The metaverse is a simulated virtual world where people can socialize, work, and play via digital avatars of themselves rather than with their actual physical bodies
When Mark Zuckerberg announced last year that Facebook was changing its name to Meta and that, within five years, the company would transition from being primarily a social media company to a ‘metaverse’ one, many people were sceptical, confused, or downright scared.
The metaverse is a simulated virtual world where people can socialize, work, and play via digital avatars of themselves rather than with their actual physical bodies. While some elements of the metaverse, like virtual reality headsets, are already in use, most of the foundational technology underpinning the would-be metaverse doesn’t fully exist today, and by Zuckerberg’s estimates some of it could take up to 15 years to build.
Zuckerberg is going all-in on the idea, spending billions of dollars to develop futuristic technologies like neural interface wristbands and augmented reality smart glasses that will underpin this new virtual world. But some see the metaverse as a distraction from the many immediate issues that Facebook and Instagram are dealing with around users’ privacy, safety, and mental well-being – and are worried that these new technologies could cause more or worsen existing social problems.
To better understand the promise of the metaverse and the challenges confronting it, Recode spoke with Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Meta, who recently wrote an 8,000-word essay on the topic.
Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom who is accustomed to political pushback, accepted some of the criticisms of this developing virtual world: that it’s still largely hypothetical, it involves ‘data intensive’ technology, and it could be misused.
That’s precisely why, Clegg argues, we should be having these philosophical debates about the metaverse today while much of the technology is still in its relative infancy rather than after it’s fully developed and potentially used by billions the way Facebook and Instagram are today.
One of the reasons why it is a good idea to talk about the future now rather than, in a sense, be surprised by it when it arrives is that it does allow us to have some of those early discussions about the ethical, societal, possibly even regulatory debates, said Clegg. And that arguably didn’t happen the last time around.
