Digital Identities Through Avatars with Cai Felip -Step into the Metaverse podcast: EP14

Good day everyone and welcome to the Step into the Metaverse podcast. My name is Marc Van Rimenam 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 interview, I interviewed Kai Philippe. Kai is the founder and CEO of Union Avatars, a company blurring the lines between the virtual world and reality. Union leads the Production of realistic 3D avatars for virtual worlds. Their mission is to help shape the future of virtual identity in the Metaverse. They provide avatar solutions so you can have a realistic representation of yourself in video games, social media, virtual reality worlds, or gamification. During the interview, we of course talked about avatars, digital identities and online reputation, as well as the threat of imposter avatars and how brands should approach Gen Z and Gen Alpha, also known as the Metaverse. Natives, enjoy the conversation.

Maybe we can share a bit about what you do and what linking realities is.

Okay. I mean our project is we aim to offer tools for companies and users to manage their digital identity for the Metaverse. And we do it through photorealistic avatars adapted to the user image.

Yeah, and so you, you create these automatically, these images or you, you do the manual work?

No, no, no, no. It's totally automatic. Like we process it as a gun is artificial intelligence. And then we get some landmarks from the face, we create a texture and then we apply in a morph, like in a morph white avatar where we put then all the forms and the different characteristics or features from the user.

Oh, wow. So that it is not like a metahuman. That's like a lot of work and very difficult.

But it's no, this is automatically. Yeah. The only thing is like we are focusing offering also like low polycom avatars. So avatars that can be. Is photorealistic and it's quite, quite high quality. But it still can be used in a multiplayer platform because otherwise if we have like a full volumetric studio, the avatars that we can generate, they are too heavy to put them in any platform. So we started doing some avatars also with volumetric capture, but then we changed to the mobile phone because at the end that's the device that everybody have.

Yeah, that makes sense to focus on that. So what is the Metaverse according to you?

For me, the Metaverse is going to be like an immersive space where all these actions take place, like everything we do for work, education and the day by day life. But for me, it's exponential growth on the actual Internet. I mean, I know the original definition for Metaverse is coming from Snow Crash and related to one specific platform that is multiplayer, but I don't think there will be the Metaverse. I think it will be more like a multiverse of different metaverses or different platforms that you can use. Just like the Internet now, so different websites. So you will have different platforms depending on the activity that you want to do. What I think the most similar thing to Metaverse that we have now is probably the Internet itself. So for me, when I see all these people like talking about the Metaverse, Metaverse for me is just like a rebranding on some immersive platforms that now they call themselves Metaverse. But I think Metaverse goes a little bit deeper than that. It doesn't. It's not a mosque that is in 3D for me, just this interoperability between all the spaces. It can be 3D, 2D, even your cloud storage. So all this for me is making part of the Metaverse. So I see like a metaverse that is coming that is much more immersive. But I think the most close definition that we have to Metaverse right now is what the Internet is. So that's also a reason why we are working on the avatars. Because for me it's like there is one platform for each thing. But just like now, you cannot expect people to download one browser for each website that they want to enter. You cannot expect people to download one platform for each activity that they want to do. So we're still missing that browser of the Metaverse. And for me this is going to be the identity, because then depending on the metaverse you want to join, you can use one identity or another identity. So really that's, for me, the interoperability is what is going to create the metaverse itself.

Yeah, and so you mentioned identity. Obviously you're involved in that. How important is identity and reputation for the metaverse and how are we going to organize this in the Metaverse?

For me it's really important. It's not only the metaverse, but it just Identity is important. But I think with this upcoming metaverse, we're going to see some differentiations from what we are used to in the fact that, I mean, I come from a technological background, so back in the days when I was really young in this technological sphere or scene, it was not that super needed that you had a real name. Like even the nicknames had. I don't know, you could trust some nicknames without knowing the real name. That with Facebook everything changed and we started to use the real name. For me, there is still a magic on being anonymous, but having a personality or a character, not just like whatever. Satoshi Nakamoto is an unexistent person, but it's a strong enough his identity. So for me, identity is something really important. But it doesn't have to go tie it to your real identity. It can depending on what you want to show what you want to do. But for me it's not a must. So for me, as I was saying before, no identity like what we are creating at the end is like a wallet of identities. And then depending on the platform that you want to join, you use one identity or the other other one. So for me that's something that we are going to approach same way, depending on the website you enter, probably you use a different username, that would be something similar. So for me, identity is really powerful on that space. And then depending on what you want to do, you will look for more like somebody who can certify that your identity is real. But at some point you might be interesting also in having like anonymous identity, but that it have a value too because it have enough trust and knowledge to be an identity as itself.

Yeah, but how do we use reputation? And if you have this anonymity, that's.

Of course no, because for me the anonymity is just that you would give reputation to a nickname instead of a real name. But it doesn't mean that this nickname doesn't have reputation is anonymous, the person who is behind his identity. But the identity is not anonymous by itself. So like again, coming from a technological world, there is several people who we will. Or at least the real name is not that important. No, Kim Dotcom, he's not really Dotcom, but it's part of his name or nickname. So his identity is built on this name. So we don't really care who is behind it. But Kim.com itself is an identity. So for me it's more about that like you can have even a name that is not real. But that doesn't mean that it's not certified or doesn't have a reputation behind it.

Oh, it's like a brand, I would say exactly. Like my brand is the digital speaker. So that would be, I guess, the similar idea.

Exactly. And then for me it's important like to see all the point of views, like in one side we can be interested in validating our real identity or validating who is behind this avatar and then we can find a way of verification or certification. But then it might be some situations, I don't know, for example, a journalist that is in a country in conflicts and work conflicts or whatever, where they want to have a voice but they don't want to publish the real name. So they still can put like a nickname or a fake name and get a reputation on it without having to say their real name.

Yeah, it's interesting because my previous startup, we had solved this problem of what we call anonymous accountability from a technical perspective. But yeah, we didn't manage to get the company off the ground unfortunately for a whole variety of reasons. But this anonymous accountability is absolutely key in here.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So and you say, you mentioned, you know, avatars are like usernames or like social profiles in the metaverse. What are some of the key characteristics that an avatar needs to comply to?

For me again, it depends on where you want to project your identity or your avatar. So I mean for me again, like everything comes to the freedom of decision of the user. That's something a little bit off topic maybe to the metaverse, but we are working a lot with self sovereign identity, some decentralized identity. So I'm really a true believer in recovering the control of the data and giving it back to the user and not to the platforms. So instead of we going around the platforms, having the platforms going around us. So again, when it comes to identity, I think, or specifically to the avatars or the visual presentation of the avatars, I think there is a space for everything. Not like definitely. Well, definitely not. But probably you don't want to join a video game full of vampires and zombies with a photorealistic avatar because it's not the space. But same way you would not go to close a deal like an investment deal, dress it as a vampire. So, so probably you want to dress like yourself and to look like yourself. No. So for me there is a space for everything. Like our clients is mainly people who is working in corporate events, just like conferences and meetings and these kind of things where they are like even the platforms that we were talking they lost some clients because they don't want to use cartoonized avatars. You know, it's like, okay, you cannot ask a super doctor that is going to talk about how to prevent cancer and these kind of things and then ask him to go with a cartoonized avatar like my son would use in Fortnite, you know. So for me there is a space for everything. Also I'm going back to our product in specific, but now we are focusing in photorealistic avatars. But one option that we want to offer is the option of selecting which look and feel you want. So either you can choose a photorealistic avatar, but also a cartoon is an avatar or a more like Vortex or like Pixelate, more like Minecraft. So that's something that we want to offer because I think that's again, I'm coming back all the time to the same thing. Like for me the key of everything is the interoperability. You know, like this is what really the networking is built, you know, not on separate platforms. So in the ability of the user to choose who they want to be in each of these platforms is one of the keys for this upcoming metrics.

Yeah, so and how important in that case is digital fashion for your avatar and will you also offer that?

Yeah, I think it's super important. Like we're going into this direct to avatar economy where definitely we will see a lot of change upcoming. But again, I know I'm repeating a lot myself but again like for me there is a great challenge here. No, like okay, I go to the central and buy a pair of whatever jeans, but then I only can use it in the central and you know, again the real key for me will be when then I buy something in Decentraland I can go to Fortnite and use it and then I can go to Sandbox and use it. So again this interoperability is going to be the game changer for me and.

You want to be the enabler for that. And how are you different from Ready Player me? Is it just the type of avatar that you offer?

Yeah, I mean I think the first one clearly is the type of the avatar that we offer. They are much more focused than us to gaming also because what we were saying, like some corporate companies, they are looking for more photorealistic avatars. But then I think one of the main difference is this, that we want to offer like a second layer of identity and identification that they are not really working on, that they want just to provide the visual part of the avatar while we have the visual Part, but also a deeper part that goes a little bit into the data identification. That for me, that's really the most interesting part.

So with avatars, of course in the real world we have deep fakes. With avatar that becomes also super easy. How can we prevent that? How can we prevent deep fakes in the Metaverse where I can pretend like I'm you?

I mean, that's something that we were facing from the beginning of the company even because we had some people who was trying to do avatars for people that is not themselves. So really the thing like anyway we have contracts so the user is signing that is himself. So it would be a problem for him. But for me, what is interesting is that also again, no, like we can offer some type of verification where you, you would see one avatar verificated and one avatar that is not verificated. So the one that is not verificated, you don't know who can be behind this avatar. But then you have certain avatars that are verificated. That means that somebody check it, that the avatar is based on a real person. So at least you have, because that's the next challenge. Now we were talking with some users that were saying, oh yeah, okay, yeah, I go in VR chat and I meet a girl, but I don't know if this girl is really a girl. And so I cannot base my decision on the avatar because I don't know who is behind it. So we were saying, okay, but that's interesting because then we can as I say, offer like a way of photorealistic verification at the same time.

Yeah, that is of course crucial in Metaverse. Just like you have verified text with Twitter.

Exactly, exactly. Just like Twitter, it's verification.

So, and you already mentioned direct to avatar. How is this going to change the retail industry, do you think?

I think this is just blowing now. So we really need to see how this will evolve. But I think definitely this is going to be like a big game changer. I think it's really interesting to see how the brands combine or put together the real world with the virtual world. So for me that's one of the most interesting parts about this. Wearables, fashion, everything related to Metaverses. But anyway, I think it just like we were having a discussion the other day with a big brand and it's interesting because they don't see it just like a marketing campaign, but they really see as a new channel for selling and they're really a new, big market that is being created on this. So again, I Think we still need to see a lot of exits and fails on the path. And there is still a little bit of compulsion in everybody wanting to build their own Metaverse from scratch. And for me, that's a little bit complicated. It's like, I don't know, it's like if you want to build a platform and then you have to create unity, you know, like, it's like what you want to do. Because maybe it's better to just rent a space in a. In a virtual world and building one from scratch. And right now there's like this war of brands. Not the major, because they will do it anyway, but the small brands. I feel that too much people is trying to build one new Metaverse while they could use spaces that they're already. But I think it's a really interesting approach and definitely this is going to give us some more directions on how we should go.

So how do you think that brands should step into the metaverse? How should they approach the metaverse?

I mean, when it comes to metaverses and brands and actions in Metaverse, for me, I think the most relevant is Fortnite when it comes to all these actions, because they found how to really integrate in a virtual space something without making it out of context, just like whatever. In Second Life, some years ago, when brands started to join Second Life, it was super strange because it was. There were already cars that were flying and then suddenly I think it was Volkswagen or Volvo. Put one regular car. So nobody was using it. Because why you want a car that goes on the floor, like on the street, when you can fly already? No. So some brand actions in Metaverse, I feel they are too realistic sometimes. But then when it comes to Fortnite and you see the shows that they did, how they integrated their brands is totally different because they really build an experience around it. I come from the music business and that's something that we have been talking a lot like with the COVID and the restrictions, the music was not prepared. So music industry tried to run and start to do streaming and 3D streaming and this and that, but the users are just not ready. Like soccer or basketball. They did it good. People enjoy just as much a match going live than watching it from home. And you gather with your friends and you watch a match and everything. And with music, it has never been like this. So Nobody will pay €30, $30 to go into a show in virtual reality because they are just not used to it. And the market was never ready for it. So people didn't get used to It. So for me, it's complicated. But then Fortnite comes and offers a totally different experience where the people even, like, they don't have to pay, but they could even pay because it's really immersive experience, you know, and it's something prepared for the occasion. It's not just a live streaming that you watch from your headsets. You know, for me, there is still this gap. Like, even with Netflix is like, okay, you put your Oculus is 2kg that you have in your head, and then you watch Netflix and then you are with your friend and you cannot even. So it's not even multiplayer. No, it's like, come on, like, I have a tv. For me, it's much more easy to just turn it on and put Netflix and I don't have 2kg on my. On my head, you know? So for me, still, we need to go one, one step further and look for this practicity that all these metaverses is going to give us. You know, it's like, I don't know. I tested some platforms for shopping, and it's nice, but I will never say, oh, I'm in a rush. I have five minutes to go out, so I'm going to put my Oculus open the platform, walk 10 minutes in the platform to look for the shop, then shop. You know, like, I always prefer Amazon or do it online. So for me, there is still this trying to replicate all the real activities on virtual worlds. And that's not really bridging a gap. It's just replicating some experience. And it even can be the experience that people don't want to have, you know, because. Because people are buying online, so they don't have to wait 20 minutes in the queue. But then if you do a virtual queue, I mean, they will do it one day for the experience, but they will never save time.

Yeah, makes sense.

The next hot topic, I repeat a lot to myself is this portability and interoperability. That's the next really big challenge that we're going to have on all this. Okay, Metaverses are here. But as I say, you cannot expect everybody to download one software for each platform that they want to join. So I think we need to find this browser discord, or however we want to call it, for the metaverse, where we can have all our connections together in a central point. But a central point that is our point, and it's not from a third party.

So how would we get that? Do we need standards? Do we need protocols?

Yeah. What do we need to do?

To get there.

I think protocols and some standards are probably the best steps. There's already some initiatives like Open Metaverse from the Open Metaverse operative system that is moving people like Jamie Bourke from Outlier Ventures. I don't know if you know him.

But for me I've spoken to him.

For me it's one of the biggest references in the space and I'm really a true believer on this open metaverse. So yeah, probably it's coming from standards. I know that it's going to be hard for some brand, like big brands, to follow standards and they will try to establish their own ways of doing it or even setting some entry barriers. But at the same time I think we are going to this path. So yeah, definitely, I think some protocols and some standardizations are going to be needed. But there is already some protocols targeting the web3 so there is some discussion and some open references for this. But I think, yeah, definitely we need to find some standards. Especially like for me the challenge is also when these metaverses are built on blockchain, because there is really a difficulty on what we were saying. No, if you want to bring your identity from one metaverse to the other and somehow these two metaverses use two different blockchains, so we have to see how we can interact and move it from one to the other. So either with some standards or either finding some second layer solutions that then are built on top of blockchain. But yeah, I think that the standards is quite the direction to take.

That makes total sense to me. All right, well, thank you so much, Kai. I really appreciate your time and input.

And that wraps up the conversation with Kai Philippe. If there's one thing that stands out for me from the conversation, it is how important digital identities will be in the metaverse and why it is necessary to create a new system instead of having hundreds of usernames and logins. Identity. Identity in the metaverse is important, which is why in my new book, Step into the Metaverse, I dedicate an entire chapter on identity and how to create a self sovereign identity for the metaverse. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so you will be notified when any of the other interviews will become available. Thank you and see you in the metaverse.