‘Father of the Metaverse’ Neil Stephenson says current craze is exciting and confusing
2 min readThe term metaverse gained fame in 2021 and continues to move large companies around the world in 2022. Carrefour, Microsoft, Facebook, Intel and even personalities like Snoop Dogg have already announced their entry into the metaverse.
But what exactly is the metaverse? Opinions vary. In fact, the metaverse concept was proposed 30 years ago, when it was still a science fiction concept.
In 1992, the famous American science fiction writer Neil Stephenson proposed the concept of the metaverse in his novel “Avalanche”. In it, the author described the virtual world behind this concept.
As mentioned, it has been 30 years since Avalanche was published. Today, many infrastructures of Stephenson’s virtual world, such as social networks and artificial intelligence, have become reality.
Additionally, discussions in recent years about the infrastructure of the metaverse and whether the metaverse will cause chaos are also under discussion.
Recently, in an interview with the Beijing News, Stephenson spoke about his views on its creation, the pros and cons, and development trends of the metaverse.
“The metaverse is an exciting topic for many companies because it is a new area where many companies can develop new products to sell to consumers and profit from it. So my hope is that when the next generation of technology is unlocked, we can learn from the previous generation and try to do things that are constructive and useful.”
Marketing is the first stage
Stephenson said that the first phase of metaverse development is marketing. After all, many companies have started using the metaverse to describe their products and launch.
“I think the metaverse will be an exciting new technology for some time to come. As people become more interested and invested in the metaverse, there will be more types of products entering the market and more ideas to come,” he said.
As he pointed out, in the metaverse, you can make a lot of money or lose it all. Thus, the winners will be those who provide products and services that solve problems and make consumers happy.
Finally, the writer said that it is not possible to predict how the metaverse will develop:
“So opening the metaverse will be an adventure.”
