the 1992 science fiction book where people lived
digitally in the virtual world. Three decades later
we're seeing science fiction become science reality.
Last month, Microsoft announced it was acquiring the
gaming company Activision Blizz In a $69 billion
dollar deal. The tech giant said the deal would provide
building blocks for the metaverse. To explain this
metaverse, tech firms are building and why we should
believe the hype. We turned to newsy's Tyler Atkinso
20 years ago, accurately forecasting how the Internet
might develop would've been near impossible. So it's
tough to predict what the metaverse might look like in
a decade or more. But Hollywood has created virtu
worlds to give us a sense of the possibilities. In
Matrix. Our hero Neo discovers he lives in a world that
exists entirely inside a comput I know kung fu and
ready player, one depicts a dystopian future in which
hundreds of millions find daily refuge in a virtual
world, but here's what we know about the evolving
metaverse. For one thing, it will be incredibly
immersive if you've ever used a headset to experience
virtual reality or VR you know how intense and dream
like it can be. Popular titles include this one, Astro
bot rescue Mission or Arizona Sunshine. Artists like
Laurie Anderson are breaking artistic boundaries us
VR for all its fanciful possibilities, aspects
metaverse will intersect with real tangible things and
places combining virtual object with the real world is
called augmented reality for example, IkeA zap allows
you to place virtual furniture in your home or Pokemon
Go, which boasts 75 million daily users Microsoft's
mesh project. Imagines how VR headsets could allow
users to manipulate virtual objects in real places,
manipulate three D images or data and collaborate with
coworkers. Finally, the metaver will allow users to
connect with real people far away and when you're in a
meeting in the metaverse, it'll feel like you're right
in the room together making eye contact, having a
shared sense of space and not just looking at a grid of
faces on a screen. When I send my parents a video of my
kids, they're going to feel like they're right in the
moment with us not peering through a little window
Spiritual communities have alre begun to meet in
virtual reality. This one is called VR church. So we're
going to be exploring the book of Matthew Today's
multiplayer online video games are a stepping stone to
the metaphors fortnite, which boasts 350 million
players, has become an importan place for kids to hang
out, especially when isolated during the pandemic. And
how do we know that users care deeply about social
status and virtual worlds. They spend real world money
on virtual clothing, animations for their avatars, a
digital representation of themselves and spending for
access to special games tools or weapons. Take the
online game roadblocks played by more than 40 million
people every day. Mostly kids under 16 years old.
Through the first three quarter of last year, the game
produced revenue of $1.3 billion. Adults want to own
impressive virtual goods. To the central land is an
online environment with about 300,000 users in november.
A plot of land in the virtual world, Sold for $2.
million dollars in Cryptocurren So your home in the
real world may not be fancy, but in the metaverse, no
even the sky is the limit. I'm Tyler Atkinson. Our
first guest tonight is Attorney Ian Corzine. He's a
social media lawyer who says the metaverse is his
passion and in the metaverse community is key. Tha
for thank you for coming on the show. Ian I'm happy to
be here. Thanks very much for having me. So for those
of us who are old enough to remember the world be
the internet, it kind of felt like the web came on
slowly and then suddenly it just became a central part
of our lives now that we have the metaverse emerging,
would you say We're at that early stage or were like
five years into the metaverse already, you know, in my
opinion, at least mainstream, we're at the early stage
now there's a lot of people who are early adopters w
have been using metaverse and using Web three type
terms for a long time. But for a lot of us are exposure
to crypto and Blockchain and those kinds of things
happen Basically in March of 2020 when we were at home
due to the pandemic. And so since then there's been
this emergence of interest in this new type of Internet.
So when people ask you what is the metaverse, how do
you explain that Well, most of the time it blows my
mind because I spent a lot of my time reading about the
metaverse and Web three and then also researching the
legalities because right now there just aren't a whole
lot of laws that apply to the metaverse. But really
what I want to kind of communicate is the metaverse
a new immersive web experience. You know, we starte
out with web one point oh, where we just saw these
static web pages. Web two point oh, was where we could
actually interact and do search now, we're moving into
Web three, which is immersive. What that means is that
everything that we can imagine we can experience in
this real life, We can experience in the metaverse via
technology like a are like virtual reality, uh even
like some of our monitors and our our cellphones can
allow us to experience this new immersive environment.
So video games like Fortnite and Minecraft, let pla
spend real money socialize online and change their
outfits. What are we learning about how these early
metaverse spaces work What we'r learning is that a lot
of our younger generation is digitally native. I have a
stepson, he doesn't care about what type of shorts he
wears, but what he does care about is that if he got
this new cool skin that he can use in one of his
favorite video games and we're gonna see more and more
about you're seeing a lot of the big brands like Nike
like Gucci introduce these digital products that we can
adorn in the metaverse to kind of show our status and
we're gonna see that increasingly we're going to see
that more often now that a lot of people are embracing
virtual reality and having avatars that have fancy
Adidas shoes or the Gucci purse. Okay, let me ask you
this then why why do we need that Like help me
understand that kind of separation from our lives every
day to this virtual world, Are we gonna be living
almost two separate lives here I really think we are,
you know, we're gonna have to be balanced of course we
have to appreciate the wonderful reality that we have.
But there are so many more possibilities that ta
place in the metaverse in web 3 of them is a lot of us
are gonna be working exclusively in the metaverse. I
other words, if let's say you own some virtual land and
you wanted to construct a big castle that people could
visit and experience, you know, events and things like
that, I might be hired to come and work in that virtual
land and create that castle. An I do it by virtue of
my virtual reality goggles. So we're gonna see a lot of
shifting toward work and play in this metaphor works.
Well, I think I'm glad you mentioned that work. I thin
that is a more practical application that migh
resonate with people who are still a little confused
about this. So even if you've never worn a virtual
reality headset or played one of those games, chances
are that most people have shopped online, right, or
used a social network or maybe did an online workout
class. How are these experiences similar or differen
to the metaverse Well, I think uh they're very similar,
it's just that it's going to be a situation where we're
not gonna need to leave our offices or our homes, we're
gonna be able to visit these places and look at these
products, turn them around, tak them apart all in this
other world, under this other experience. Eventual
when the technology gets better we're gonna be able to
combine the world the real world with the metaverse
with our, you know, our alternative reality augment
reality type goggles and things like that. And then
we'll be able to even, you know, enjoy products in the
real world that exists in both worlds, both metaverse
and the real world. So I think that the it won't differ
too much other than the fact that you will be able to
do a lot of crazy and exciting things with these
products that you can buy, you can buy a pair of shoes
and change the color every day if you want. As opposed
to if you're in the real world just bought a pair of
shoes and it stays static. So how do we establish rules
in the metaverse Yeah, that's a really big question.
And it's gonna be a question that's going to be with us
for the next 20 years or so. You know, right now, most
of my clients, the people I consult with our creators
and I'm giving them advice on copyright, trademark,
defamation, those and breach of contract, Those type of
laws that are out there, but I gotta tell you that they
really don't fit very well with the metaverse. And so
we're really gonna need to encourage what I'm doing is
trying to encourage legislators to really give
consideration to laws in the metaverse one, you know,
the incident for a couple of incidents we've seen in
the past couple of months is groping in the metaverse
where you know, you're in virtual reality, you're on
that app VR chat and you're walking around and someo
gets close to you and gets in your personal space and I
have to tell you having done it myself, in other words,
been in that experience and seeing people come up close,
it does feel really weird. We're gonna have to have
some new laws that relate to these experiences that you
might experience in both the real world and also the
virtual world. Okay, let me expand on that point a
little bit. Let's say you're somewhere and somebody
bumps into you in that virtual world, you're not reall
feeling that right, but you're experiencing what that
feels like. So there's it's more of like a mental
component to that. So then the effect we feel are very
similar. So naturally you would want to report being
groped or have some sort of somebody some sort of
authority to that. Right Yes, exactly. I mean you could
make a report but also a lot of the platforms includin
metal which just came out with Horizon worlds recentl
have these safety switches wher you can push it on
your virtual arm and it will completely enclose you
protect you from any communications from any touchin
push anybody away. That that you know could be
threatening you. But I have to tell you that it is a
legit concern. Like I said before I I was one time
playing a virtual reality game and one of the parts of
the game is that these soldiers come close to you and I
have to tell you that I got goose bumps. It feels
different at the same time. It feels the same as in the
real world. So that's one of the big areas that I think
we need to legislate on in the near future. So you've
emphasized the possibilities of the metaverse but also
said there will be negative effects. What do you mean
by that Well I think some of the negative effects of
the metaverse is when people abuse it and they're
unbalanced in this world. You know, it's really easy to
fall victim to spending all your time in the metaverse.
I encourage everyone out there who's watching if you
see a child or where your friends or whatever that h
these VR goggles, just try them and see how immersive
they are, my wife who doesn't care anything about thi
stuff recently, put on the Oculus to quest goggles and
just in the setup screen she was blown away. So a lot
of people are gonna be tempted to not worry about
personal hygiene or maybe exercise exercise and diet
because they're so focused in this world, there are a
couple of people or many people right now who use these
virtual reality goggles to go to work and they show up
in the morning at eight a.m. And they're on the goggles
until five PM when they leave. So it's gonna get really
easy to get lazy and spend your time in the ritual
world. Well, I think, you know, the work application of
that kind of does make sense and I think that's
something easier for people to understand nowadays,
especially during the pandemic. a lot of us have
been on zoom, but is that healthy I mean aren't ther
going to be some serious ramifications if we alr
know the negative effects, for example of social media.
And now you're saying you can go to a dance club from
your house or you know, go somewhere and there's
hygiene issues or everything else that you just
mentioned. What are we really in for in terms of the
mental health aspect of that Well, I think like
anything in the world, we're go have to go in at a
measured pace, we're gonna have to make sure that we
teach people. And even though this wonderful technolog
will allow you to go to Egypt in a, in a snap of your
fingers, you're also gonna have to appreciate your time
in the real world and you're gonna, if you're a paren
you're gonna have to be diligent with your Children. Do
not spend all day long on the Oculus goggles. Um So
that's something we're gonna have to confront. And
that's what one of the things I see a lot of my Youtube
channel our comments as well. So you know what, you're
just gonna, you know, it's ready player one all over
again, that famous movie. And I have to tell you that
there is the threat of that. So we have to go at a pace
where we teach our Children, we teach adults how they
can live a balanced life. Okay, one more question
before I let you go. You just mentioned going to Egy
in this virtual. Are you really going to Egypt I mean
that's not the same thing, right You're not they're
feeling things and smelling things, but yet you still
reference it as well. You're going to Egypt. I think
somebody on that and looks at it and does not really
though. Yeah, Well I think at this stage in our
technology it's as close as you can possibly get and
you've got to think about these wonderful applicati
What about kids or adults who don't have the financial
resources to be able to go to places in the world and
granted. Yes, you're right going to the Egyptian period
pyramids, I'm sure is a wonderful experience in perso
But if you don't have the means, what a great way to
learn about it. I mean in the virtual world, you'll be
able to walk around the Germans walk inside of them,
maybe gain access to areas that are digitized, that you
couldn't in the real world. So for a learning
experience, I think it's immeasurable, wow, that is
fascinating. Ian Corzine thank you so much for coming
on the why, What an interesting conversation. I
appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Still ahead on