UAE: Repeating internet's past mistakes will leave metaverse 'out of our control', says expert

The digital transformation to metaverse, the next generation of the Internet, is a golden opportunity for humanity to create an open and transparent digital space not controlled by a few, an expert told the Emirates News Agency (WAM).

"But there is a very much a chance that we make the same mistakes as we did with the current form of the internet [Web 2.0], and during the transition from the first generation of the world wide web [Web 1.0] to the Web 2.0," Dr. Mark van Rijmenam, a leading future tech strategist, said, referring to leaving the control of digital space to big giants, without a level playing field.

Analogue species to digital species

"Metaverse will host 100 times more data that we create today.  It is such a massive transition as we move from analogue species to digital species, from Homo sapiens to Homo digitalis," said the Dutch expert who was a speaker at the recently held Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi.

"Therefore, it is very important we educate ourselves about creating an open metaverse, which is open and transparent and not owned and controlled by quite a few," he asserted. Rijmenam has written three best-selling books on big data, blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and metaverse – the next generation of the internet providing a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users. The metaverse will offer a simulated digital environment using augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain, along with concepts from social media, to create spaces for rich user interaction imitating the real world.

Big tech's unreliable data handling

He said he does not trust big tech that make huge investments in metaverse because some of them do not have a good history of dealing with customer data in a correct way that is trustworthy, reliable, private, and secure. Hence, he sincerely hopes such big tech do not succeed in metaverse.

Rijmenam is the author of the book titled 'Step into the Metaverse: How the Immersive Internet Will Unlock a Trillion-Dollar Social Economy,' that details what the open metaverse is and how organisations and consumers can benefit from the immersive internet.

He envisages an open metaverse "where we own our own data, own our own digital assets, and own our own identity. Because data is crucial, if we do not want to end up in a dystopian future where the metaverse is owned by one central entity or one person."

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Lazy humanity likely to repeat mistakes

Now obviously, he pointed out, "We need technology for that, and the upcoming third generation of the World Wide Web [Web 3.0] technology enables the infrastructure layer of an open internet. However, no matter how much I want that to happen, there's a very big challenge," the tech expert warned.

"It may not happen because people are lazy, and we always want to go to easy way and easy routes. So, there is a very much a chance that we make the same mistakes as we did with Web 2.0 and during the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0," he explained.