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Welcome to the Future Review.
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Today we're joined by two guests.
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Firstly, Richard Bartle, who is a British writer, professor, and absolute legend in game research and design, specialising in online games in the massively multiplayer online games industry.
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He co-created Mud One, the first Mud, in 1978, and since then has authored the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds, which many people know covers the history, ethics, structure and technology of massively multiplayer games.
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He spends half his time as a games industry consultant and half his time as a professor of game design at the University of Essex, where by the way, he gained his PhD in artificial intelligence.
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One of the things he's especially well known for is his research on player personality types in virtual worlds, dividing them into four types achievers, explorers, socialisers, and killers.
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Which has grown into an online test that's generally referred to, not by him, but by everyone else, as the Bartle Test.
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David Birch is an internationally recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money, and he's been named as one of the global top 15 favourite sources of business information by Wired.
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And he's ranked one of the top 10 most influential voices in banking by financial brand.
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He's also the global ambassador for Consult Hyperion.
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That's the secure electronic transactions consultancy that he helped to found.
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Now, he's someone I always turn to when I have questions about the future of money, and his book, Identity as the New Money, was one of the books I sought out whilst I was writing my own.
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I recommend you follow his Substack, characteristically wittily entitled In the Future, Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Megabytes.
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Or you can read his columns in Forbes.
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Now we had a fascinating conversation with these two pioneers in their industries, always brilliant at pinpointing what the emerging trends are, but also what we should do about them.
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And we talked obviously with Richard about the founding of Mud and the kind of characters that one is or the persona one has in virtual games like that.
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That was very eye-opening, I think, and it led on to a conversation about the economics of the metaverse.
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And of course, the conversation ended up combining both these factors until we got to a conversation at the end, a chat about whether you could even tokenise the self.
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And we talked about that in relation to both, you know, you as a creator in some of these spaces and also just goods that have value.
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It really was a very interesting conversation, quite a long conversation with an awful lot of content in it.
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It's great to get these two guests together, and the fact that they know each other, of course, means that they have quite a chemistry.
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So I do hope you'll enjoy what is the first episode of the Future of You podcast and listen to Richard and David on identity and identities in a virtual digital world.
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So to jump right into it, Richard and Dave, can we talk a little bit about where we are with identity in this increasingly digitized world that we now live in, but also this emerging virtual world or virtual worlds.
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One of the things I wanted to talk to you both about, actually, was how we turn up in these environments.
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Are we characters?
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One of the things I was thinking about in my book was as we become more sort of bits of data and bits of characteristics in these sorts of worlds, are we actually becoming characters rather than persons?
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And as we take on different personas, are we really ourselves in some of these places or spaces?
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So maybe I could start with you, Richard, and particularly thinking about you know your time with Mud founding that.
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You know, are we digital players?
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Are we virtual personas?
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How do you think about our identity in these spaces?
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Well, it depends on the space, but for game worlds, when people start playing these game worlds, they uh they're looking not at as their character as uh even as a person, they're just looking at it as like you might look at a word processor document, it's just something that's there.
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But after a while, they start to um look on their character as their representative.
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So it's this is a different person, but they're representing me, they're my representative.
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But as they keep playing, they switch over time, so it's less than my representative, then it's then it's a representation of me.
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So it's an aspect of me that I'm projecting into the world.
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And as they become more and more immersed in the game world, ultimately their character becomes themselves.
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The player themselves is their character.
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So the way it works then is that games provide players with a a series of decisions that they'll have to make, many, many decisions.
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And as they're making the decisions, the players will be making some decisions that they, if it was really them truly in the real world, they would make, and but other ones be more experimental.
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And sometimes the experimental ones are the exact opposite of what you would do, uh, with the you're at one side and your character is another, and the real you is in the middle, and sometimes they're slightly ahead of them, so that the character is not quite like you, but is a bit like you, and you're just saying, What would I do if I just did a different thing?
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And after playing these massively multiplayer online role-playing games for two to four hours every night for two years, then players will be and become the their characters.
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So it's a way of exploring who you are.
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You get to be and become yourself through playing these games.
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I think even before the emergence of the of the massively multiplayer online role-playing games, this kind of emergent behaviour was already evident.
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And I can sort of flag up two reasons for thinking that.
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So one is Richard and I have a uh you know a shared heritage that we don't normally talk about in front of strangers, but obviously, Tracy, you've become something of a friend over the last few minutes, um, in that we both used to play Dungeons and Dragons, which you didn't used to be able to say in public uh due to the RPG critical community, but um but now we feel comfortable uh admitting.
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And one of the things that's very surprised, or at least was very surprising to me as a kid essentially, as a young person, which I saw in my own kids as well, is this idea of experimenting with who you are, which at first you think you're just playing a game, but as things go on, one of the things that's fun and exciting and interesting, and one of the reasons why I still play it now, all those years later, is that element of experimentation with different uh parts of character.
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So that's I think that's one source which you probably could have, if you if you looked at games, you probably could have seen that sort of coming.
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But the thing that's surprising to me is just how quickly these properties emerged.
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I I was looking up something from Richard's earliest days.
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And as far as I can tell, approximately 10 minutes after the mud was conceived, people were complaining that they were addicted to it and were losing themselves in this virtual world, and uh, you know, it was going to cause psychosis and uh and all this sort of thing.
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So it's interesting to me, Richard, just how quickly this this idea of the avatars, the experimental characters, emerged in in those spaces.
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Yeah, you're right with the Dungeons Dragons observation, yeah, that's that's correct.
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It's a form of role-playing, and in a role-playing you get to be someone you're not.
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And so it's like a laboratory where you can experiment under safe conditions with who you are.
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And if it doesn't work out, then well, you start up with a character, and if it doesn't work out, then it informs who you are as a person.
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So it's it's not role-playing like on a stage where the the character is fixed and it's the character can inform you uh about yourself because you're playing somebody who isn't you on the stage, but you can't change the character very much.
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Whereas in a role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons or one of the massive multiplayer games, then you can change the character.
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So it's not just you moving from one direction, you're moving from both directions, and that gives you uh an understanding of who you can be uh and who you really are without the constraints of what reality has set for you.
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But when you sat down to write that first virtual world, that wasn't the goal, was it?
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That this was an emergent property of that world, I think.
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It wasn't just me, it was me and Roy Trubshaw.
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Yeah.
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And I always always have to give Roy a tru uh a shout out.
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The original aim of it was to make a better world.
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We didn't like how reality worked.
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We didn't like the way that in reality you were judged by who you were in terms of other people's views.
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So I've got a Yorkshire accent, Yorkshire accents, yep, they're um trusted as being these people plain speaking, don't lie, but on the other hand, they're peasants.
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Yeah, and if you're in a if I go to America where they don't recognise the accent, they think that I'm smart, erudite, well-educated, but I'm a villain because all Hollywood villains are English.
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So you get judged on these things, you get judged on all sorts, what you look like, whether you're disabilities, sexuality, gender, uh age, weight, um everything.
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And you never get to be who you are if everybody else is pushing you into the boxes the way they want you to be.
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But if you go on to a virtual space where you can recreate another identity and wear that identity and then experiment and see if you like it, throw away the bits you don't, keep the bits you do, change yourself, change the character, then ultimately you and your character become the same.
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And that's why when I at the beginning, when you you asked the question, I said, Yeah, you start out with uh an objective view and eventually it goes to subjective until when you and your character are the same, you're immersed in the game world, and then that that is you at that point.
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This this reminds me very much of when I was reading up on the attaku in Asia, so the obsessive fans of anime and manga, and how they wanted to create these fictional worlds that their characters exist in and they sort of feel they they themselves exist in.
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It's not that they're naive, it's not that they think, oh, you know, they they don't realize this is a fictional world.
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They do, they prefer it to the real world, and they actually feel that it's a better world because it reflects their values and their standards and their norms, and they're not particularly happy with the ones in the real world.
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So these are the worlds that they inhabit.
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And of course, there's a lot of uh conversation about how sucked into these worlds they get, but it's I think it's really interesting, it's not a naivety, it's very it's a conscious thing.
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And I wonder if actually during the pandemic, and with the amount of stress and pressure and expectations that there are on teens, especially these these days, whether that's one of the attractions to these sorts of worlds.
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Well, for teens, they've always teens have always been experimenting with their identities, so these days just give them a place to do it where otherwise they might have um, I don't know, had to have got drunk or something to uh cast off the um the worries that their actions may have consequences.
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I think it's different.
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I mean, uh you probably regard me as a sort of reactionary Dungeons and Dragons snob.
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But when you're when you're playing Call of Duty, you're not imagining a new character, you're inhabiting a part that's been created for you.
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That's not quite the same as a few years.
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No, no, no.
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I'm sitting around talking about the the role-playing games, yeah, particularly the massively multiplayer ones.
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Um yeah, yeah.
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Um yeah, so because sort of if you're playing not just dungeon, if you're playing Monopoly, then no one really thinks that you are an old boot or a Scotty dog or a top hound.
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But am I right, Richard, when you were first um launching Mud, that the the roles one was playing, they weren't defined in terms of gender.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So do you want to talk a little bit about that?
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Because I think it's particularly interesting looking back on that now.
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Well, we had to use we had to have gender in there because it was a text-based game, so we had to use the English language, which is gendered.
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But we wanted people to be able to be who they were.
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We weren't going to impose you are playing the um the role of a mage, I'm gonna jump on the mage train and go to Mageville and get off at the other end and be a mage.
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You are what you do, you could do what you and behave.
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If you wanted to pretend to be Alice in Wonderland, you could pretend to be Alice in Wonderland.
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So we we asked the two questions when we started.
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The first one we actually needed, which is by what name shall I call you?
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The second one we'd rather we didn't have to use, and that was what sex do you wish to be?
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And that was because of the um the fact we had to use uh English pronouns.
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But neither Roy or I would have wanted that at all because it was partitioning people again.
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And even that though, it means it led to lots of cross-gender play because people will um if you're playing to be somebody else, well, what's the opposite of you?
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And there we go.
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But the game itself had a number of um ways that you could uh your character could change sex, gender, well, it would be it would be sex because it was actually binary, we only had two.
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And the the way we had the sometimes there were puzzles that you had to be the a particular sex to be, so like the um you had to be female to kiss the prince, and you had to be male to um kiss the sleeping beauty, that sort of thing.
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So players um had to um swap between genders, and then there were spells that would change people's gender, and and sometimes you'd be playing you and you just wouldn't know what gender you were.
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Are you male or female at the moment?
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Uh yes.
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Uh quick oh yeah, okay, male, right.
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Yeah, so it wasn't intended to be um a game which put your real life features into it.
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The only thing was was your mind, who you are, your your character as a as an individual, and for that we needed to throw off all the other things.
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Before we sort of move on to the kind of economics part of it, I just just want to ask you a qu I mean I might be barking up the wrong tree on this, but I I sort of think in some ways, in the same sense that yesterday I was Theogenes, the devoted cleric of Torm, and uh bringing down uh lightning on my opponents and so on.
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You're playing that role expensive.
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They had it coming.
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They had it coming, they really did.
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Um, to some extent, uh, first thing this morning, I was on LinkedIn playing the role of Dave Birch, the digital identity uh uh guru.
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And then a bit later on I was on Twitter playing the role of cryptocurrency sceptic and so on.
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And I I'm just curious as to someone who's very steeped in these worlds, the the extent to which you think there is a kind of gamification of our characters underway.
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Because obviously the reason why I'm on Twitter uh is not to increase the sum total of human knowledge, but but to get influence and so on, and uh, and on Twitter to get followers and and and you know what I mean, like it's it's a sort of gamification, isn't it?
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Well, i yes, so in different contexts, you're going to wear a different hat and be a different person, but the you who's behind those people is fundamentally the same.
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Now, um uh postmodernists would probably say, well, no, they aren't.
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Everybody's just superficial in different areas.
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But having seen people develop as people in role-playing games, I'm not sure.
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I think there is there is a fundamental core to somebody that informs all the other aspects.
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So, yes, when I'm giving a lecture there uh to my students, I'm not the same person as when I'm taking a lecture from my wife, but the the me inside there is just moderating my behavior based on what the output is.
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But I'm doing that conscious.
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Well the filter I'm wearing is deliberate, like the filter you're wearing is deliberate.
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You could, if you wanted to now, suddenly turn into the um I'm speaking to uh my worshippers in the temple.
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And yeah, if you have if you set the context for it, if you say, I'm look, I'm no but it but in in in the same sense that uh Theogenes, the devoted cleric of Torm, will do things that I would never do, I will say things down the pub that I would never say on Twitter.
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Yeah.
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You know, I will do things on LinkedIn that I wouldn't do down the pub.
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And to your point about this kind of strange, you know, you start off playing this role on LinkedIn or wherever, but over time it sort of becomes you.
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That's who you are, you know.
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So in a way, this kind of interplay between the real and virtual is more insidious in some ways than or liberating if you've learnt, you know, in a sense, to sort of explore different facets or even you know sides of your identity or indeed different identities, and then maybe it gives you the confidence to take it out into the real world.
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Maybe it doesn't, but you know, maybe it does, and I guess only time will tell with that.
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Well, the the danger is that when you bring things in from other contexts, it can remove your uh freedom.
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So if somebody from um LinkedIn walked into your Dungeons and Dragons session and watched you play in Dungeons and Dragons, you would be a little more self-conscious than you would be normally.
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If someone was reporting your LinkedIn prognostications on a bat channel on uh Twitter or something, they might be saying things that would influence what you're doing on LinkedIn in ways that they shouldn't.
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So um, and likewise, if you're playing an MMO and someone's speaking with their real voice over uh real headphones, then you that limits you automatically suddenly, oh you're American, oh you're female, oh you've got a really bad lisp, oh you're deaf.
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I said so um there's all these things that um where if you bring more of other contexts in, it removes your ability to play within the context you are, but sometimes you don't want to play, sometimes you just want to be.
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Look, I'm the expert and I want you to listen to me, and I don't want to have to explain all this, but uh just for you I will, but you know, really.
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Uh so yeah.
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Dave, your question's really it's made me think about something to do with rights, which is I know there's kind of a conversation percolating about whether people role-playing in these games or whether avatars or characters or whatever need certain specific rights.
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It was kind of fascinating the other day when Facebook, as was, but now I think we're calling it Meta, um, were suggesting that avatars would have to almost be socially distanced, if you like.
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They'd have to be a distance between avatars, which were Well, they have to be.
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They actually are, as of I think as of Friday.
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Yes, there's a there's a default four foot exclusion.
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Yeah.
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There's a default four foot exclusion zone.
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Yeah, so that's an interesting thing to me because one thinks of the interplay between the physical world and what we've all just been through, and now the these sort of social distancing rights in the virtual world, and will they play back into the physical world?
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What are your views on that, both of you?
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I think you said earlier on it's too soon to tell, which I think is true for some of these things.
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Of course, that's why it's interesting about it.
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But it's a specific area of interplay that I think is is causing this kind of metaverse eruption, and it goes back to a phenomenon that so so one of the reasons why I was talking to Richard originally was because I'd noticed that these virtual worlds were beginning to grow their own economies.
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And so, in other words, they were making this step into what uh Jaron Lanier called economic avatars, and people were beginning to do serious studies around these nascent economies, and I thought, well, this is interesting, this must be going somewhere.
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Oddly, in a way, it didn't.
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So in those very early days, you had things like EverQuest and so on, and and in fact, one of the very first blog posts I ever wrote, I'm embarrassed to say how long ago it was, was because I'd I'd calculated on the back of an envelope that a Chinese person mining virtual gold in Warcraft was actually earning more money than an actual Chinese gold miner.
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Um and actually with slightly better health and safety uh conditions as well, I would have thought.
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And that's why Richard and I were originally having these conversations.
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And Richard, um, as it turned out, was proved to be correct because he said that these things probably wouldn't um uh and actually that That sort of happened, didn't it, Richard?
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So we had these economies, but they never really turned into real economies.
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No, they didn't at the time.
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Uh the the this is one of the things about the the metaverse is that people haven't learned from what happened in virtual worlds long times ago.
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Even that thing with the um the bounding box.
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Um there was a it was a church world.
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It was called Church of Fools, and they put it in, and you could um the the very first day there was someone on their knees praying, a woman on her knees praying, female avatar, and a male avatar went and stood in front of her, so it looked as though she was performing Fallacio on him.
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Now, everybody would put a boundary, but I mean, why would you not do that?
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And yet it's as if these people at Meta hadn't seen it.
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And it's likewise, we're seeing a lot of things now that people are making suggestions on, which we've already tried in some ways, and there are paths you can navigate through, but in terms of the um for games, the the whole free-to-play economy with microtransactions is what probably it ultimately did for the um the gold farmers.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:33.599
We still do get gold farmers, but nowadays the revenue model of the virtual worlds has changed so that effectively you're buying well, you are, but some players are buying things for stupid amounts of money from the developers and in so doing are subsidizing the rest who are paying for pretty well nothing.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:43.599
Now, in a game context, so some of the players are are achievers and they want to win the game on its own terms.
00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:49.119
So they don't like it when somebody's uh can succeed on other terms by paying money.
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:53.039
That's that's like me getting upset when people buy Twitter followers.
00:23:53.359 --> 00:24:00.480
Yeah, it's like I may be the world 100 meter champion, but I'm gonna retire now, so I don't need this title anymore.
00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:03.759
Who wants to buy the title of being the world's fastest man?
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:07.599
Or I I don't need my BSC, I've got a PhD.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:08.640
Why do I need a BSC?
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:10.240
Who wants to buy my BSC?
00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:14.000
Yeah, well, I I've I I don't need my Victoria Cross.
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.599
I've I've got hardly any any money, I can sell it for£100,000.
00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:18.960
Yes, there you go.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:20.640
You can put VC after your name now.
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:22.640
Well, no, none of those things work.
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:24.720
Can't buy other people's credentials.
00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:25.519
That's it.
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:38.319
And in virtual worlds, players regard their gear, some of them regard their gear as being credentials, and you don't want somebody coming along and saying, I've got one of those, it cost me eight pounds.
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:45.759
Or I'm I'm a much better player than you because I paid uh 1 euro 50 to get a plus one against that particular monster.
00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:52.400
So in that kind of context world, it doesn't make sense, it's not going to be acceptable.
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:58.640
But in a world with no context, like Second Life, something like that, well, people aren't going to care because it doesn't matter.
00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:01.839
But where it does matter, people do care.
00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:05.680
And that's rough, that's really why it didn't take off.
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:11.519
And why cosmetic items only are where the way to go for uh free to play.
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:12.240
Interesting.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:16.640
So my crackpot theory, which I'm gonna test out on Richard now because he hasn't heard it before.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:26.720
My my crackpot theory is that the metaverse is the virtual world plus NFTs, essentially.
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:32.640
So because these are things that you can actually own, whereas in the met in the virtual world, you don't really own anything.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:40.319
You know, you buy the magic sword, but it's actually not your magic sword, it still belongs to, well, now Microsoft or Activision or whoever.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:52.400
So so while the concept of the economic avatar didn't work in that games world, I think that the reverse isn't true, which is can the technology of the game world work with the economic avatar?
00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:08.640
And I'll give you a simple case study just to illustrate why I think this might be the case, which was uh a few months ago I gave a talk to actually, as it happened, the Colombian FinTech Association, for which I was paid, and or more to the point for which I still haven't been paid.
00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:20.799
And uh they tried to say so we did it on Zoom, and then they tried to send me the money to one of my US accounts, and it got bounced for presumably AML you know reasons or whatever.
00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:29.039
And then they tried to do it through Wise, I think because that got bounced, and then a couple of weeks ago they tried to send the money to my UK bank account, it still hasn't arrived.
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:35.680
Now, if you imagine a slightly alternative version of it, which you know, now we're now we're in some game world together.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:49.599
I mean, I mean, we're not actually demons or whatever, we're actually people, but but now something interesting has happened because the money in that game now becomes real, so it can be owned by people and passed between them.
00:26:49.759 --> 00:27:00.079
So now, you know, I give my talk and they give me some I don't know, not bitcoins or something, but you know, some game currency, but that that actually has sort of value.
00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:05.440
That economic loci would grow.
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:22.640
In other words, people would begin to do business with each other in these tokenized environments inside these virtual worlds, not because they have some underlying deep-seated commitment to anti-censorship money or smash the, but simply because it's cheaper and easier.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:27.680
It's cheaper and easier to interact, but crucially interact economically.
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.920
And this is where it collides with Richard's context, which makes it so interesting.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:43.680
Well, the there was this, this um was beginning to happen in China with the uh 10 cent coins, which China thought, hold on, this is like an alternative currency, we're not having that, and they stamped it down.
00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:53.599
But people using 10 cent coins for buying things that were nothing to do with games, meals and things, because other people accepted them.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:28:04.160
Now, if you can get people to accept the coins or the NFTs or whatever, uh as having the value that you believe they have, or more than you believe they have, well, then you can use it.
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:14.240
But then, of course, um if the Colombians have been bounced back for anti-money laundering, well, uh, if they had been money laundering, they would have still been able to give it to you in the game.
00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.000
And then do you suppose that the governments would be pleased with that?
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:19.359
Probably not.
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:24.319
It really depends on how the governments treat it as to whether it's going to be a success or not.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.720
Things that have value only have value if people are prepared to pay for them.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:32.960
Ultimately, we have a fiat currency because you have to pay your taxes in it.
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:38.319
Um, if you didn't, then you could pay for everything in felt-tipped pens if you wanted to.
00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:47.599
But you have to have a fiat currency because that's the only one the government accepts for the taxes, and that's what they'll throw you in prison for if you don't pay them if you try to give them it in something else.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:54.880
So you have to convert at some point from your online wealth into regular economic money.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:07.039
But this this is why I this is why I sort of think that the the Bank of England's work on on digital so because I see a lot of commentary about this idea about digital currency and the sort of digital pound and stuff like that.
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:13.039
And I think it's got nothing to do with buying things in wait rows, you know, where my debit card works absolutely fine.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:16.400
But it does have a lot to do with the for the for the point you're making.
00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:30.240
So if I'm doing something in the metaverse, even if it superficially looks like a game, but actually it has some economic value to other people, then I might accept World of Warcraft gold, probably not.
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:37.039
But I certainly would accept sterling if it was in this tokenized form that could exist in these virtual worlds.
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:49.440
And that's why I sort of think the metaverse at first it just seems that this stupid thing where people are selling each other pictures of chimpanzees with sunglasses on through some elaborate money laundering schemes.
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:51.680
But I don't know, I think there's something there.
00:29:51.839 --> 00:29:57.359
The tokenization means that real economic activity can take place in those environments.
00:29:57.839 --> 00:30:10.240
I thought I've always wondered that is it an additional economy that you build on top of the other economy because then obviously it's another revenue-generating economy for the people and the platforms who are creating and building it.
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:19.279
My wonder whether the likes of Meta, if you are carrying out these kinds of activities and exchanges in Meta, do they take the commission off it?
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:22.079
Do they uh put certain permissions around it?
00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:27.440
You know, is it just you and the person you're exchanging this with in this digital or virtual world?
00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:37.599
Or actually, are there a whole bunch of new rules and regulations, not like in the physical world, that the likes of Meta might put around it because they see that as a commercial opportunity?
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:41.599
I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that or whether that's just naive.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:48.480
Well, in the FT, I think it was last week, so I've gone blank on his name for a second, the the CEO of Microsoft.
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:50.319
Um Satya Nadella.
00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:51.119
No, Ninadella.
00:30:52.559 --> 00:31:04.480
So Microsoft just paid$75 billion for Activision, and he said, I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact phrase, but he said something like this this is our first step towards the metaverse.
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:08.000
Um so clearly they expect to earn some economic.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:20.400
I mean, first of all, it if it's just people playing games, that is absolutely colossal in a sense, which I'm certain I can say Richard had never anticipated.
00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:26.799
You know, games are now bigger than Hollywood, music, TV, everything else put together.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:36.000
I can't I heard somebody the other day, I can't remember who it was, I heard somebody saying Call of Duty is on the scale of a James Bond blockbuster every single day.
00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:37.599
Every single day.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.039
Amazing.
00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:42.079
So even if it was just for that, it would be amazing.
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:43.599
But it isn't just for that.
00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:51.519
It's for using these technologies and spaces and equipment and interfaces for other economic activity.
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:55.680
I'm I'm I mean that's that's what I see the metaverse as being, I think.
00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:04.319
Well, I I will agree that there are definite places for real money in a digital world.
00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:12.559
And if it's a it's a digital world with no no game context that's limiting what makes sense, then then fine.
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:21.359
But what I mean I would query whether having a digital world made sense, because why would you want to be in that world?
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:25.279
Well, because because I don't like this one, just as you said earlier on.
00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:34.079
Yeah, but if the if the reason I don't like this one is because I'm a nobody and then I go online and I'm in a virtual world where I'm also a nobody, then I'm still a nobody.
00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:35.359
If I'm rich in this world.
00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:36.480
Nobody everywhere.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:37.440
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:39.039
Universally no nobody.
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:47.440
But if I'm rich in this world and I go online and I'm still rich because I'm taking my money with me, well, yeah, obviously I'm going to be pleased.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:59.200
And obviously the people who are advocating their visions of the metaverse have all got, they're all the non-nobodies rather than the nobodies who will actually be populating it.
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:16.400
But thinking of what you can do in a metaverse that you can't do in the real world, well, yeah, I can pay for things with digital coins, perhaps, and um, and maybe um they won't get charged more than a what a credit card charges me, but still, what am I what am I doing there?
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:23.119
But to but to loop round to the point you made at the very beginning, you know, when you say, like, what why would the metaverse be different?
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:26.079
Is because there would be different use.
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:29.440
You could have different use in the metaverse.
00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:32.960
There might be there might be half a dozen of me in the metaverse.
00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:45.359
There's there's me the slam poet, you know, there's there's me the digital money person, there's me the you know, Manchester City fan club organizer or whatever.
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:54.160
Like in the metaverse, this idea of the partitioning, the experiment, but with economic value seems quite new to me.
00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:56.480
That is different from what we had in the past.
00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:59.920
Um it is, um, but we've tried it.
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:05.200
There's some similarities for things like Second Life, for things like Lambda Moo back in the day.
00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:07.440
But ultimately there's got to be a reason to be there.
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:16.800
And if the reason to be there is, well, you can be somebody who isn't you, well, there are better places to be people who isn't you, and that's that's in game worlds.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:32.400
If your reason to be there is I want to be the real me, but I can't be in the real world because in the real world everybody thinks I'm in a wheelchair, but it's here I'm not, or here I'm in a wheelchair and I'm gonna make sure everybody treats people in the real world better with a wheelchair, whatever your your your action is.
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:37.360
If you're there for a purpose, what are you doing other than that?
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:41.199
It's a solution that's not got a problem.
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:48.079
Let let me let me give you an example that uh that references one of Tracy's earlier comments about credentials and so on.
00:34:48.159 --> 00:35:02.639
So one of my one of my memories from the early days of web commerce, which goes back to that sort of similar kind of time, was I used to get an email newsletter about uh payment systems, just to benchmark how dull my life is.
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:04.800
I used to get an email newsletter.
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:13.679
And one day we got an email from these people saying, sorry, we we you know we we just can't afford to do this anymore, so we need some donations to keep this going.
00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:17.920
And so I I thought uh actually our company will donate to that.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:19.360
We find it very useful, you know.
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:24.400
So I emailed back and said, Well, we're happy to chip in whatever it was,$500 a month or something.
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:25.920
I don't even remember what it was.
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:35.679
And the guy said, actually, that's fantastic, but to save on the paperwork and the bureaucracy, can you just send the money directly to our ISP instead of to us?
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:36.320
Fine.
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:38.719
Or their web hosting company or something.
00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:40.800
So we paid for their web hosting.
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.920
And the newsletter turned up, and it was exactly the same.
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:50.159
It had a little thing at the bottom which said, many thanks to Consult Hyperion or some words and famous.
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:51.920
And it was fantastic.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:36:11.039
And the thing about that was that was an important that you know, there was a there was a economic transaction that had value, that was free trade, that both parties entered into frequently, but was wholly based on reputation and not identity, in the sense that I had no idea who was actually producing that newsletter.
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:17.840
I didn't know if it was a company, room full of students, uh, a dedicated and enthusiastic individual.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:22.639
It could have been North Korean disinformation campaigners for all I knew.
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:31.679
But over time I'd found it very useful, and so its reputation had economic value, and I didn't care about the real identities of who was behind it.
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:37.679
And I I can't help but feeling there is a there is a different kind of economy that can grow around that sort of thing.
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:58.800
Just before Richard's um response to that, I'd throw in another thing that I wanted to ask you both, which is uh connected to that, which is if we're going to require biometrics to go along with our identity, which you know will then be some sort of uh fundamental that's required for the giving of credentials for you to use at some point.
00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:04.000
Aren't we going to need to connect to those biometrics when we're in the metaverse?
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:12.400
So what I'm kind of asking is the digital identity system that relies on biometrics, isn't that going to have to be carried over into the metaverse?
00:37:12.480 --> 00:37:17.599
And then doesn't that throw up a whole load of questions about what our identity can or cannot be there?
00:37:18.239 --> 00:37:20.320
It depends what you're using the biometrics for.
00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:28.320
If you're using the biometrics for strong authentication against an online identity, by which I affect what you mean, cryptographic keys.
00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:37.679
So if if you're using the biometrics to authenticate me as the owner of these cryptographic keys, which are in essence the online identities, that's absolutely fine.
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:44.000
If you're using the biometrics to identify me, which of course is where biometrics is all going right.
00:37:45.039 --> 00:37:46.480
Well, this is why I asked the question.
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:46.880
Yeah.
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:55.039
There's an interesting debate about online anonymity later today, actually, with um that I'm going to be listening to with with uh Jamie Bartlett, Easter on Demos.
00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:02.880
And I was talking to Jamie a while back about I can't remember what the context was, but biometrics in London, I think the police were using them.
00:38:03.039 --> 00:38:07.199
And he said, Well, of course, if this technology doesn't work, it's going to be an absolute nightmare.
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:09.840
But if it does work, it's going to be even worse.
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:12.159
And that's kind of how I feel about it.
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:21.039
So using biometrics to identify people, that's that surely isn't the metaverse of credentials and reputation and so on.
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:23.280
Well, yes, I I I agree.
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:37.119
The kind of dystopian world that um this presents, I can I can I can see players going straight to game worlds where they don't have to do that or to other subsites where they don't have to do that.
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:39.599
Because what have you got to hide?
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:42.159
Well, actually, quite a lot I've got to hide.
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:48.400
I don't want people coming along and um persecuting me for my views in any way whatsoever.
00:38:48.639 --> 00:38:53.679
And I don't want the government clamping down on what I say because it doesn't fit with what they um want.
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:56.159
So yeah, I don't want any of this stuff.
00:38:56.480 --> 00:39:03.679
And if you're just using it for uh, as Dave says, the cryptographic keys, well, yeah, that's fine.
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:15.360
That's just uh to to unlock something to prove that it definitely belongs to the person who's who this body uh who has this body, but anything else, it takes away from humanity.
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:19.440
See, the thing is that identity isn't a a label.
00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:24.400
You're not walking around, I I walk around with Richard stamped on my forehead.
00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:26.800
But I can I can walk around with anything.
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:35.360
I mean, my World of Warcraft characters, well, I don't play that now in the but my my um Final Fantasy XIV characters uh that all got different names, all got different personalities.
00:39:35.519 --> 00:39:42.079
I play them different ways, but if they're all identifiable to be me, well, I couldn't do that, could I?
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:50.559
In economic economic terms, you can see how it'd be there for the security, you want to know where something came from, but it wouldn't just be used for economic terms.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:52.480
That's that's the problem.
00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:54.400
Control system.
00:39:54.639 --> 00:39:59.199
Now, I was we we gang almost onto tokenization and digital goods and assets.
00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:06.639
And one of the interesting stories I saw the other day was um, have you heard of uh the Bitmouse DAO?
00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:24.480
So this is a DAO that wants to inject Bitcoin into a mouse in a genetically modified virus, and uh and they want to then track the value of the mouse as it reflects the value of the Bitcoin market, I suppose, or the the price of Bitcoin.
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:36.159
And um, they've even gone so far as to say that uh actually the progeny of the mouse obviously will have this DNA, we'll have this altered DNA, and so obviously these baby mice will have uh Bitcoin within them.
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:40.480
And I just think okay, that's a maybe an interesting thought experiment.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:52.159
It's bringing the idea of identity in a virtual environment with exchange, with Bitcoin, but frankly, obviously, it's horrifically dystopian.
00:40:52.480 --> 00:41:02.639
Um, but it was reported in interesting engineering, and uh it made me think more about this idea of whether we're going to end up tokenizing ourselves.
00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:18.719
So if we've got property or we've got artwork or we've got other economic goods, if we do uh have economic goods that we feel are of value, and we're tokenizing them because we want somebody or a community to participate that in in that.
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:22.719
Are we going to get to the point where we're almost tokenizing our own identity?
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:24.079
Is that even possible?
00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:28.480
Or um is that something that you think is beyond this?
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:31.039
Yeah, I think there's two there's two separate things there.
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:34.239
So there's will we use DNA for storage?
00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:39.039
The answer is yes, because DNA is a very dense data storage mechanism.
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:48.239
Although, of course, it would be unwise to use it for your Bitcoin keys because errors in the DNA transcription would eventually mean that you'd lose control of your keys.
00:41:48.559 --> 00:41:52.719
But the other point about self-tokenization, I mean, people are already beginning to experiment with this.
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:54.079
And I think it's really rather interesting.
00:41:54.159 --> 00:42:01.519
Someone said the thought experiment the other day, the way the way things work now, they they were using the example of the American pop singer.
00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:05.119
I can't think of her name now, the the famous American pop singer.
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:08.000
Uh I can't think of her name, but woman pop singer.
00:42:08.159 --> 00:42:14.000
Um so so basically, you know, you have to go to a record company and get an advance and get management and all this sort of thing.
00:42:14.079 --> 00:42:24.960
And the alternative, which is you know, you sell tokens in yourself and people buy them, and then when you become famous, these tokens are worth more because you can use the tokens to get into your shows and things like that.
00:42:25.119 --> 00:42:26.880
That doesn't seem crazy to me at all.
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:31.119
I mean, that sounds well, it's basically buying shares in somebody, aren't you?
00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:32.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:45.920
And and if you can do that in a token, I mean, the reason why the heavy duty finance people uh are interested in tokenization, again, isn't because of a commitment to anti-censure, whatever.
00:42:46.000 --> 00:43:00.320
It's because when you exchange tokens, if I if I sell Richard shares in me, that involves all sorts of mucking about with custodians and delivery versus payments and broker dealers and you know settlement and clearing.
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:04.719
And but if I sell Richard tokens in me, that's it.
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:05.599
End of story.
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.639
The tokens go from me to him, it's all over.
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:16.800
So this idea that tokenization provides a lower cost infrastructure for certain kinds of financial transactions, I I don't even think that's radical.
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:18.480
I think that's mainstream thinking now.
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:27.360
You know, the cost of financial intermediation has gone steadily up despite the invention of transistors and laser beams, and you know, this is a way of bringing it back down again.
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:33.280
Yeah, but it's the the question of when I'm buying a token in you, what am I actually buying?
00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:33.599
Yeah.
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:39.280
And it's always what rights come with my receipt of this token?
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:47.840
Is it just a picture of Dave sitting there smiling, or is it a case of um every single amount of uh income that Dave ever gets?
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:51.920
A small portion is directed towards me because I own a share in Dave.
00:43:52.239 --> 00:44:01.119
Well, this is why I distinguish between so when I'm I'm talking to people, I try to distinguish between uh tokens that are useful and Tokens that are useless.
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:04.559
So tokens that are useless, we call them art, by the way.
00:44:04.639 --> 00:44:08.079
So we so whether you want to value that or not is entirely up to you.
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:09.199
It's useless.
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:11.360
The value is entirely subjective.
00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:18.639
Tokens that can do something, get me into a concert or allow me to listen to some music or something, that's different.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:23.840
Those, you know, those things have um those things have a different economy around them.
00:44:24.159 --> 00:44:27.760
And I don't see why that economy won't grow.
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:32.880
In fact, I think you can see kind of little bits and pieces here that it already is growing.
00:44:33.199 --> 00:44:33.920
I concur.
00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:46.960
If if something's got an actual value to it, then whether you're buying a token or or in the past it would have been some series of legal paper having to sign, it's just a way of oiling the economy, and that makes it a lot easier.
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:55.360
And uh if it's a token that's on some blockchain or if it's a token that's just sitting in a database somewhere, then it doesn't really matter how it's implemented.
00:44:55.440 --> 00:45:01.599
It's just a case of what have I bought and what rights come with it, what have what have I actually bought?
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:17.280
But if you want to then take your token into another context where it doesn't make sense, so trying to pass my Dave Birch concert ticket or his poetry slams to someone else who who sings rather than writes poetry, well, that isn't going to work.
00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:19.360
But in a game world, it would be like that.
00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:34.559
It would be like trying to say, you've got this thing here, it transforms into this, and so you could easily imagine an online Lady Gaga fan club that you can't get into unless you've got an actual Lady Gaga ticket, you've been to an actual Lady Gaga concert or something like that.
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:35.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:37.440
I saw I can see those things working.
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:48.719
Also, the to the point about the biometric authentication, the idea that you show up at the O2 with a ticket that's an NFT, but to actually use it, you've got to biometrically authenticate that you control the key.
00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:52.960
That actually to me sounds better, easier, and cheaper than what we have now.
00:45:53.119 --> 00:45:53.360
Yeah.
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:55.440
So there's every reason to go in that direction.
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:58.320
Why even bother with the token if it's just the biometrics?
00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:00.239
If I just need to put my thumbprint on, then that's the same thing.
00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:01.760
No, but that's by that's that's a fancy.
00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:03.760
But that's biometric identification.
00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:04.719
That's what we don't want.
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:06.559
We don't want you to be identified.
00:46:08.159 --> 00:46:14.000
That's why that's why demonstrating possession of the token is better than just having your picture taken, you know.
00:46:14.400 --> 00:46:30.800
Because what I was interested in was whether, you know, we started off the conversation about how liberating some of these worlds can be and gaming can be, and you can be different personas, and you kind of come around to is there an accr increased commodification really of identity or personas or or whatever?
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:37.039
There's obviously commodification of goods and services within the metaverse or within games, but what about the self?
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:46.159
And I wondered if the increasing commodification, if it happens, of the self in this way is perhaps you know not so liberating and becomes a constraint.
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:54.239
But I guess this is one of the things, you know, that's going to be so fascinating to navigate over the next what decade about how this really does pan out.
00:46:54.320 --> 00:46:56.639
Is it liberating or does it become a constraint?
00:46:56.800 --> 00:46:57.199
I don't know.
00:46:57.360 --> 00:46:59.039
Final thoughts on that, maybe.
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:02.320
Too complicated for a podcast.
00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:06.800
Um but I am I am sort of broadly optimistic, I would say.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:22.320
I would say that it's liberating if you can have multiple identities, not so liberating if you've only got one identity, and thoroughly oppressive if you have to display that identity to anybody who wants to see it.
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:25.280
It's just a case of um papers please, isn't it?
00:47:26.159 --> 00:47:26.800
Exactly.
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:29.199
So I'm gonna ask you one final question.
00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:32.079
Uh, thank you so much for this fascinating tour de force.
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:34.079
I can't wait to listen back to it, actually.
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:48.480
There's so much richness in this, but I'm gonna ask you for one final thought on what action we should take on identity to ensure that actually does go in the direction we'd like to see it go that we've been discussing here.
00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:55.280
Whilst you think about that, I'm just gonna let our listeners know that I'll be speaking at the next TBD conference on March the 31st.
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:57.440
That's technology behaviour and data.
00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:00.639
Uh, the theme this year is hope and expectation of the future.
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:05.760
So, from big tech to activists, scientists to slam poets, Dave will be uh interested in.
00:48:06.639 --> 00:48:11.440
TBD isn't like any other conferences, it's uh it's fast and it goes for the throat.
00:48:11.599 --> 00:48:14.239
So join me and over 30 other speakers.
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:16.800
You've got a 25% off your ticket today.
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:23.599
Just use future view at the checkout and uh head over to at the TBDconference.com.
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:28.079
That's thetbdconference.com and uh pick up your discount today.
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:32.159
Okay, Dave, Richard, final thoughts on action for identity.
00:48:33.199 --> 00:48:39.599
We need to stop thinking in terms of identity, like a national identity scheme and this sort of thing.
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:43.360
We need to start thinking in terms of credentials and reputation.
00:48:43.440 --> 00:49:02.800
And here I think interestingly, the pandemic, although nobody would have wanted that way, the pandemic has actually advanced the state of the art a little bit with developments around the W3C verifiable credentials standard and this idea about presenting credentials in order to do something instead of presenting passports or driving license or who you are.
00:49:03.039 --> 00:49:09.679
So I think shifting the focus back to what you said originally about reputation and credentials, I think is the way forward.
00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:15.760
Well, I I'm gonna have to change my answer now because um Dave's is better.
00:49:16.719 --> 00:49:24.159
Uh no, um for me, yeah, credentials, you are who you are, and you are what you do.
00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:30.480
And in a in the in a game world where which is where I come from, what you do is who you are.
00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:38.320
And the credentials that you have are all through your own actions, through what you have done that have influenced others.
00:49:38.400 --> 00:49:44.480
And and this is why when Dave said credentials rather than identity, I thought, ah, ah, that's right.
00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:57.440
It is it is about credentials, it's about being able to verify that you've jumped through the hoops, you're the one who can do it and has done it.
00:49:57.519 --> 00:49:59.599
Yeah, so that's great.
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:08.800
In a future episode, we are going to analyse the uh trust framework that's come out from the UK government in particular on sort of credentials and attributes and uh have a look more closely at that.
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:13.199
So uh maybe we'll return to you on that, but that's fascinating and a great conclusion.
00:50:13.519 --> 00:50:14.880
Thank you so much, both of you.
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:17.039
It's been wonderful to get the chance to speak to you.
00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:19.119
And uh thanks very much.
00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.160
Welcome to the Future Review.
00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:24.719
Today we're joined by two guests.
00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:36.000
Firstly, Richard Bartle, who is a British writer, professor, and absolute legend in game research and design, specialising in online games in the massively multiplayer online games industry.
00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:51.679
He co-created Mud One, the first Mud, in 1978, and since then has authored the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds, which many people know covers the history, ethics, structure and technology of massively multiplayer games.
00:00:51.920 --> 00:01:03.840
He spends half his time as a games industry consultant and half his time as a professor of game design at the University of Essex, where by the way, he gained his PhD in artificial intelligence.
00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:16.879
One of the things he's especially well known for is his research on player personality types in virtual worlds, dividing them into four types achievers, explorers, socialisers, and killers.
00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:24.959
Which has grown into an online test that's generally referred to, not by him, but by everyone else, as the Bartle Test.
00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:35.920
David Birch is an internationally recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money, and he's been named as one of the global top 15 favourite sources of business information by Wired.
00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:41.840
And he's ranked one of the top 10 most influential voices in banking by financial brand.
00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:45.200
He's also the global ambassador for Consult Hyperion.
00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:49.840
That's the secure electronic transactions consultancy that he helped to found.
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:59.680
Now, he's someone I always turn to when I have questions about the future of money, and his book, Identity as the New Money, was one of the books I sought out whilst I was writing my own.
00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:08.080
I recommend you follow his Substack, characteristically wittily entitled In the Future, Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Megabytes.
00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:10.560
Or you can read his columns in Forbes.
00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:22.800
Now we had a fascinating conversation with these two pioneers in their industries, always brilliant at pinpointing what the emerging trends are, but also what we should do about them.
00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:33.199
And we talked obviously with Richard about the founding of Mud and the kind of characters that one is or the persona one has in virtual games like that.
00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:40.479
That was very eye-opening, I think, and it led on to a conversation about the economics of the metaverse.
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:51.680
And of course, the conversation ended up combining both these factors until we got to a conversation at the end, a chat about whether you could even tokenise the self.
00:02:51.840 --> 00:03:01.439
And we talked about that in relation to both, you know, you as a creator in some of these spaces and also just goods that have value.
00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:08.319
It really was a very interesting conversation, quite a long conversation with an awful lot of content in it.
00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:15.840
It's great to get these two guests together, and the fact that they know each other, of course, means that they have quite a chemistry.
00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:29.520
So I do hope you'll enjoy what is the first episode of the Future of You podcast and listen to Richard and David on identity and identities in a virtual digital world.
00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:51.199
So to jump right into it, Richard and Dave, can we talk a little bit about where we are with identity in this increasingly digitized world that we now live in, but also this emerging virtual world or virtual worlds.
00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:58.319
One of the things I wanted to talk to you both about, actually, was how we turn up in these environments.
00:03:58.560 --> 00:03:59.680
Are we characters?
00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:10.879
One of the things I was thinking about in my book was as we become more sort of bits of data and bits of characteristics in these sorts of worlds, are we actually becoming characters rather than persons?
00:04:11.039 --> 00:04:17.279
And as we take on different personas, are we really ourselves in some of these places or spaces?
00:04:17.439 --> 00:04:25.040
So maybe I could start with you, Richard, and particularly thinking about you know your time with Mud founding that.
00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:26.480
You know, are we digital players?
00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:27.759
Are we virtual personas?
00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.040
How do you think about our identity in these spaces?
00:04:31.839 --> 00:04:49.360
Well, it depends on the space, but for game worlds, when people start playing these game worlds, they uh they're looking not at as their character as uh even as a person, they're just looking at it as like you might look at a word processor document, it's just something that's there.
00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:56.560
But after a while, they start to um look on their character as their representative.
00:04:56.720 --> 00:05:02.000
So it's this is a different person, but they're representing me, they're my representative.
00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:10.639
But as they keep playing, they switch over time, so it's less than my representative, then it's then it's a representation of me.
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:13.839
So it's an aspect of me that I'm projecting into the world.
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:21.680
And as they become more and more immersed in the game world, ultimately their character becomes themselves.
00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:25.040
The player themselves is their character.
00:05:25.519 --> 00:05:36.879
So the way it works then is that games provide players with a a series of decisions that they'll have to make, many, many decisions.
00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:47.439
And as they're making the decisions, the players will be making some decisions that they, if it was really them truly in the real world, they would make, and but other ones be more experimental.
00:05:47.839 --> 00:06:08.240
And sometimes the experimental ones are the exact opposite of what you would do, uh, with the you're at one side and your character is another, and the real you is in the middle, and sometimes they're slightly ahead of them, so that the character is not quite like you, but is a bit like you, and you're just saying, What would I do if I just did a different thing?
00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:20.160
And after playing these massively multiplayer online role-playing games for two to four hours every night for two years, then players will be and become the their characters.
00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:24.560
So it's a way of exploring who you are.
00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:28.240
You get to be and become yourself through playing these games.
00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:37.920
I think even before the emergence of the of the massively multiplayer online role-playing games, this kind of emergent behaviour was already evident.
00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:41.199
And I can sort of flag up two reasons for thinking that.
00:06:41.360 --> 00:07:04.560
So one is Richard and I have a uh you know a shared heritage that we don't normally talk about in front of strangers, but obviously, Tracy, you've become something of a friend over the last few minutes, um, in that we both used to play Dungeons and Dragons, which you didn't used to be able to say in public uh due to the RPG critical community, but um but now we feel comfortable uh admitting.
00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:33.120
And one of the things that's very surprised, or at least was very surprising to me as a kid essentially, as a young person, which I saw in my own kids as well, is this idea of experimenting with who you are, which at first you think you're just playing a game, but as things go on, one of the things that's fun and exciting and interesting, and one of the reasons why I still play it now, all those years later, is that element of experimentation with different uh parts of character.
00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:40.800
So that's I think that's one source which you probably could have, if you if you looked at games, you probably could have seen that sort of coming.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:45.279
But the thing that's surprising to me is just how quickly these properties emerged.
00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:49.600
I I was looking up something from Richard's earliest days.
00:07:49.839 --> 00:08:05.279
And as far as I can tell, approximately 10 minutes after the mud was conceived, people were complaining that they were addicted to it and were losing themselves in this virtual world, and uh, you know, it was going to cause psychosis and uh and all this sort of thing.
00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:16.079
So it's interesting to me, Richard, just how quickly this this idea of the avatars, the experimental characters, emerged in in those spaces.
00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:20.720
Yeah, you're right with the Dungeons Dragons observation, yeah, that's that's correct.
00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:26.800
It's a form of role-playing, and in a role-playing you get to be someone you're not.
00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:32.879
And so it's like a laboratory where you can experiment under safe conditions with who you are.
00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:40.159
And if it doesn't work out, then well, you start up with a character, and if it doesn't work out, then it informs who you are as a person.
00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:56.799
So it's it's not role-playing like on a stage where the the character is fixed and it's the character can inform you uh about yourself because you're playing somebody who isn't you on the stage, but you can't change the character very much.
00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:05.360
Whereas in a role-playing game like Dungeons and Dragons or one of the massive multiplayer games, then you can change the character.
00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:22.000
So it's not just you moving from one direction, you're moving from both directions, and that gives you uh an understanding of who you can be uh and who you really are without the constraints of what reality has set for you.
00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:27.600
But when you sat down to write that first virtual world, that wasn't the goal, was it?
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.399
That this was an emergent property of that world, I think.
00:09:30.799 --> 00:09:32.720
It wasn't just me, it was me and Roy Trubshaw.
00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:32.879
Yeah.
00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:35.679
And I always always have to give Roy a tru uh a shout out.
00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:40.000
The original aim of it was to make a better world.
00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:42.639
We didn't like how reality worked.
00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:50.879
We didn't like the way that in reality you were judged by who you were in terms of other people's views.
00:09:51.039 --> 00:10:03.120
So I've got a Yorkshire accent, Yorkshire accents, yep, they're um trusted as being these people plain speaking, don't lie, but on the other hand, they're peasants.
00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:14.799
Yeah, and if you're in a if I go to America where they don't recognise the accent, they think that I'm smart, erudite, well-educated, but I'm a villain because all Hollywood villains are English.
00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:27.120
So you get judged on these things, you get judged on all sorts, what you look like, whether you're disabilities, sexuality, gender, uh age, weight, um everything.
00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:33.039
And you never get to be who you are if everybody else is pushing you into the boxes the way they want you to be.
00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:51.759
But if you go on to a virtual space where you can recreate another identity and wear that identity and then experiment and see if you like it, throw away the bits you don't, keep the bits you do, change yourself, change the character, then ultimately you and your character become the same.
00:10:52.320 --> 00:11:07.519
And that's why when I at the beginning, when you you asked the question, I said, Yeah, you start out with uh an objective view and eventually it goes to subjective until when you and your character are the same, you're immersed in the game world, and then that that is you at that point.
00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:24.799
This this reminds me very much of when I was reading up on the attaku in Asia, so the obsessive fans of anime and manga, and how they wanted to create these fictional worlds that their characters exist in and they sort of feel they they themselves exist in.
00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:30.480
It's not that they're naive, it's not that they think, oh, you know, they they don't realize this is a fictional world.
00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:42.879
They do, they prefer it to the real world, and they actually feel that it's a better world because it reflects their values and their standards and their norms, and they're not particularly happy with the ones in the real world.
00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:44.799
So these are the worlds that they inhabit.
00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:54.240
And of course, there's a lot of uh conversation about how sucked into these worlds they get, but it's I think it's really interesting, it's not a naivety, it's very it's a conscious thing.
00:11:54.320 --> 00:12:08.320
And I wonder if actually during the pandemic, and with the amount of stress and pressure and expectations that there are on teens, especially these these days, whether that's one of the attractions to these sorts of worlds.
00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:27.759
Well, for teens, they've always teens have always been experimenting with their identities, so these days just give them a place to do it where otherwise they might have um, I don't know, had to have got drunk or something to uh cast off the um the worries that their actions may have consequences.
00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:29.039
I think it's different.
00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:34.879
I mean, uh you probably regard me as a sort of reactionary Dungeons and Dragons snob.
00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:42.320
But when you're when you're playing Call of Duty, you're not imagining a new character, you're inhabiting a part that's been created for you.
00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:43.440
That's not quite the same as a few years.
00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:44.000
No, no, no.
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:49.919
I'm sitting around talking about the the role-playing games, yeah, particularly the massively multiplayer ones.
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:51.360
Um yeah, yeah.
00:12:51.519 --> 00:13:00.399
Um yeah, so because sort of if you're playing not just dungeon, if you're playing Monopoly, then no one really thinks that you are an old boot or a Scotty dog or a top hound.
00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:09.600
But am I right, Richard, when you were first um launching Mud, that the the roles one was playing, they weren't defined in terms of gender.
00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:10.080
Yeah.
00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:10.480
Yeah.
00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:12.000
So do you want to talk a little bit about that?
00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:14.559
Because I think it's particularly interesting looking back on that now.
00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:23.840
Well, we had to use we had to have gender in there because it was a text-based game, so we had to use the English language, which is gendered.
00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.360
But we wanted people to be able to be who they were.
00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:36.720
We weren't going to impose you are playing the um the role of a mage, I'm gonna jump on the mage train and go to Mageville and get off at the other end and be a mage.
00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:39.759
You are what you do, you could do what you and behave.
00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.840
If you wanted to pretend to be Alice in Wonderland, you could pretend to be Alice in Wonderland.
00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:46.879
So we we asked the two questions when we started.
00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:50.639
The first one we actually needed, which is by what name shall I call you?
00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:55.279
The second one we'd rather we didn't have to use, and that was what sex do you wish to be?
00:13:55.759 --> 00:14:02.080
And that was because of the um the fact we had to use uh English pronouns.
00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:09.519
But neither Roy or I would have wanted that at all because it was partitioning people again.
00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:18.960
And even that though, it means it led to lots of cross-gender play because people will um if you're playing to be somebody else, well, what's the opposite of you?
00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:19.679
And there we go.
00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:31.840
But the game itself had a number of um ways that you could uh your character could change sex, gender, well, it would be it would be sex because it was actually binary, we only had two.
00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:46.879
And the the way we had the sometimes there were puzzles that you had to be the a particular sex to be, so like the um you had to be female to kiss the prince, and you had to be male to um kiss the sleeping beauty, that sort of thing.
00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:56.159
So players um had to um swap between genders, and then there were spells that would change people's gender, and and sometimes you'd be playing you and you just wouldn't know what gender you were.
00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:57.759
Are you male or female at the moment?
00:14:58.159 --> 00:14:59.600
Uh yes.
00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:02.720
Uh quick oh yeah, okay, male, right.
00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:11.679
Yeah, so it wasn't intended to be um a game which put your real life features into it.
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:20.399
The only thing was was your mind, who you are, your your character as a as an individual, and for that we needed to throw off all the other things.
00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:44.799
Before we sort of move on to the kind of economics part of it, I just just want to ask you a qu I mean I might be barking up the wrong tree on this, but I I sort of think in some ways, in the same sense that yesterday I was Theogenes, the devoted cleric of Torm, and uh bringing down uh lightning on my opponents and so on.
00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:46.480
You're playing that role expensive.
00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:47.600
They had it coming.
00:15:47.840 --> 00:15:49.519
They had it coming, they really did.
00:15:49.759 --> 00:16:01.279
Um, to some extent, uh, first thing this morning, I was on LinkedIn playing the role of Dave Birch, the digital identity uh uh guru.
00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:09.360
And then a bit later on I was on Twitter playing the role of cryptocurrency sceptic and so on.
00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:20.559
And I I'm just curious as to someone who's very steeped in these worlds, the the extent to which you think there is a kind of gamification of our characters underway.
00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:36.320
Because obviously the reason why I'm on Twitter uh is not to increase the sum total of human knowledge, but but to get influence and so on, and uh, and on Twitter to get followers and and and you know what I mean, like it's it's a sort of gamification, isn't it?
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:49.120
Well, i yes, so in different contexts, you're going to wear a different hat and be a different person, but the you who's behind those people is fundamentally the same.
00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:52.399
Now, um uh postmodernists would probably say, well, no, they aren't.
00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:54.879
Everybody's just superficial in different areas.
00:16:55.200 --> 00:17:02.000
But having seen people develop as people in role-playing games, I'm not sure.
00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:07.519
I think there is there is a fundamental core to somebody that informs all the other aspects.
00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:21.359
So, yes, when I'm giving a lecture there uh to my students, I'm not the same person as when I'm taking a lecture from my wife, but the the me inside there is just moderating my behavior based on what the output is.
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:23.359
But I'm doing that conscious.
00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:29.200
Well the filter I'm wearing is deliberate, like the filter you're wearing is deliberate.
00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:36.720
You could, if you wanted to now, suddenly turn into the um I'm speaking to uh my worshippers in the temple.
00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:51.599
And yeah, if you have if you set the context for it, if you say, I'm look, I'm no but it but in in in the same sense that uh Theogenes, the devoted cleric of Torm, will do things that I would never do, I will say things down the pub that I would never say on Twitter.
00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:52.160
Yeah.
00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:55.759
You know, I will do things on LinkedIn that I wouldn't do down the pub.
00:17:55.839 --> 00:18:06.240
And to your point about this kind of strange, you know, you start off playing this role on LinkedIn or wherever, but over time it sort of becomes you.
00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:07.839
That's who you are, you know.
00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:26.319
So in a way, this kind of interplay between the real and virtual is more insidious in some ways than or liberating if you've learnt, you know, in a sense, to sort of explore different facets or even you know sides of your identity or indeed different identities, and then maybe it gives you the confidence to take it out into the real world.
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:30.160
Maybe it doesn't, but you know, maybe it does, and I guess only time will tell with that.
00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:39.279
Well, the the danger is that when you bring things in from other contexts, it can remove your uh freedom.
00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:50.400
So if somebody from um LinkedIn walked into your Dungeons and Dragons session and watched you play in Dungeons and Dragons, you would be a little more self-conscious than you would be normally.
00:18:50.720 --> 00:19:04.559
If someone was reporting your LinkedIn prognostications on a bat channel on uh Twitter or something, they might be saying things that would influence what you're doing on LinkedIn in ways that they shouldn't.
00:19:04.720 --> 00:19:21.039
So um, and likewise, if you're playing an MMO and someone's speaking with their real voice over uh real headphones, then you that limits you automatically suddenly, oh you're American, oh you're female, oh you've got a really bad lisp, oh you're deaf.
00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:35.359
I said so um there's all these things that um where if you bring more of other contexts in, it removes your ability to play within the context you are, but sometimes you don't want to play, sometimes you just want to be.
00:19:35.599 --> 00:19:43.519
Look, I'm the expert and I want you to listen to me, and I don't want to have to explain all this, but uh just for you I will, but you know, really.
00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:44.960
Uh so yeah.
00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:59.200
Dave, your question's really it's made me think about something to do with rights, which is I know there's kind of a conversation percolating about whether people role-playing in these games or whether avatars or characters or whatever need certain specific rights.
00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:09.440
It was kind of fascinating the other day when Facebook, as was, but now I think we're calling it Meta, um, were suggesting that avatars would have to almost be socially distanced, if you like.
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:12.720
They'd have to be a distance between avatars, which were Well, they have to be.
00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:15.599
They actually are, as of I think as of Friday.
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:18.880
Yes, there's a there's a default four foot exclusion.
00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:19.200
Yeah.
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:21.920
There's a default four foot exclusion zone.
00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:35.759
Yeah, so that's an interesting thing to me because one thinks of the interplay between the physical world and what we've all just been through, and now the these sort of social distancing rights in the virtual world, and will they play back into the physical world?
00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.000
What are your views on that, both of you?
00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:44.000
I think you said earlier on it's too soon to tell, which I think is true for some of these things.
00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:46.559
Of course, that's why it's interesting about it.
00:20:47.200 --> 00:21:07.359
But it's a specific area of interplay that I think is is causing this kind of metaverse eruption, and it goes back to a phenomenon that so so one of the reasons why I was talking to Richard originally was because I'd noticed that these virtual worlds were beginning to grow their own economies.
00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:22.079
And so, in other words, they were making this step into what uh Jaron Lanier called economic avatars, and people were beginning to do serious studies around these nascent economies, and I thought, well, this is interesting, this must be going somewhere.
00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:24.400
Oddly, in a way, it didn't.
00:21:24.559 --> 00:21:45.119
So in those very early days, you had things like EverQuest and so on, and and in fact, one of the very first blog posts I ever wrote, I'm embarrassed to say how long ago it was, was because I'd I'd calculated on the back of an envelope that a Chinese person mining virtual gold in Warcraft was actually earning more money than an actual Chinese gold miner.
00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:49.759
Um and actually with slightly better health and safety uh conditions as well, I would have thought.
00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:52.960
And that's why Richard and I were originally having these conversations.
00:21:53.039 --> 00:22:01.359
And Richard, um, as it turned out, was proved to be correct because he said that these things probably wouldn't um uh and actually that That sort of happened, didn't it, Richard?
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:07.119
So we had these economies, but they never really turned into real economies.
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:09.279
No, they didn't at the time.
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:18.559
Uh the the this is one of the things about the the metaverse is that people haven't learned from what happened in virtual worlds long times ago.
00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:21.680
Even that thing with the um the bounding box.
00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:23.359
Um there was a it was a church world.
00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:39.839
It was called Church of Fools, and they put it in, and you could um the the very first day there was someone on their knees praying, a woman on her knees praying, female avatar, and a male avatar went and stood in front of her, so it looked as though she was performing Fallacio on him.
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:44.799
Now, everybody would put a boundary, but I mean, why would you not do that?
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:47.680
And yet it's as if these people at Meta hadn't seen it.
00:22:47.759 --> 00:23:11.200
And it's likewise, we're seeing a lot of things now that people are making suggestions on, which we've already tried in some ways, and there are paths you can navigate through, but in terms of the um for games, the the whole free-to-play economy with microtransactions is what probably it ultimately did for the um the gold farmers.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:33.599
We still do get gold farmers, but nowadays the revenue model of the virtual worlds has changed so that effectively you're buying well, you are, but some players are buying things for stupid amounts of money from the developers and in so doing are subsidizing the rest who are paying for pretty well nothing.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:43.599
Now, in a game context, so some of the players are are achievers and they want to win the game on its own terms.
00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:49.119
So they don't like it when somebody's uh can succeed on other terms by paying money.
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:53.039
That's that's like me getting upset when people buy Twitter followers.
00:23:53.359 --> 00:24:00.480
Yeah, it's like I may be the world 100 meter champion, but I'm gonna retire now, so I don't need this title anymore.
00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:03.759
Who wants to buy the title of being the world's fastest man?
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:07.599
Or I I don't need my BSC, I've got a PhD.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:08.640
Why do I need a BSC?
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:10.240
Who wants to buy my BSC?
00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:14.000
Yeah, well, I I've I I don't need my Victoria Cross.
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.599
I've I've got hardly any any money, I can sell it for£100,000.
00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:18.960
Yes, there you go.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:20.640
You can put VC after your name now.
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:22.640
Well, no, none of those things work.
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:24.720
Can't buy other people's credentials.
00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:25.519
That's it.
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:38.319
And in virtual worlds, players regard their gear, some of them regard their gear as being credentials, and you don't want somebody coming along and saying, I've got one of those, it cost me eight pounds.
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:45.759
Or I'm I'm a much better player than you because I paid uh 1 euro 50 to get a plus one against that particular monster.
00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:52.400
So in that kind of context world, it doesn't make sense, it's not going to be acceptable.
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:58.640
But in a world with no context, like Second Life, something like that, well, people aren't going to care because it doesn't matter.
00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:01.839
But where it does matter, people do care.
00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:05.680
And that's rough, that's really why it didn't take off.
00:25:06.319 --> 00:25:11.519
And why cosmetic items only are where the way to go for uh free to play.
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:12.240
Interesting.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:16.640
So my crackpot theory, which I'm gonna test out on Richard now because he hasn't heard it before.
00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:26.720
My my crackpot theory is that the metaverse is the virtual world plus NFTs, essentially.
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:32.640
So because these are things that you can actually own, whereas in the met in the virtual world, you don't really own anything.
00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:40.319
You know, you buy the magic sword, but it's actually not your magic sword, it still belongs to, well, now Microsoft or Activision or whoever.
00:25:40.799 --> 00:25:52.400
So so while the concept of the economic avatar didn't work in that games world, I think that the reverse isn't true, which is can the technology of the game world work with the economic avatar?
00:25:52.480 --> 00:26:08.640
And I'll give you a simple case study just to illustrate why I think this might be the case, which was uh a few months ago I gave a talk to actually, as it happened, the Colombian FinTech Association, for which I was paid, and or more to the point for which I still haven't been paid.
00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:20.799
And uh they tried to say so we did it on Zoom, and then they tried to send me the money to one of my US accounts, and it got bounced for presumably AML you know reasons or whatever.
00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:29.039
And then they tried to do it through Wise, I think because that got bounced, and then a couple of weeks ago they tried to send the money to my UK bank account, it still hasn't arrived.
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:35.680
Now, if you imagine a slightly alternative version of it, which you know, now we're now we're in some game world together.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:49.599
I mean, I mean, we're not actually demons or whatever, we're actually people, but but now something interesting has happened because the money in that game now becomes real, so it can be owned by people and passed between them.
00:26:49.759 --> 00:27:00.079
So now, you know, I give my talk and they give me some I don't know, not bitcoins or something, but you know, some game currency, but that that actually has sort of value.
00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:05.440
That economic loci would grow.
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:22.640
In other words, people would begin to do business with each other in these tokenized environments inside these virtual worlds, not because they have some underlying deep-seated commitment to anti-censorship money or smash the, but simply because it's cheaper and easier.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:27.680
It's cheaper and easier to interact, but crucially interact economically.
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.920
And this is where it collides with Richard's context, which makes it so interesting.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:43.680
Well, the there was this, this um was beginning to happen in China with the uh 10 cent coins, which China thought, hold on, this is like an alternative currency, we're not having that, and they stamped it down.
00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:53.599
But people using 10 cent coins for buying things that were nothing to do with games, meals and things, because other people accepted them.
00:27:53.759 --> 00:28:04.160
Now, if you can get people to accept the coins or the NFTs or whatever, uh as having the value that you believe they have, or more than you believe they have, well, then you can use it.
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:14.240
But then, of course, um if the Colombians have been bounced back for anti-money laundering, well, uh, if they had been money laundering, they would have still been able to give it to you in the game.
00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:18.000
And then do you suppose that the governments would be pleased with that?
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:19.359
Probably not.
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:24.319
It really depends on how the governments treat it as to whether it's going to be a success or not.
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.720
Things that have value only have value if people are prepared to pay for them.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:32.960
Ultimately, we have a fiat currency because you have to pay your taxes in it.
00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:38.319
Um, if you didn't, then you could pay for everything in felt-tipped pens if you wanted to.
00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:47.599
But you have to have a fiat currency because that's the only one the government accepts for the taxes, and that's what they'll throw you in prison for if you don't pay them if you try to give them it in something else.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:54.880
So you have to convert at some point from your online wealth into regular economic money.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:07.039
But this this is why I this is why I sort of think that the the Bank of England's work on on digital so because I see a lot of commentary about this idea about digital currency and the sort of digital pound and stuff like that.
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:13.039
And I think it's got nothing to do with buying things in wait rows, you know, where my debit card works absolutely fine.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:16.400
But it does have a lot to do with the for the for the point you're making.
00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:30.240
So if I'm doing something in the metaverse, even if it superficially looks like a game, but actually it has some economic value to other people, then I might accept World of Warcraft gold, probably not.
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:37.039
But I certainly would accept sterling if it was in this tokenized form that could exist in these virtual worlds.
00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:49.440
And that's why I sort of think the metaverse at first it just seems that this stupid thing where people are selling each other pictures of chimpanzees with sunglasses on through some elaborate money laundering schemes.
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:51.680
But I don't know, I think there's something there.
00:29:51.839 --> 00:29:57.359
The tokenization means that real economic activity can take place in those environments.
00:29:57.839 --> 00:30:10.240
I thought I've always wondered that is it an additional economy that you build on top of the other economy because then obviously it's another revenue-generating economy for the people and the platforms who are creating and building it.
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:19.279
My wonder whether the likes of Meta, if you are carrying out these kinds of activities and exchanges in Meta, do they take the commission off it?
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:22.079
Do they uh put certain permissions around it?
00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:27.440
You know, is it just you and the person you're exchanging this with in this digital or virtual world?
00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:37.599
Or actually, are there a whole bunch of new rules and regulations, not like in the physical world, that the likes of Meta might put around it because they see that as a commercial opportunity?
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:41.599
I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that or whether that's just naive.
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:48.480
Well, in the FT, I think it was last week, so I've gone blank on his name for a second, the the CEO of Microsoft.
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:50.319
Um Satya Nadella.
00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:51.119
No, Ninadella.
00:30:52.559 --> 00:31:04.480
So Microsoft just paid$75 billion for Activision, and he said, I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember the exact phrase, but he said something like this this is our first step towards the metaverse.
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:08.000
Um so clearly they expect to earn some economic.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:20.400
I mean, first of all, it if it's just people playing games, that is absolutely colossal in a sense, which I'm certain I can say Richard had never anticipated.
00:31:20.799 --> 00:31:26.799
You know, games are now bigger than Hollywood, music, TV, everything else put together.
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:36.000
I can't I heard somebody the other day, I can't remember who it was, I heard somebody saying Call of Duty is on the scale of a James Bond blockbuster every single day.
00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:37.599
Every single day.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.039
Amazing.
00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:42.079
So even if it was just for that, it would be amazing.
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:43.599
But it isn't just for that.
00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:51.519
It's for using these technologies and spaces and equipment and interfaces for other economic activity.
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:55.680
I'm I'm I mean that's that's what I see the metaverse as being, I think.
00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:04.319
Well, I I will agree that there are definite places for real money in a digital world.
00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:12.559
And if it's a it's a digital world with no no game context that's limiting what makes sense, then then fine.
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:21.359
But what I mean I would query whether having a digital world made sense, because why would you want to be in that world?
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:25.279
Well, because because I don't like this one, just as you said earlier on.
00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:34.079
Yeah, but if the if the reason I don't like this one is because I'm a nobody and then I go online and I'm in a virtual world where I'm also a nobody, then I'm still a nobody.
00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:35.359
If I'm rich in this world.
00:32:35.759 --> 00:32:36.480
Nobody everywhere.
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:37.440
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:39.039
Universally no nobody.
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:47.440
But if I'm rich in this world and I go online and I'm still rich because I'm taking my money with me, well, yeah, obviously I'm going to be pleased.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:59.200
And obviously the people who are advocating their visions of the metaverse have all got, they're all the non-nobodies rather than the nobodies who will actually be populating it.
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:16.400
But thinking of what you can do in a metaverse that you can't do in the real world, well, yeah, I can pay for things with digital coins, perhaps, and um, and maybe um they won't get charged more than a what a credit card charges me, but still, what am I what am I doing there?
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:23.119
But to but to loop round to the point you made at the very beginning, you know, when you say, like, what why would the metaverse be different?
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:26.079
Is because there would be different use.
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:29.440
You could have different use in the metaverse.
00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:32.960
There might be there might be half a dozen of me in the metaverse.
00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:45.359
There's there's me the slam poet, you know, there's there's me the digital money person, there's me the you know, Manchester City fan club organizer or whatever.
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:54.160
Like in the metaverse, this idea of the partitioning, the experiment, but with economic value seems quite new to me.
00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:56.480
That is different from what we had in the past.
00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:59.920
Um it is, um, but we've tried it.
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:05.200
There's some similarities for things like Second Life, for things like Lambda Moo back in the day.
00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:07.440
But ultimately there's got to be a reason to be there.
00:34:07.599 --> 00:34:16.800
And if the reason to be there is, well, you can be somebody who isn't you, well, there are better places to be people who isn't you, and that's that's in game worlds.
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:32.400
If your reason to be there is I want to be the real me, but I can't be in the real world because in the real world everybody thinks I'm in a wheelchair, but it's here I'm not, or here I'm in a wheelchair and I'm gonna make sure everybody treats people in the real world better with a wheelchair, whatever your your your action is.
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:37.360
If you're there for a purpose, what are you doing other than that?
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:41.199
It's a solution that's not got a problem.
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:48.079
Let let me let me give you an example that uh that references one of Tracy's earlier comments about credentials and so on.
00:34:48.159 --> 00:35:02.639
So one of my one of my memories from the early days of web commerce, which goes back to that sort of similar kind of time, was I used to get an email newsletter about uh payment systems, just to benchmark how dull my life is.
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:04.800
I used to get an email newsletter.
00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:13.679
And one day we got an email from these people saying, sorry, we we you know we we just can't afford to do this anymore, so we need some donations to keep this going.
00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:17.920
And so I I thought uh actually our company will donate to that.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:19.360
We find it very useful, you know.
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:24.400
So I emailed back and said, Well, we're happy to chip in whatever it was,$500 a month or something.
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:25.920
I don't even remember what it was.
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:35.679
And the guy said, actually, that's fantastic, but to save on the paperwork and the bureaucracy, can you just send the money directly to our ISP instead of to us?
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:36.320
Fine.
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:38.719
Or their web hosting company or something.
00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:40.800
So we paid for their web hosting.
00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.920
And the newsletter turned up, and it was exactly the same.
00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:50.159
It had a little thing at the bottom which said, many thanks to Consult Hyperion or some words and famous.
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:51.920
And it was fantastic.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:36:11.039
And the thing about that was that was an important that you know, there was a there was a economic transaction that had value, that was free trade, that both parties entered into frequently, but was wholly based on reputation and not identity, in the sense that I had no idea who was actually producing that newsletter.
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:17.840
I didn't know if it was a company, room full of students, uh, a dedicated and enthusiastic individual.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:22.639
It could have been North Korean disinformation campaigners for all I knew.
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:31.679
But over time I'd found it very useful, and so its reputation had economic value, and I didn't care about the real identities of who was behind it.
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:37.679
And I I can't help but feeling there is a there is a different kind of economy that can grow around that sort of thing.
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:58.800
Just before Richard's um response to that, I'd throw in another thing that I wanted to ask you both, which is uh connected to that, which is if we're going to require biometrics to go along with our identity, which you know will then be some sort of uh fundamental that's required for the giving of credentials for you to use at some point.
00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:04.000
Aren't we going to need to connect to those biometrics when we're in the metaverse?
00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:12.400
So what I'm kind of asking is the digital identity system that relies on biometrics, isn't that going to have to be carried over into the metaverse?
00:37:12.480 --> 00:37:17.599
And then doesn't that throw up a whole load of questions about what our identity can or cannot be there?
00:37:18.239 --> 00:37:20.320
It depends what you're using the biometrics for.
00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:28.320
If you're using the biometrics for strong authentication against an online identity, by which I affect what you mean, cryptographic keys.
00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:37.679
So if if you're using the biometrics to authenticate me as the owner of these cryptographic keys, which are in essence the online identities, that's absolutely fine.
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:44.000
If you're using the biometrics to identify me, which of course is where biometrics is all going right.
00:37:45.039 --> 00:37:46.480
Well, this is why I asked the question.
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:46.880
Yeah.
00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:55.039
There's an interesting debate about online anonymity later today, actually, with um that I'm going to be listening to with with uh Jamie Bartlett, Easter on Demos.
00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:02.880
And I was talking to Jamie a while back about I can't remember what the context was, but biometrics in London, I think the police were using them.
00:38:03.039 --> 00:38:07.199
And he said, Well, of course, if this technology doesn't work, it's going to be an absolute nightmare.
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:09.840
But if it does work, it's going to be even worse.
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:12.159
And that's kind of how I feel about it.
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:21.039
So using biometrics to identify people, that's that surely isn't the metaverse of credentials and reputation and so on.
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:23.280
Well, yes, I I I agree.
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:37.119
The kind of dystopian world that um this presents, I can I can I can see players going straight to game worlds where they don't have to do that or to other subsites where they don't have to do that.
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:39.599
Because what have you got to hide?
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:42.159
Well, actually, quite a lot I've got to hide.
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:48.400
I don't want people coming along and um persecuting me for my views in any way whatsoever.
00:38:48.639 --> 00:38:53.679
And I don't want the government clamping down on what I say because it doesn't fit with what they um want.
00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:56.159
So yeah, I don't want any of this stuff.
00:38:56.480 --> 00:39:03.679
And if you're just using it for uh, as Dave says, the cryptographic keys, well, yeah, that's fine.
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:15.360
That's just uh to to unlock something to prove that it definitely belongs to the person who's who this body uh who has this body, but anything else, it takes away from humanity.
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:19.440
See, the thing is that identity isn't a a label.
00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:24.400
You're not walking around, I I walk around with Richard stamped on my forehead.
00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:26.800
But I can I can walk around with anything.
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:35.360
I mean, my World of Warcraft characters, well, I don't play that now in the but my my um Final Fantasy XIV characters uh that all got different names, all got different personalities.
00:39:35.519 --> 00:39:42.079
I play them different ways, but if they're all identifiable to be me, well, I couldn't do that, could I?
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:50.559
In economic economic terms, you can see how it'd be there for the security, you want to know where something came from, but it wouldn't just be used for economic terms.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:52.480
That's that's the problem.
00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:54.400
Control system.
00:39:54.639 --> 00:39:59.199
Now, I was we we gang almost onto tokenization and digital goods and assets.
00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:06.639
And one of the interesting stories I saw the other day was um, have you heard of uh the Bitmouse DAO?
00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:24.480
So this is a DAO that wants to inject Bitcoin into a mouse in a genetically modified virus, and uh and they want to then track the value of the mouse as it reflects the value of the Bitcoin market, I suppose, or the the price of Bitcoin.
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:36.159
And um, they've even gone so far as to say that uh actually the progeny of the mouse obviously will have this DNA, we'll have this altered DNA, and so obviously these baby mice will have uh Bitcoin within them.
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:40.480
And I just think okay, that's a maybe an interesting thought experiment.
00:40:40.800 --> 00:40:52.159
It's bringing the idea of identity in a virtual environment with exchange, with Bitcoin, but frankly, obviously, it's horrifically dystopian.
00:40:52.480 --> 00:41:02.639
Um, but it was reported in interesting engineering, and uh it made me think more about this idea of whether we're going to end up tokenizing ourselves.
00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:18.719
So if we've got property or we've got artwork or we've got other economic goods, if we do uh have economic goods that we feel are of value, and we're tokenizing them because we want somebody or a community to participate that in in that.
00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:22.719
Are we going to get to the point where we're almost tokenizing our own identity?
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:24.079
Is that even possible?
00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:28.480
Or um is that something that you think is beyond this?
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:31.039
Yeah, I think there's two there's two separate things there.
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:34.239
So there's will we use DNA for storage?
00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:39.039
The answer is yes, because DNA is a very dense data storage mechanism.
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:48.239
Although, of course, it would be unwise to use it for your Bitcoin keys because errors in the DNA transcription would eventually mean that you'd lose control of your keys.
00:41:48.559 --> 00:41:52.719
But the other point about self-tokenization, I mean, people are already beginning to experiment with this.
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:54.079
And I think it's really rather interesting.
00:41:54.159 --> 00:42:01.519
Someone said the thought experiment the other day, the way the way things work now, they they were using the example of the American pop singer.
00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:05.119
I can't think of her name now, the the famous American pop singer.
00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:08.000
Uh I can't think of her name, but woman pop singer.
00:42:08.159 --> 00:42:14.000
Um so so basically, you know, you have to go to a record company and get an advance and get management and all this sort of thing.
00:42:14.079 --> 00:42:24.960
And the alternative, which is you know, you sell tokens in yourself and people buy them, and then when you become famous, these tokens are worth more because you can use the tokens to get into your shows and things like that.
00:42:25.119 --> 00:42:26.880
That doesn't seem crazy to me at all.
00:42:27.039 --> 00:42:31.119
I mean, that sounds well, it's basically buying shares in somebody, aren't you?
00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:32.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:45.920
And and if you can do that in a token, I mean, the reason why the heavy duty finance people uh are interested in tokenization, again, isn't because of a commitment to anti-censure, whatever.
00:42:46.000 --> 00:43:00.320
It's because when you exchange tokens, if I if I sell Richard shares in me, that involves all sorts of mucking about with custodians and delivery versus payments and broker dealers and you know settlement and clearing.
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:04.719
And but if I sell Richard tokens in me, that's it.
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:05.599
End of story.
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.639
The tokens go from me to him, it's all over.
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:16.800
So this idea that tokenization provides a lower cost infrastructure for certain kinds of financial transactions, I I don't even think that's radical.
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:18.480
I think that's mainstream thinking now.
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:27.360
You know, the cost of financial intermediation has gone steadily up despite the invention of transistors and laser beams, and you know, this is a way of bringing it back down again.
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:33.280
Yeah, but it's the the question of when I'm buying a token in you, what am I actually buying?
00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:33.599
Yeah.
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:39.280
And it's always what rights come with my receipt of this token?
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:47.840
Is it just a picture of Dave sitting there smiling, or is it a case of um every single amount of uh income that Dave ever gets?
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:51.920
A small portion is directed towards me because I own a share in Dave.
00:43:52.239 --> 00:44:01.119
Well, this is why I distinguish between so when I'm I'm talking to people, I try to distinguish between uh tokens that are useful and Tokens that are useless.
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:04.559
So tokens that are useless, we call them art, by the way.
00:44:04.639 --> 00:44:08.079
So we so whether you want to value that or not is entirely up to you.
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:09.199
It's useless.
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:11.360
The value is entirely subjective.
00:44:11.840 --> 00:44:18.639
Tokens that can do something, get me into a concert or allow me to listen to some music or something, that's different.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:23.840
Those, you know, those things have um those things have a different economy around them.
00:44:24.159 --> 00:44:27.760
And I don't see why that economy won't grow.
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:32.880
In fact, I think you can see kind of little bits and pieces here that it already is growing.
00:44:33.199 --> 00:44:33.920
I concur.
00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:46.960
If if something's got an actual value to it, then whether you're buying a token or or in the past it would have been some series of legal paper having to sign, it's just a way of oiling the economy, and that makes it a lot easier.
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:55.360
And uh if it's a token that's on some blockchain or if it's a token that's just sitting in a database somewhere, then it doesn't really matter how it's implemented.
00:44:55.440 --> 00:45:01.599
It's just a case of what have I bought and what rights come with it, what have what have I actually bought?
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:17.280
But if you want to then take your token into another context where it doesn't make sense, so trying to pass my Dave Birch concert ticket or his poetry slams to someone else who who sings rather than writes poetry, well, that isn't going to work.
00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:19.360
But in a game world, it would be like that.
00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:34.559
It would be like trying to say, you've got this thing here, it transforms into this, and so you could easily imagine an online Lady Gaga fan club that you can't get into unless you've got an actual Lady Gaga ticket, you've been to an actual Lady Gaga concert or something like that.
00:45:34.719 --> 00:45:35.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:37.440
I saw I can see those things working.
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:48.719
Also, the to the point about the biometric authentication, the idea that you show up at the O2 with a ticket that's an NFT, but to actually use it, you've got to biometrically authenticate that you control the key.
00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:52.960
That actually to me sounds better, easier, and cheaper than what we have now.
00:45:53.119 --> 00:45:53.360
Yeah.
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:55.440
So there's every reason to go in that direction.
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:58.320
Why even bother with the token if it's just the biometrics?
00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:00.239
If I just need to put my thumbprint on, then that's the same thing.
00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:01.760
No, but that's by that's that's a fancy.
00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:03.760
But that's biometric identification.
00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:04.719
That's what we don't want.
00:46:04.800 --> 00:46:06.559
We don't want you to be identified.
00:46:08.159 --> 00:46:14.000
That's why that's why demonstrating possession of the token is better than just having your picture taken, you know.
00:46:14.400 --> 00:46:30.800
Because what I was interested in was whether, you know, we started off the conversation about how liberating some of these worlds can be and gaming can be, and you can be different personas, and you kind of come around to is there an accr increased commodification really of identity or personas or or whatever?
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:37.039
There's obviously commodification of goods and services within the metaverse or within games, but what about the self?
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:46.159
And I wondered if the increasing commodification, if it happens, of the self in this way is perhaps you know not so liberating and becomes a constraint.
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:54.239
But I guess this is one of the things, you know, that's going to be so fascinating to navigate over the next what decade about how this really does pan out.
00:46:54.320 --> 00:46:56.639
Is it liberating or does it become a constraint?
00:46:56.800 --> 00:46:57.199
I don't know.
00:46:57.360 --> 00:46:59.039
Final thoughts on that, maybe.
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:02.320
Too complicated for a podcast.
00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:06.800
Um but I am I am sort of broadly optimistic, I would say.
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:22.320
I would say that it's liberating if you can have multiple identities, not so liberating if you've only got one identity, and thoroughly oppressive if you have to display that identity to anybody who wants to see it.
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:25.280
It's just a case of um papers please, isn't it?
00:47:26.159 --> 00:47:26.800
Exactly.
00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:29.199
So I'm gonna ask you one final question.
00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:32.079
Uh, thank you so much for this fascinating tour de force.
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:34.079
I can't wait to listen back to it, actually.
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:48.480
There's so much richness in this, but I'm gonna ask you for one final thought on what action we should take on identity to ensure that actually does go in the direction we'd like to see it go that we've been discussing here.
00:47:48.719 --> 00:47:55.280
Whilst you think about that, I'm just gonna let our listeners know that I'll be speaking at the next TBD conference on March the 31st.
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:57.440
That's technology behaviour and data.
00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:00.639
Uh, the theme this year is hope and expectation of the future.
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:05.760
So, from big tech to activists, scientists to slam poets, Dave will be uh interested in.
00:48:06.639 --> 00:48:11.440
TBD isn't like any other conferences, it's uh it's fast and it goes for the throat.
00:48:11.599 --> 00:48:14.239
So join me and over 30 other speakers.
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:16.800
You've got a 25% off your ticket today.
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:23.599
Just use future view at the checkout and uh head over to at the TBDconference.com.
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:28.079
That's thetbdconference.com and uh pick up your discount today.
00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:32.159
Okay, Dave, Richard, final thoughts on action for identity.
00:48:33.199 --> 00:48:39.599
We need to stop thinking in terms of identity, like a national identity scheme and this sort of thing.
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:43.360
We need to start thinking in terms of credentials and reputation.
00:48:43.440 --> 00:49:02.800
And here I think interestingly, the pandemic, although nobody would have wanted that way, the pandemic has actually advanced the state of the art a little bit with developments around the W3C verifiable credentials standard and this idea about presenting credentials in order to do something instead of presenting passports or driving license or who you are.
00:49:03.039 --> 00:49:09.679
So I think shifting the focus back to what you said originally about reputation and credentials, I think is the way forward.
00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:15.760
Well, I I'm gonna have to change my answer now because um Dave's is better.
00:49:16.719 --> 00:49:24.159
Uh no, um for me, yeah, credentials, you are who you are, and you are what you do.
00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:30.480
And in a in the in a game world where which is where I come from, what you do is who you are.
00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:38.320
And the credentials that you have are all through your own actions, through what you have done that have influenced others.
00:49:38.400 --> 00:49:44.480
And and this is why when Dave said credentials rather than identity, I thought, ah, ah, that's right.
00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:57.440
It is it is about credentials, it's about being able to verify that you've jumped through the hoops, you're the one who can do it and has done it.
00:49:57.519 --> 00:49:59.599
Yeah, so that's great.
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:08.800
In a future episode, we are going to analyse the uh trust framework that's come out from the UK government in particular on sort of credentials and attributes and uh have a look more closely at that.
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:13.199
So uh maybe we'll return to you on that, but that's fascinating and a great conclusion.
00:50:13.519 --> 00:50:14.880
Thank you so much, both of you.
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:17.039
It's been wonderful to get the chance to speak to you.
00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:19.119
And uh thanks very much.
