Case File #78: Metaverse Me, Baby

Not a matter of if, but when. Crisis will rock your world. I'm Roshini Rajkumar, crisis strategist, licensed attorney and host of the Crisis Files. My crisis squad and I seek solutions. We also turn to insiders for advice on current and future issues. Today that Insider is Matt DeVoe, a technologist and hacker. Matt is CEO of OODA.com he speaks all over the world, helping and the US Department of Defense understand the future of technology and privacy. He's here to dive into the case file I call Metaverse me, baby. All right, first of all, Matt, we need to start with definitions for those who don't know. How would you define the metaverse?

I think the best way to think of the metaverse is kind of an alternative reality in which people will choose to or be forced to spend their time that involves some sort of overlay. You know, we most mostly associate it with wearing, you know, like Oculus Rift goggles or with the upcoming Apple product where you immerse yourself into this alternative universe in which you're presented with, you know, avatars of other people. You're presented with landscapes. You know, it's kind of limitless. And you can do that from within a tiny room in your house if you want to. And it would open up kind of this broad virtual world for exploration, collaboration, education, you know, all sorts of use.

And are there some misconceptions about what the Metaverse is?

Yeah, I think there's just a lot of confusion because the market hasn't fully emerged yet. I mean, we've had VR virtual reality technologies now for a long time. In fact, I wrote about VR in 1992 when I was a college student. Some of these technologies have been here for 30 years, and we have a bunch of different platforms right now with regards to, you know, what is available. Is it something that you go into to plague games? Is it something that you go into to hold the meeting? There's no kind of cross connection between the platforms, so it feels very siloed. So I think people get confused with regards to, you know, how it's supposed to be used and who the dominant players are. And is it going to be kind of multi device, multi platform, or am I going to have to have different VR sets? You know, if I want to interact with people in the Apple system, I got to go in there. If I want to interact with people on Facebook, I have to go into the Facebook system. There's still just a lot of stove piping.

And what are some of the privacy concerns that you find or that people should be worrying about?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the key, you know, privacy concern is that you're immersing yourself in this world and they're collecting a ton of data. In order for these systems to be effective, they need to track where your eye is moving. Sometimes they are tracking biometric data. So they might be regulating, you know, tracking how your body is moving, how your heartbeat is regulating, how your breathing is regulating, all things that can reveal, you know, very useful information to advertisers or others around how you feel around a particular product. Let's say, for example, I'm walking the streets of the Metaverse and a red Toyota sports car drives by, and now all of a sudden, my heartbeat gets elevated a little bit, or I, you know, take a deeper breath and my eyes get stuck there for longer than usual. I've given that information, you know, to the platform. They know I haven't articulated it. I haven't clicked on a link, you know, haven't opened an email. Based on my biometric behavior, they know that I have an interest in that particular car that drove by.

That is really amazing. Now, I know you do some work for the Department of Defense for the United States, and I can only imagine some of the espionage concerns then that come into play when it's so easy to track these bioindicators and other behavioral metrics.

Yeah, there's a couple elements to that. One is, you know, imagine being hooked up to lie detector as you're operating. These is kind of what you're doing, right, by way of the biometric data that you're giving. The other piece of it is that this is going to become, you know, a ground for recruitment, for espionage to take place. I mean, we always see where these activities move to where the. The markets are, to where the people are. Why is cyber espionage, you know, outside the metaverse so popular? It's because that is where we're living our lives. We have created these platforms, social media, et cetera, where, you know, they're just a huge data source for someone, and we interact and DM each other. So if you think in the metaverse, as that becomes more popular, espionage will move there as well. Interestingly, I wrote a paper on this topic, you know, virtual worlds and tradecraft based on a, you know, wasn't an immersive metaverse, but it was a game called Second Life, in which people were going into the game and they were basically just living their lives, interacting with each other, listening to music, playing games, building and creating things. And we saw back then that There would be an opportunity for spies to interact with people and engage in espionage and other kind of recruitment activities.

What you're describing just kind of blows my mind. I'm not very technologically savvy, but to just imagine you're going into this other world and you're meeting new people, strange people, sometimes evil people in those spaces, I mean, it really does blow my mind. Now, for a regular person who isn't as well versed as you are in all of these things, what are some signs that we should be looking for and what are in the day to day? I mean, should I be concerned in the day to day if I'm not an active kind of user of some of the technology you've described?

Yeah, I don't think that we have to be overly concerned yet, but I think we need to go into this kind of eyes wide open with regards to what sort of privacy protections that we want to put in place as we interact with these metaverse systems. What is the equivalent of a privacy policy is there? You know, we all hate the GDPR cookie pop ups, but that does acknowledge for us that we are providing some sort of personal data to that website as we're visiting it. So I think really we're going to have to be thinking through and holding the platforms accountable that we understand what data is collected, how it's going to be stored, whether other entities will have access to that data, and whether we will have the right to delete it over time. So all of these core issues that we're faced with as it relates to privacy, of operating on the Internet become things that we need to be thinking about as we interact with these new technologies as well.

You talk a lot about disruption. What do you want the crisis files listeners to understand when it comes to the exponential nature of disruption?

Yeah, exponentials are hard for us to comprehend. So I think that's the one message that I try and get across is that if you think in the concept of exponentials, which means that the capability is doubling every year. And there's a story I like to tell that is an analogy around the invention of chess where the game of chess is brought to a king by a peasant and the king is so enamored with the game that he offers him any reward that he would like. And the peasant says, why would just like one grain of rice on the first box on the, on the, the chess board and two on the second and four on the third and eight and doubling every time. And the king looks at it and says, oh geez, What a cheap price. Because he can't contemplate that by the time you get to the final square, you've provided more rice, grains of rice than the human population was going to create for, like, 70 years. Right. So these exponentials are tough for us to grasp. And what we need to realize is when we think about the metaverse, when we think about artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we're kind of already on the back half of the chessboard. So it's not like we're going from one to two. We're going up in very, very tremendous rates, which means that you're going to be constantly surprised by technology capabilities, and that can be disruptive, and it can be disorienting. And people really need to develop a strategy for how they're going to identify those trends of disruption and. And how they're going to manage them in their business, their personal lives, and from a government perspective as well.

Yeah, I mean, so many things. And speaking of exponential, the amount of information we have is also growing at exponential rates.

It is growing at exponential rates. Humans are producing, you know, exponential amounts of information, if you just look across social media, et cetera. But an interesting trend that people should be thinking about is that the amount of synthetic information, information that's being created, is also exponential and is set to quickly outpace what humans create. So we soon are going to be operating in an environment where a majority of the information that we're faced with is generated by technologies like artificial intelligence. What does that mean for your business strategy or how you absorb information? You know, over the next year, we're going to see a lot of skill sets that are somewhat displaced. We're going to see technologies that are surprising to us, where maybe I can take an image of you that is a little photograph, and using AI, I can animate it and make a movie and have you do a TikTok dance or do, you know, do something. These technologies are there right now in the experimental phase, and because of this exponential disruption, they're going to get adopted in the very near term. I like to tell folks that as you think about exponential technology disruption, what we're going to see in the next five years is going to be more disruptive than what we've seen in the past 50 years combined. So trying to sort out how that's gonna impact you and what your strategy should be for dealing with that becomes critical.

So on the crisis files, we obviously want people to be prepared for devastation and disaster and crises, but we also like to find hope and look on the bright side of things, in your world, you have so much information at your fingertips. What are you seeing that brings you hope and that we can really get excited about for the future of humanity?

Yeah, we really need to look at these technologies as being drivers of a better society and a better world. I mean, we're going to have these incredible capabilities at our fingertips. We're going to have machines that basically automate jobs that we don't want to do. We're going to be able to solve some of the workforce problems. Right. So there's huge, huge hope. And when I present in public, you know, talk about folks that, that, that articulate that we're on this kind of downward cycle, whether it's Neil Howe with the Fourth Turning or Ray Dalio with his economic cycles, and if those kind of trend lines are true, where we can head into down cycles, I feel like these exponential technologies are what are going to take us out of them or are going to prevent the down cycle from being severe. So there is going to be just huge advantages to being able to utilize these technologies in meaningful ways over the next five to ten years.

Matt, for people who are worried about is there going to be a place for me? Am I going to lose my job? Do I need to get new training? What do you have to say to them?

I think they should be thinking about how they can do their job augmented by the capabilities that technology provides. So if you're worried about AI replacing your job, you should understand how you could do your job with the support of an AI system or developing the skill sets to interact and derive meaning. These AI systems also need develop models for how they do this work. So you need to figure out like, you know, what would the model look like for the work that I do. So I think the folks that lean into these technologies and really look to understand how they can impact what they're doing, how they can use them to augment, you know, skills that maybe might be a little bit more laborious or things that they don't enjoy doing or help them keep track of information. I have a LLM that is trained on me and I use it as a resource for myself. It remembers stuff that I read, it remembers things that I've cited in papers. It can interact with my students and co workers. In fact, I was on vacation in Vermont and my LLM wrote a blog post for a company. So understanding how we can use these technologies, and that applies also to students, you know, making sure that they understand how they might use something like a chat GPT in performing their research or in performing their homework. Not that we want it to write it for them, but these are useful tools and we should be training them to adapt to kind coexisting and using them to augment the skill set that they have.

Well, we'll have to have you back for a whole case file on that topic alone, because if someone can write my blog post, I'd be very happy about that. So I could go on vacation and other things. Matt, that's great. Well, thank you so much Matt DeVoe, for both scaring us and arming us. You can find Matt DeVoe on X and LinkedIn. That's Matt D E V O S T Today's Crisis brief is brought to you by Mall of America. Number one, New technologies will continue to multiply. Don't let that scare you. Arm yourself with information. Number two, strategize how your organization can disrupt with new technology so you can plan for how you might be disrupted. Number three, refine your decision making process to be able to react quickly. Consider how your skill set could be enhanced rather than threatened by artificial intelligence. An international destination for more than 30 years, the mall of America continues to draw millions of guests from around the world. But the mall is so much more than shopping events. Activations and attractions continue to delight guests of all ages. They're also a strong supporter of the community and nonprofit organizations. Go to mallofamerica.com to find out more. Subscribe to rate and review the crisis files on your platform of choice. Catch up on all case files@thecrisisfiles.com follow us on YouTube and Instagram. Hecrisis Files. I'm Rashini Rajkumar. Catch us next time on the Crisis.