade or so from now, we should be able to see, you know, many thousands of people inside of hyper realistic spaces. Will there be businesses that actually will, you know, sort of be, you know, offering that and will it be taken up, will it be adopted at the time? That it might be possible is a different thing to figure out.

Yeah, fair enough. And what we're now talking about is I think predominantly VR. What's your perspective on AR then and which of the two would be more dominant in the next decade?

Well, first of all, I wasn't really talking about VR before exactly. I mean before any of the interfaces, VR or ar. I think that we will see the perfecting of, know, virtual worlds. I don't know, you know, be they open or more sort of controlled. I think that there's a huge drive to allow people to access worlds just through PCs and devices, just Windows basically. And then as far as, and I do think that that is, that is more foundational for many because those are places that many people can certainly get to with technology that they already have in their possession even today. But as far as, you know, VR and ar, which will be adopted, I really think that both will grow and thrive, but in different ways. I was head of creative strategy for Magic Leap for a number of years, so I have thought quite a lot about AR. Before that. I founded Lucasfilm's ILM xlab alongside a colleague of mine, Kim Libreri, who is the current CTO of Epic. So we're friends and before Kim went to Epic and essentially helped Tim Sweeney transform the Unreal Engine and the direction of things, there he was at Lucasfilm. And that's where we pioneered a lot of things in sort of advanced real time graphics and VR and AR stuff all there a leading Edge lab for Disney, basically. And then the two of us, you know, 15 years before, did the Matrix trilogy and all of those things. At any rate, you know, Kim went to Epic and I went to Magic Leap after this Lucasfilm time. And so I have seen quite a lot of experimentation. I've thought quite a lot about the future of augmented reality, or mixed reality, as they like to call it. And frankly, I feel that augmented reality, so these terms have gotten a little confusing actually over the time. But augmented reality, or the overlaying of virtual things on top of the real world, I believe, has a better chance of becoming massively adopted simply because it is less of a behavioral shift for people to just augment their everyday lives. Choosing to go fully immersive in virtual reality, I feel that it can be transcendent and potentially lead to insights and perceptions of things in a completely different way. And so I don't undervalue what people will do in virtual reality. I just think that it will not necessarily be something that you will be able to do all day. Whereas in augmented reality, I do think that it can be introduced in sublime and very powerful ways. And I spoke a bit about this during my Magic leap time and at the time, when people think of the Metaverse, they think potentially of infinite virtual worlds that they can, you know, Portal 2, when you think of, in an augmented reality way, you think essentially of potentially like channels or, or reality layers that you can flip. Like channels. Like channels, right. So you could have infinite channels of overlays that are sort of specific to whoever is curating, and it can apply to any and all sectors. And so, too obviously can the metaverse. It can be enterprise, it can be entertainment, it can be education, it can be all sorts of things. But I do think augmented reality has huge potential, both of those things and hybrids of those things and even non XR metaverse instantiations. Much of that. I think it may begin sort of made and curated in part by people. But I think quickly, again, across the decade, that it's going to become substantially, I would have put it, enabled and empowered by AI and machine learning. So there'll be like a lot of simulation, a lot of procedural content that people will sort of, you know, surround themselves with, immerse themselves with, and socialize within. But a fair bit of that is probably going to be generative and guided by, not necessarily by people.

Yeah, that makes sense. So of course AI will be big aspect to this, but then related to that, if AI is going to be such an important aspect, how important do you think that user generated content and creativity will be for the Metaverse?

Well, I think it will be pervasive and explosive. So it's not that I'm saying that there won't be. There'll be all manner of user generated content depends on which version of the metaverse we're talking about. If we're talking about. Well, in both cases, people could create things digitally, people could capture things dimensionally. I also think people will make things generatively powered by sort of invisible tools that can turn any person into an architect, into a remarkable artist, into all sorts of types of new things.

Yeah, but then again, if we talk about having this explosion of user generated content, as well as the various types of way to access this content, what are some of the infrastructure challenges to make this all happen?

Well, I mean, are you talking about ways people get things that they make onto or into a verse, or are you talking about the ability of transporting things that are yours and that you create across many verses?

I think it's a combination of both. A lot of people talk about the Metaverse should be built on Web3, so a lot of blockchain involved in there. But then again, if you have even low fidelity or hyper realistic content that requires enormous bandwidth and mineral literacy and computing power that doesn't really match with blockchain at the moment. So more from that perspective.

Well, here's how I can answer that question. You know, I'm a creator myself, I'm not a engineer, but I like to hang out with them. And I have myself seen some new methods of, you know, sort of producing highest possible fidelity computer generated content that runs in real time on the web. Cinematic quality. I've seen that. I've seen tests like that in this last year or even longer. I think there are novel ways that solutions will come. And yes, again, there are a lot of building blocks that are not sort of put together. But I do know there's huge momentum to try to make it possible. And so lots of research and development in that area is happening. There's just the sheer will to get. I mean, whole new economies will be born from this ability of people to create and share things of value. And things of value need to. How would I put it? They need to have intrinsic qualities that require a lot of processing and compute. But the transmission of those things might be a different matter. I think that the transmission of those things once created will be something that is solved in a unique way.

Yeah. And so earlier you mentioned that the Metaverse will impact all industries, enterprise, government. Can you share A bit about your thoughts on that. How will the enterprise metaverse, for example, change collaboration? And what's the role of digital twins in this regard?

I mean, I think that the pandemic is certainly validating things that we talked about for years on end and really could find no mainstream audience for, because it made no sense to attempt to produce workflows of all types remotely. And same too with educating our children and all sorts of other activities that we need to keep life moving forward. So I think there isn't really a debate about the value proposition of being able to collaborate remotely. I think that a huge sort of advantage of being able to do this, which I think everybody who probably listens to your shows knows, is that you can now work with anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. This allows for new combinations of teams and talent to come together that likely wouldn't work in an old paradigm physical container like a building. The other thing I think that is probably worth mentioning and so the product of being able to put people together in that way is new, could potentially be new product. There can be, you know, breakthroughs where there might have been friction and frustrations before. I'm not saying that everyone's doing that. I'm saying that's possible through this, these forms of collaboration. The other thing I would also mention is that it's not just workflow and, you know, business and product. There's also the idea that people can, you know, essentially have forms of co presence and even coexistence with one another. So there could be reasons why people from around the world are sort of drawn to a particular space. Whether it's work or education, arts, culture, governance, they could be drawn into a particular space in a way that allows global participation in potentially even local happenings and initiatives. So, for example, you know, it's conceivable that you could have people around the world participating, you know, in the sort of interests and ongoings of a particular city somewhere in the world. Right? Because of how they've set up their interaction with remote people. They could even be remote citizens is conceivable. It can be like whole new alignments. So I do think that this is really going to create new paradigms and in all different ways, you know, all different sectors, all different ways, all different people. And I look at this optimistically and positively, right, because there's a lot of, you know, seemingly unsolvable problems in the world that may have actually a new pathway. You know, education is such an, is an interesting one. You know, there's two things about education, one is if good teachers exist in the world and so do good methods, and you know, if kids are engaged by the right person and in the right way, then they thrive. So one would think, and this. And you know, an education is actually not just for children, it's actually should be lifelong. So if you just thought about the growth of people of all ages being possible by allowing them remote access to anything, to any knowledge, to any insight, to any opportunity, through manifestations of the quote, unquote Metaverse, you can see how you could have potentially some breakthroughs. You can see all sorts of things being possible. You could see, as I mentioned in my first answer to your metaverse question, amplified, almost extrasensory perception will be possible for people. Access to all information at any given time. Insights could be provided at any given time and applied in all senses. Now what might that do to a person? The right person could be enlightened, be inspired to have a thought that was not had before, solve a problem, create an invention. I try to look at it like that.

You know, that's a great example. And I use in the book, what I've written so far, I use an example of an artist from Spain. She had put sensors in her legs that were connected to all the earth seismographs that she could feel all the tremors of the earth in her legs.

Incredible. On a real time basis, that's exactly yes. Right? You've taken a person and you've made them. It's transhumanism. It's really is, it's just, it's remarkable. So, yeah, so you know what I'm talking about. I mean, that is exactly what I'm talking about. We're entering this age, right, as we fuse ourselves, right, with, you know, extra sensory perception and exposing ourselves to things unimaginable before. Some of those things will be made by humans and some of those things will not. Some of those things will be sort of creations and simulations sort of arrived at in other ways. And exposing ourselves to them will lead to lots of amazing things.

Thanks so much. Have a great evening, John. Bye bye.

You too. Cheers.

Cheers. Bye.

And that wraps up the conversation with John Guetta. If there's one thing that stands out for me from the conversation, it is how fast the technology is evolving and that it might be a lot sooner for the hyper realistic metaverse to arrive than we expected. With that, we have reached the end of the Step into the Metaverse podcast. I hope you enjoyed these conversations as much as I did. And if you want to learn more about the Metaverse I can really recommend my book. In my book I will cover how to create an open metaverse, the role of identity in the Metaverse, and why we can expect a Cambrian explosion of identity how the immersive incident will change industries such as entertainment, sports, retail, travel, education, and many more. Apart from these topics, I also cover how brands can build loyalty in the Metaverse, why the enterprise metaverse is built on top of digital twins, how governments should embrace the immersive Internet, and why NFTs are the fuel of the immersive Internet. My book is available in English as an e book, hard copy and Audibook, and in the coming months it will become available in Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese and Portuguese and hopefully several other languages. In case you are interested in talking more about these topics, or if you would like to hire me as a keynote speaker to inspire your audience about the Metaverse, feel free to reach out to me via thedigitalspeaker.com or you can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn. It was an absolute pleasure to share some of the best interviews that I conducted for my book with you and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And if you enjoyed this podcast as well, a review on your favorite podcast platform would be much appreciated and as well a review on Amazon or any of the other online bookstores. If you have read my book, thank you and see you in the Metaverse.