1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:22,600
Hello everyone!

2
00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:29,600
So welcome to this 12th week of the University of Nicosia's

3
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,600
free MOOC on NFTs and the metaverse.

4
00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:37,600
I'm George Giaglis and I'm honored and privileged to be joined by

5
00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:42,600
Punk 6529 as always.

6
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:45,600
This is an important session today.

7
00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:50,600
It's not the last one in the course, as I will be explaining in a while we have quite a 
few super interesting guest sessions and panels  

8
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:53,600
coming up in the next couple of weeks.

9
00:00:53,600 --> 00:01:00,600
But today is the last of the, let's call them main or core

10
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:03,600
sessions of this course.

11
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:09,600
It's the 12th week of this program that 6529 and I designed a few

12
00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:17,600
months ago to provide people with a holistic overview of the

13
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:22,600
NFT and Metaverse and Web3 space.

14
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:27,600
And you will be the judges of whether we've done a good job on

15
00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:29,600
that or not.

16
00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:34,600
I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank

17
00:01:34,600 --> 00:01:40,600
6529 both for his great insights in designing the course and

18
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:45,600
delivering this material, but also for his whole presence in

19
00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:47,600
this space.

20
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:52,600
I think I'm not exaggerating if I say that he has been the

21
00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:58,600
person that has influenced our thinking on decentralization and

22
00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:02,600
the need for openness in web3 more than probably anyone else in

23
00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:03,600
this space.

24
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:07,600
Anyway, the topic of today's metaverse 2030,

25
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:13,600
so it's going to be really interesting to hear 6529's views on

26
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:18,600
the future of the internet and how it fits with the history of

27
00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:21,600
its development so far.

28
00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:26,600
But before doing that, I would like to start by giving you an

29
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:32,600
update on course logistics since this is the last core session

30
00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:36,600
of the course and I know that many of you will have questions

31
00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:41,600
related to the final exam and how we're going to schedule the next

32
00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:44,600
few weeks from here.

33
00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:49,600
Before I start, let me say that as always this is a work in

34
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:52,600
progress, this is an experiment that is happening live, we are

35
00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:58,600
experimenting on how to do a fully on-chain in the metaverse

36
00:02:58,600 --> 00:02:59,600
course.

37
00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:04,600
So I know that I'm not going to answer all your questions related

38
00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:06,600
to the exams today.

39
00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:09,600
There are some things that we're still thinking about and we will

40
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:14,600
finalize in the coming weeks, but I'm going to give you our

41
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:17,600
thinking as it is now.

42
00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:21,600
I'm going to announce a few things that you need to know in

43
00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:24,600
order to prepare and take the final exams.

44
00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:28,600
But if you have additional questions, please post them on

45
00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:35,600
Twitter, on Discord and in the OM today and in the next weeks.

46
00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:41,600
Even those questions that we will not answer today, we are

47
00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:46,600
creating an FAQ section both on the course website and on this

48
00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:50,600
court as a pinned message in the course channel.

49
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:54,600
So we will be adding answers to your questions as they come

50
00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:57,600
along in the next few days and weeks.

51
00:03:57,600 --> 00:04:03,600
So let me start by addressing a little bit the final exam.

52
00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:08,600
First of all, I guess everyone will want to know when and where

53
00:04:08,600 --> 00:04:12,600
will the exams take place.

54
00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:18,600
We are, as I said, we have a couple of, not a couple, quite a few

55
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:22,600
guest sessions following up in the next couple of weeks.

56
00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:27,600
So we are scheduling the exams for the second half of February.

57
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:32,600
So between the 15th and the 28th of February, we will announce

58
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:36,600
the exact date and time soon.

59
00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:40,600
What we do in other MOOCs, those of you that have taken one of

60
00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:44,600
University of Nicosia's other MOOCs will know it, is that we

61
00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:49,600
usually keep the exam open for a full 24-hour period.

62
00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:53,600
So you will have like two hours to finish the exam from the time

63
00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:58,600
you started, but you can start it at any time during the day that

64
00:04:58,600 --> 00:04:59,600
the exam is open.

65
00:04:59,600 --> 00:05:03,600
I think this is the model that we will be following this time as

66
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:07,600
well, but we'll give you details as soon as we have them.

67
00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:12,600
What I can say at this stage is that as we do everything in this

68
00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:16,600
course, the exam will be held on-chain, and I will explain later

69
00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:18,600
on what this means.

70
00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:20,600
Who can participate in the exam?

71
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:23,600
You will need the course access token in your wallet.

72
00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:27,600
So as you know, we don't know you by name.

73
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:32,600
We have registered students in this course by having everyone

74
00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,600
mint a course access token.

75
00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:41,600
We didn't, we made the decision not to use this token to

76
00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,600
to gate and control access to the course material.

77
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:48,600
We wanted to have all the material available to everyone because

78
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:52,600
this is, you know, the model of free education that we

79
00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:57,600
believe in, but you will need the course access token to be able

80
00:05:57,600 --> 00:05:58,600
to access the final exam.

81
00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:03,600
So make sure that you do have the token and you know in which

82
00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:07,600
wallet, in which Ethereum address this is stored because this

83
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:12,600
is the Ethereum address with which you will need to log in the

84
00:06:12,600 --> 00:06:17,600
exam website when the time comes to take the exam.

85
00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:19,600
What's the format of the exam?

86
00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:23,600
It's going to be a multiple choice quiz, most likely consisting

87
00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:27,600
of 50 multiple choice questions.

88
00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:32,600
Each question having up to four possible answers of which in

89
00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:35,600
some questions one answer will be correct.

90
00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:39,600
Other questions might have multiple correct answers and the

91
00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:44,600
different types of questions will be noted in the exam.

92
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:45,600
What is the passing grade?

93
00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:50,600
You will need to score 60% or higher in the exam in order to

94
00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:54,600
pass it and if you pass the exam and you want to do so, you

95
00:06:54,600 --> 00:07:00,600
will be able to claim the certificate of completion NFT that

96
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:05,600
we will give to students that pass the exam.

97
00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:08,600
How will this certificate be sent?

98
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,600
Those of you that have passed the exam will be allowlisted to

99
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:16,600
meet the certificate as an Ethereum NFT as we've said from

100
00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:21,600
the beginning the minting course will be 0.25 Ether plus the

101
00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:27,600
gas fees that you will need to pay depending on the on the

102
00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:31,600
gas on Ethereum at the time of minting.

103
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:36,600
Again, I need to stress that this is not a mandatory step.

104
00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:39,600
You can take the exam, you can pass the exam and still not

105
00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:43,600
claim the NFT certificate of completion so everything will

106
00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:48,600
be 100% free for you.

107
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:49,600
How do you prepare for the exam?

108
00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:52,600
What material you need to study?

109
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:56,600
We will be basing the multiple choice questions on the material

110
00:07:56,600 --> 00:07:59,600
that is included in the main presentation slides.

111
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:04,600
When I say main presentation slides, I mean the 12 decks that

112
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:09,600
comprise the weeks 1 to 12 of this course.

113
00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,600
All these presentations are accessible in GitHub.

114
00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:18,600
You know the address and it's also linked in the course website.

115
00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:24,600
And you may want to watch the video sessions in which

116
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:29,600
6529, i and guests have been presenting the slides.

117
00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,600
I think this will help you prepare the exam.

118
00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:36,600
But you should be able to take the exam and prepare for it by

119
00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,600
reading through the presentation slides.

120
00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:42,600
The guest sessions are optional.

121
00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:44,600
I think they have been super interesting.

122
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:47,600
I think the ones that are coming up are also super interesting.

123
00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:52,600
But we will not have any questions drawing from material that

124
00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:56,600
has not been addressed in the main presentations and has only

125
00:08:56,600 --> 00:09:00,600
been discussed in the optional session.

126
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:04,600
Some of you will not have the access token because they joined

127
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:05,600
the course later.

128
00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:09,600
As I said, we made a decision not to make this mandatory, but

129
00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,600
we still want to take the exam.

130
00:09:12,600 --> 00:09:14,600
I'm afraid this is not possible.

131
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:18,600
So you will not be able to take the exam unless you have the

132
00:09:18,600 --> 00:09:20,600
course access token.

133
00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:25,600
At this point in time, your best bet is to go to the secondary

134
00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:27,600
market and acquire it.

135
00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:30,600
It is pretty cheap.

136
00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:34,600
I mean, I checked this morning and the floor price for the

137
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:36,600
unique access token on Opensea was less than $5.

138
00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:41,600
So I hope this would not be an obstacle for anyone that wants

139
00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:42,600
to take the exam.

140
00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:47,600
If for any reason you do not want, you cannot acquire the

141
00:09:47,600 --> 00:09:51,600
course access token, then your other option is obviously to wait

142
00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:53,600
until the next iteration of the course.

143
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:57,600
I don't want to commit 6529 to anything that we've been

144
00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:01,600
discussing how we are going to repeat this with updated material

145
00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:03,600
and new guests in the future.

146
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:08,600
So those of you that for whatever reason do not want or cannot

147
00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:12,600
take the exam at this point in time, there will be opportunities

148
00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:13,600
in the future.

149
00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:17,600
Although, obviously, this is the genesis co-hort of this class.

150
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:22,600
So I guess receiving the NFT of completion might have a

151
00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:27,600
sentimental value for everyone in the future.

152
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:30,600
You will be able to find more information on as always on

153
00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:35,600
our Twitter account, the UNIC Metaverse, our Discord channel,

154
00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:36,600
join unique.

155
00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:41,600
We will be announcing the date and all details about the exam

156
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:42,600
there.

157
00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:47,600
Some more technical information about how the exam will take

158
00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:48,600
place.

159
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:52,600
You don't really need to know this, but just to give you a

160
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:56,600
glimpse of what's happening under the hood as we are preparing

161
00:10:56,600 --> 00:10:57,600
for the exam.

162
00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:02,600
As I've said, we want to make the exam fully on-chain so you

163
00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:07,600
will be able to access the exam through your browser.

164
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:12,600
The exam itself, so the exam paper will be minted as an NFT

165
00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:14,600
token that will be encrypted.

166
00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:19,600
So unless you have the course access token, you will be able

167
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:26,600
to see this NFT, you will be able to check its metadata, but

168
00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:31,600
you will not be able to access the actual content of the exam.

169
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:36,600
Obviously, you will need to connect your metamask or other

170
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:39,600
Ethereum compatible wallet that contains the course access

171
00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:43,600
token, as I've said, to be able to access the exam.

172
00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:47,600
Once you do so, once you access the exam, your browser will be

173
00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:51,600
revealing the questions, whether this will be 50 or another

174
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:55,600
number, we still haven't finalized, but the questions will be

175
00:11:55,600 --> 00:11:57,600
revealed to you one by one.

176
00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:00,600
You will be able to answer the question, each question, and

177
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:01,600
move to the next.

178
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:05,600
And at the end of the quiz, you will be asked by your wallet

179
00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:10,600
to sign your responses before sending them for validation.

180
00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:15,600
Once this happens, your responses will be recorded on the

181
00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,600
Ethereum blockchain, there will be a transaction that's going

182
00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:21,600
to be broadcasted on the network.

183
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:27,600
We're working on a zero-no-let proof architecture that will

184
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:32,600
preserve both your personal privacy and the privacy of your

185
00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:34,600
answers from everyone.

186
00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:39,600
So no one will be able to see your responses, but you will

187
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,600
be able to validate that you have actually taken the exam

188
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:45,600
and submitted these responses.

189
00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:48,600
Your final grade will be automatically computed.

190
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:53,600
Our idea is that we will not grade the exams manually, but we

191
00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:58,600
will have the smart contract of the exam doing the computation

192
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:03,600
and revealing your final grade to you, along with the

193
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,600
cryptographic proof that verifying the whole process,

194
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:12,600
and if you have passed, then your personal NFT certificate of

195
00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:16,600
completion will be minted, will be rendered on your screen,

196
00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:21,600
and if you want, you will be able to mint it as an NFT and store

197
00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:25,600
it in your personal wallet for perpetuity.

198
00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:30,600
At this point in time, we haven't decided on details regarding

199
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:35,600
the look, feel, and characteristics of the completion

200
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:37,600
NFT.

201
00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:41,600
So for example, we're still debating whether this should be a

202
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,600
sold-bound token or not, whether you should be able,

203
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:49,600
obviously you won't be able to sell it, but we understand that

204
00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:56,600
people might want to transfer it to other wallets that they own.

205
00:13:56,600 --> 00:14:02,600
So we will be working on a design that preserves these first

206
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:05,600
principles.

207
00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:10,600
Needless to say, if any of you have further questions, have ideas

208
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:15,600
regarding how we should go about doing a fully on-site privacy

209
00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:20,600
preserving exam and how we should be designing the course

210
00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:25,600
completion certificate, please reach out to me via email or on

211
00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:28,600
Twitter or on Discord.

212
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:33,600
I'll be more than happy to hear your ideas and discuss them with

213
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:36,600
6529.

214
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:42,600
Now finally, before I give the floor to 6529, I told you

215
00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:47,600
that although this is the final course session of the course,

216
00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:51,600
we have at least five very, very important sessions coming up

217
00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:56,600
with guests happening next week and the week after.

218
00:14:56,600 --> 00:15:02,600
So we will have a panel, four panel discussions, one about

219
00:15:02,600 --> 00:15:07,600
the metaverse, one on generative art, one on NFT photography,

220
00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:10,600
and one on crypto-art NFTs.

221
00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:13,600
As you see in this slide, I'm not going to go through the

222
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:15,600
names.

223
00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:20,600
It's a super impressive list of people participating in this

224
00:15:20,600 --> 00:15:24,600
panel, so I would encourage you to attend all of them if you can live

225
00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:27,600
attend the course of the course.

226
00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:32,600
And we will have a final discussion closing this course with

227
00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:39,600
none other than Balaji Srinivasan alongside

228
00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:46,600
Punk 6529, one of my top favorite thinkers in this space.

229
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:52,600
The author of the network state, if you have missed his latest

230
00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:56,600
book, I strongly encourage you to read it.

231
00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:00,600
We were talking with Balaji and we're trying to fix a date for

232
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:05,600
having him live in the course, so we will be announcing this soon.

233
00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:09,600
We should be finishing with all these panels in the first week

234
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:10,600
of February.

235
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:15,600
That's why I said second week or later will be the date of

236
00:16:15,600 --> 00:16:16,600
exam.

237
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:18,600
So that's all from me.

238
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:23,600
Once again, if you have questions regarding to the course

239
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:28,600
logistics final exam or course certificate, please hit me up

240
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:35,600
on Discord, Twitter or via email and monitor these channels as we

241
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:41,600
will be updating our FAQs regarding this material.

242
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:45,600
Without further ado, I'm going to give the floor to 6529

243
00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:50,600
now to take us through the topic of the day, which is

244
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:53,600
metaverse 2030 in the vision of the future of work theory.

245
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:54,600
Thank you.

246
00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:57,600
Thank you, George.

247
00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:00,600
And I know it was just a good point.

248
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,600
All of you might happen earlier than some of you, so you might not

249
00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:07,600
close with Balaji and I was talking to him today.

250
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:09,600
And so that might happen in the next few days.

251
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:12,600
Maybe depends on trying to schedule for the last few weeks.

252
00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:18,600
And it's possible we have a couple of other sessions between

253
00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:25,600
the panels and the, um, what's the word I'm looking for?

254
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:30,600
And the examination, depending on when your team is ready with

255
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:31,600
the exam.

256
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:39,600
But I think as a general rule, we still have quite a few great

257
00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:42,600
speakers on panels coming.

258
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:49,600
So I'm really excited about this and look forward to the last few

259
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:51,600
weeks of the course.

260
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:52,600
All right.

261
00:17:52,600 --> 00:17:57,600
Today's session is going to be highly conceptual.

262
00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:03,600
There are not, this is not something that has a lot of

263
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:07,600
detailed material out in the world.

264
00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:12,600
I believe it is a topic that is generally poorly understood,

265
00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:20,600
underthought about, and definitely vastly under worried about,

266
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:25,600
um, by not just the average person.

267
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:27,600
It's not too surprising.

268
00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:32,600
But even by people who should know better, even by policymakers,

269
00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:37,600
even by advocates for democracy, even by advocates for

270
00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:38,600
constitutional rights.

271
00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:46,600
Um, there is a small number of us, as George mentioned,

272
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:53,600
but also folks like John Robb would deeply worried about this.

273
00:18:53,600 --> 00:19:01,600
And like 99.999999% of the world who has thought about the

274
00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:06,600
world, who hasn't thought about this at all, is not worried about

275
00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:07,600
it at all.

276
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:12,600
And quite frankly, if you talk about it with them, they might think

277
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:15,600
this is all a bit absurd.

278
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:17,600
Um, but I'm sure it's not absurd.

279
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,600
And I'll try and give a sense of what I'm worried about, what I

280
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:22,600
think we can do.

281
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:26,600
And in all cases, actually, it's quite challenging.

282
00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:31,600
So, oh, that slides wrong.

283
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:32,600
Okay.

284
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:37,600
Let's start with what is the Internet?

285
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:43,600
And, you know, for someone who might be joining the Internet now,

286
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:55,600
in 2020 or 2023 or 2010, as a mature system with large applications,

287
00:19:55,600 --> 00:20:00,600
it might not be exactly obvious what the Internet is or what it was

288
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:01,600
designed to be.

289
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,600
And what it was designed to be is very simple.

290
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:10,600
It was designed to be a network of networks.

291
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:15,600
The way to imagine it is to think that there was a time where people

292
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:22,600
had a variety of their own networks within an office, within a

293
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:26,600
government, within an academic institution.

294
00:20:26,600 --> 00:20:30,600
And those networks did not necessarily interoperate with each other,

295
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:33,600
did not necessarily communicate with each other.

296
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:42,600
And the idea behind the Internet wasn't to build the one top

297
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:47,600
down network that everyone has to use.

298
00:20:47,600 --> 00:20:55,600
The idea was to allow people to make their networks interoperate

299
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:56,600
with each other.

300
00:20:56,600 --> 00:21:01,600
A network of networks.

301
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:03,600
Not a network.

302
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:10,600
And if you go back to 1972, famously, the Internet was in some

303
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:12,600
ways invented a DARPA.

304
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:16,600
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the United

305
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:18,600
States government.

306
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:24,600
And as the theory went back then, it was designed to create a

307
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:29,600
communication network that would be resilient to a nuclear attack

308
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:33,600
because it would be decentralized, because it would be one point

309
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:35,600
of failure.

310
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:42,600
And the original four concepts behind the Internet were these

311
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,600
following, and it goes to the theory of a network of networks.

312
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:48,600
So it was actually, we should actually read them, they're

313
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,600
interesting.

314
00:21:51,600 --> 00:21:55,600
But each network had to stand on its own, and no internal changes

315
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:58,600
could be required of each network before being connected to

316
00:21:58,600 --> 00:21:59,600
Internet.

317
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:04,600
So this makes sense if you communicate among your devices

318
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:11,600
within your own network, in your house or business.

319
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:15,600
You don't have to change how you do that so long as you then

320
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:19,600
communicate in the standard-based way once you connect to the

321
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:20,600
Internet.

322
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:23,600
Now in practice, most internal networks now are also

323
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:26,600
communicating in a similar way as the Internet.

324
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:32,600
But that was not and is not a design protocol.

325
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:37,600
Second, communication is a best efforts exercise.

326
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,600
So you try and move the packets forward.

327
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,600
If it doesn't work, you retranslate, you try again.

328
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:49,600
It gives redundancy resilience.

329
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:52,600
Quote, unquote black boxes, and it's funny because our black

330
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:57,600
boxes have been, it's entered the vernacular for a whole

331
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:02,600
variety of usages.

332
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:07,600
But what we mean really are the routers in the gateways.

333
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,600
Connect the networks and they don't.

334
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,600
They're not content aware.

335
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:15,600
They're a black box.

336
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:16,600
They just move.

337
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:20,600
They just move the data further down.

338
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:25,600
And for our purposes, the last one is the most important,

339
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:31,600
which is no global control at the operations level.

340
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:40,600
There's no, one place that is in charge of the Internet.

341
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:45,600
There's no CEO of the Internet.

342
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,600
There's no Internet incorporated.

343
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:58,600
There's not one person or function or organization whose

344
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:05,600
permission you need to ask to use the Internet.

345
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:06,600
Why?

346
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,600
Because the Internet is not a thing in and of itself.

347
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,600
It's a way for people's individual networks to communicate

348
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,600
with each other.

349
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:20,600
It is perfectly possible that say the University of

350
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,600
Nicosia says, if you want to be on my internal network,

351
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:28,600
you have to get the permission of the IT network.

352
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:29,600
Makes sense.

353
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,600
That's their network.

354
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:39,600
But there's nobody whose permission you have to ask to

355
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,600
start transmitting packets across the Internet.

356
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:46,600
And this has two implications.

357
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:51,600
The first implication is that everything we're going to

358
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:56,600
talk about relating to decentralization is not some type

359
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:05,600
of radical anarchist thing that nobody has ever done before.

360
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,600
This is quite literally how the Internet works.

361
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:14,600
And I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that the Internet has

362
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:18,600
been an immense boon to global society.

363
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,600
And the fact that we can communicate globally with each

364
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:26,600
other in all types of ways is a huge plus for humanity.

365
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:33,600
And then the second part is a huge reason the Internet has

366
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:39,600
become, what the Internet has become, is because you do not

367
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:45,600
need someone's permission to connect a server to the Internet

368
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,600
and start serving data.

369
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:53,600
If this was, and I know it might be hard for people to

370
00:25:53,600 --> 00:26:03,600
conceptualize, but there was a time where before the app stores,

371
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,600
it's funny because the app stores are also permissioned,

372
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,600
but it's even easier to think about this one, where the phone

373
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:14,600
carriers decided what applications would run your phones.

374
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:20,600
And so if you wanted to have, you made a new application,

375
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:25,600
let's say you made WhatsApp.

376
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:38,600
You have to go to AT&T and say, I would like to convince you

377
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:47,600
to allow me to use WhatsApp to install WhatsApp on the

378
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:49,600
devices of the network.

379
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,600
In AT&T, I'm going to say, oh, what does WhatsApp do?

380
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,600
Oh, it's free text messages, basically.

381
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:58,600
Except it's better.

382
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,600
It's better than text messages.

383
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:04,600
You can do pictures, videos.

384
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:10,600
But this is going to compete with my text messaging services.

385
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:11,600
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

386
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:12,600
It's better than that.

387
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:14,600
People are going to like it more.

388
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:20,600
And AT&T is going to say, well, you want me to sign off and

389
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:28,600
give you access to all of my brand and customers and

390
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:31,600
installed base so you can compete with me.

391
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,600
You're saying, oh, that sounds good, right?

392
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:35,600
I'm going to jump in the lake.

393
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:39,600
Of course, I'm not going to let you run in my network.

394
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,600
Or let's say you're going to take the other end of the

395
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:43,600
spectrum.

396
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,600
You say, here's my application.

397
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:48,600
Oh, what does your application do?

398
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,600
And if you press the button in your application,

399
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,600
it makes farting sounds.

400
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,600
Excuse me, what do you mean it makes farting sounds?

401
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,600
I mean, the phone will make a farting sound.

402
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,600
You're now AT&T.

403
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,600
My Bell, the glory of the American telecommunications

404
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:12,600
industry.

405
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:21,600
You say, you expect me, under the AT&T brand, to make available

406
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,600
to my customers.

407
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,600
The parents of America, the mothers and fathers of America,

408
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:35,600
you want me to make available a farting up?

409
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:37,600
I'll get fired.

410
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,600
The board of directors will, someone will show a board

411
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,600
and there will be shocked, horrified, and they'll fire me.

412
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:48,600
Of course, you can't have a farting up.

413
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:54,600
And you might say, oh, I don't know, the farting up

414
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:55,600
existence.

415
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,600
Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't.

416
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,600
But the important point is, once you build these choke points

417
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:12,600
in, they will be used for the purposes of the organization.

418
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,600
They will be used for the purposes and business objectives

419
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,600
of the organization, whether they are very serious business

420
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:20,600
objectives.

421
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,600
They don't want someone to compete with their text message

422
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:26,600
insurance.

423
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,600
Or maybe their indirect business objectives.

424
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,600
A brand manager of AT&T or the CEO of AT&T thinks the AT&T

425
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:37,600
brand stands for something and that something doesn't include

426
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:41,600
farts.

427
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:45,600
The Internet is not like that.

428
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,600
You can connect to the Internet.

429
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,600
Make a website.

430
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,600
Press a button on the website and your website can make

431
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,600
farting sounds.

432
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:01,600
No one can tell you, oh, this is very brand inappropriate for

433
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:02,600
the Internet.

434
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,600
We can't allow this.

435
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:06,600
You're going to have to take this down because it's just a

436
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:07,600
communication protocol.

437
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,600
It's a way to connect the network.

438
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:10,600
It's a network of networks.

439
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,600
It's a way for networks to talk to each other.

440
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:20,600
And the fact that we can do silly things, important things,

441
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:25,600
things that seem silly but then turn out to be important,

442
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,600
Twitter to me is the definitive example.

443
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,600
Everyone thought Twitter was absurd at first.

444
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,600
Not that important.

445
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:40,600
And now it's a major communication platform for presidents

446
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:43,600
and prime ministers.

447
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,600
But this was also true of Facebook.

448
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,600
You can read things from Facebook first started.

449
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,600
Oh, what a terrible idea.

450
00:30:52,600 --> 00:31:00,600
It's a platform for college kids who have no money and have

451
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,600
nothing better to do to chat with each other.

452
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:06,600
This doesn't sound very serious.

453
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:11,600
This was the public process at the beginning of Facebook.

454
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:12,600
Why would this be worth anything?

455
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,600
Why does this matter?

456
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:20,600
And so societies are better when they allow you to

457
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:27,600
permissionly innovate because there will be many bad ideas.

458
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,600
Like Facebook and Twitter, you know, Facebook and Twitter

459
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,600
have survivorship bias.

460
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,600
There were many, many ideas tried on the Internet, most of

461
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:41,600
which tried and failed.

462
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,600
But the ones that succeeded changed the world.

463
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,600
And those typically don't come from some central planning type

464
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,600
function they come from.

465
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,600
The marketplace of ideas.

466
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:59,600
So one, I just made a utility based case for society society

467
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,600
who have better products and services if you let people

468
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,740
go to their own

469
00:32:06,740 --> 00:32:10,740
business.

470
00:32:10,740 --> 00:32:16,740
But there's also a human dignity, human expression, human freedom case.

471
00:32:16,740 --> 00:32:22,740
A world where you're allowed to make a farting application,

472
00:32:22,740 --> 00:32:26,740
a specific one, picking that type of example.

473
00:32:26,740 --> 00:32:31,740
Obviously I picked an example that says a world where you're allowed to make a website to teach

474
00:32:31,740 --> 00:32:35,740
mathematics.

475
00:32:35,740 --> 00:32:39,740
Of course our centralized services are going to allow you to make websites to teach mathematics.

476
00:32:39,740 --> 00:32:43,740
How free a society is, how many rights and how much

477
00:32:43,740 --> 00:32:51,740
do you have as a citizen of a society, is when you're allowed to do things that

478
00:32:51,740 --> 00:32:55,740
poke front of the people in the know.

479
00:32:55,740 --> 00:32:59,740
Or maybe not as desirable by the people in the know.

480
00:32:59,740 --> 00:33:03,740
Our view is possibly not having dignity.

481
00:33:03,740 --> 00:33:07,740
This is how a free society operates.

482
00:33:07,740 --> 00:33:13,740
So the internet, by its design, was a form of free society.

483
00:33:13,740 --> 00:33:19,740
Now that design was designed that way for resiliency.

484
00:33:19,740 --> 00:33:23,740
More so than, I think, permissionless innovation.

485
00:33:23,740 --> 00:33:31,740
But those design choices that built that resiliency were also the same design choices as gave us permissionless innovation.

486
00:33:31,740 --> 00:33:35,740
And they gave us the internet we have today.

487
00:33:35,740 --> 00:33:39,740
It's very, very important.

488
00:33:39,740 --> 00:33:43,740
And everything, this is the basis for everything else we're going to talk about.

489
00:33:43,740 --> 00:33:47,740
It's not as if none of these things have been done before.

490
00:33:47,740 --> 00:33:51,740
They've been done.

491
00:33:51,740 --> 00:33:55,740
And so, the internet is used on every day.

492
00:33:55,740 --> 00:33:59,740
It's called the internet.

493
00:33:59,740 --> 00:34:01,740
And it works great.

494
00:34:01,740 --> 00:34:04,740
Now, this is like the good news.

495
00:34:04,740 --> 00:34:06,740
What's the bad news?

496
00:34:06,740 --> 00:34:11,740
Well, the internet, its basically every level is centralized.

497
00:34:11,740 --> 00:34:19,740
And this comes from

498
00:34:19,740 --> 00:34:27,740
the hardware and network layer all the way up. Right?

499
00:34:27,740 --> 00:34:33,740
From bottom up, you start with internet service providers.

500
00:34:33,740 --> 00:34:43,740
Most countries, or most locations in most countries, have a monopoly, a duopoly, or an oligopoly of service providers.

501
00:34:43,740 --> 00:34:55,740
Since they're the ones who are transmitting the packets for most people, they're a two-point.

502
00:34:55,740 --> 00:35:00,740
If it's hard to imagine what the alternative is, I call you, but I got to get into it from somewhere, right?

503
00:35:00,740 --> 00:35:07,740
I'm going to get Comcast, or AT&T, or what have you, right?

504
00:35:07,740 --> 00:35:09,740
How could it work a different way?

505
00:35:09,740 --> 00:35:13,740
Well, a different way, and this is not mature yet, but a different way would be what's called,

506
00:35:13,740 --> 00:35:22,740
MESH Network, where even the physical communication is going peer to peer from device to device,

507
00:35:22,740 --> 00:35:29,740
that there is not one single point that says,

508
00:35:29,740 --> 00:35:36,740
this data can come to this point, and this data cannot.

509
00:35:36,740 --> 00:35:43,740
We don't feel this so much in the West, but ISPs are a problem.

510
00:35:43,740 --> 00:35:55,740
When Egypt was having its one of the various social movements, and people were coordinating through the internet,

511
00:35:55,740 --> 00:36:05,740
and Egypt has, I believe, and I can't say I'm an expert on Egyptian ISPs, but what I remember just reading the news there,

512
00:36:05,740 --> 00:36:11,740
the government at some point just shut down the internet for the whole country.

513
00:36:11,740 --> 00:36:16,740
It's just called Egypt Telecom, or whatever it's called, and I'm like, it just shut it down.

514
00:36:16,740 --> 00:36:19,740
No, this is a bad productivity, right?

515
00:36:19,740 --> 00:36:26,740
Sure, sure. It's right about the productivity, but on the other hand, we want the social movement to stop,

516
00:36:26,740 --> 00:36:32,740
so just turn off the internet, and because you had one service provider, you could turn off.

517
00:36:32,740 --> 00:36:36,740
It's one level, second level.

518
00:36:36,740 --> 00:36:42,740
Cloud hosting.

519
00:36:42,740 --> 00:36:44,740
Cloud hosting is fantastic, right?

520
00:36:44,740 --> 00:36:47,740
Our exam is on the web services for all types of things.

521
00:36:47,740 --> 00:36:50,740
It's convenient.

522
00:36:50,740 --> 00:36:56,740
It's fast, it's high-performance, it has all types of features, it's less work.

523
00:36:56,740 --> 00:36:59,740
That is a point of centralization.

524
00:36:59,740 --> 00:37:04,740
You see this sometimes when Amazon has data centers in different regions,

525
00:37:04,740 --> 00:37:09,740
and their big region is USA East, it's located in Northern Virginia,

526
00:37:09,740 --> 00:37:14,740
and if that region goes down, many of your favorite websites go down,

527
00:37:14,740 --> 00:37:17,740
because they're all hosted there.

528
00:37:17,740 --> 00:37:21,740
Content delivery networks, CDNs, what do CDNs do?

529
00:37:21,740 --> 00:37:28,740
They store files close to the end-user, so they download quickly,

530
00:37:28,740 --> 00:37:31,740
so they use your experiences better.

531
00:37:31,740 --> 00:37:34,740
There's a handful of them.

532
00:37:34,740 --> 00:37:40,740
They also, in some cases, protect against what are known as DDOS,

533
00:37:40,740 --> 00:37:44,740
as distributed denial of service attacks.

534
00:37:44,740 --> 00:37:54,740
Again, these are very useful services that make the internet better,

535
00:37:54,740 --> 00:38:02,740
but they are points of control, because all of these are companies, right?

536
00:38:02,740 --> 00:38:09,740
Anything that is a company ultimately has a human in charge,

537
00:38:09,740 --> 00:38:15,740
and that human can ultimately decide to take an action for their own reasons

538
00:38:15,740 --> 00:38:19,740
or be compelled to by a government.

539
00:38:19,740 --> 00:38:25,740
And the only honest answer is that when compelled to a company will follow

540
00:38:25,740 --> 00:38:29,740
what a government asks them to do, if they don't have a choice.

541
00:38:29,740 --> 00:38:32,740
These are kind of the architectural level.

542
00:38:32,740 --> 00:38:36,740
Let's go step up to applications.

543
00:38:36,740 --> 00:38:44,740
Discovery was now known as Search, but used to be Discovery.

544
00:38:44,740 --> 00:38:46,740
It's highly centralized.

545
00:38:46,740 --> 00:38:55,740
In most countries, Google has a very high market share.

546
00:38:55,740 --> 00:38:57,740
Is that good? Is that bad?

547
00:38:57,740 --> 00:39:00,740
I don't know. Google's useful. I use it.

548
00:39:00,740 --> 00:39:09,740
The price of Google, the penalty of Google, is the things you don't see.

549
00:39:09,740 --> 00:39:13,740
If Google has a certain algorithm, and for whatever reason,

550
00:39:13,740 --> 00:39:19,740
the algorithm doesn't like a certain website, topic, etc.

551
00:39:19,740 --> 00:39:23,740
It won't appear. Or it won't appear on the first page,

552
00:39:23,740 --> 00:39:26,740
or it won't appear in the first few pages.

553
00:39:26,740 --> 00:39:29,740
Right, frankly, if it doesn't appear in the first page,

554
00:39:29,740 --> 00:39:31,740
it's mostly like it doesn't exist.

555
00:39:31,740 --> 00:39:35,740
If it doesn't appear in the first few pages of Google Search results,

556
00:39:35,740 --> 00:39:38,740
it definitely doesn't exist.

557
00:39:38,740 --> 00:39:42,740
So you could be there, you could be on the internet.

558
00:39:42,740 --> 00:39:51,740
But if an algorithm you have nothing to do with decides it doesn't like your website,

559
00:39:51,740 --> 00:39:54,740
it effectively does not exist for most people.

560
00:39:54,740 --> 00:39:59,740
Now, there's good reasons why the algorithm does these types of things.

561
00:39:59,740 --> 00:40:02,740
People try to spam Google search engine optimization,

562
00:40:02,740 --> 00:40:07,740
and it's a cat and mouse game with the search engines.

563
00:40:07,740 --> 00:40:13,740
But as you've gotten to centralized large market share providers,

564
00:40:13,740 --> 00:40:16,740
you get algorithmic risk.

565
00:40:16,740 --> 00:40:24,740
Like one, if you had, if search happened through 200 different algorithms,

566
00:40:24,740 --> 00:40:29,740
each with 0.5% market share.

567
00:40:29,740 --> 00:40:34,740
It wouldn't matter if one of them didn't like your website.

568
00:40:34,740 --> 00:40:37,740
It was probably a good reason.

569
00:40:37,740 --> 00:40:39,740
I don't know what's said about that.

570
00:40:39,740 --> 00:40:41,740
Interesting to people, right?

571
00:40:41,740 --> 00:40:45,740
And it's correct that you're, but when there's one,

572
00:40:45,740 --> 00:40:56,740
first diversified, it's more likely something will go wrong for non-substantive reasons.

573
00:40:56,740 --> 00:41:02,740
Communication platforms, communication platforms have huge network defects.

574
00:41:02,740 --> 00:41:07,740
You want to go on Twitter because everyone else is on Twitter.

575
00:41:07,740 --> 00:41:10,740
You don't go on Twitter because it has 140 characters,

576
00:41:10,740 --> 00:41:13,740
280 characters or what have you.

577
00:41:13,740 --> 00:41:15,740
That's truly replicable.

578
00:41:15,740 --> 00:41:19,740
What's not replicable is that everyone else is on Twitter.

579
00:41:19,740 --> 00:41:27,740
And so, you know, Facebook is like the network for short form communication,

580
00:41:27,740 --> 00:41:33,740
medium form communication, LinkedIn for job seeking professional communication,

581
00:41:33,740 --> 00:41:37,740
Twitter for short form communication.

582
00:41:37,740 --> 00:41:43,740
All of them with very high market shares, all of them fairly centralized.

583
00:41:43,740 --> 00:41:49,740
And unlike the Internet,

584
00:41:49,740 --> 00:41:54,740
you need Twitter's permission to be on Twitter.

585
00:41:54,740 --> 00:42:01,740
All of this endless, endless, endless arguing

586
00:42:01,740 --> 00:42:06,740
about which accounts should be banned, which accounts should be boosted,

587
00:42:06,740 --> 00:42:11,740
which accounts should appear in the search results on Twitter,

588
00:42:11,740 --> 00:42:14,740
is a failure of architecture.

589
00:42:14,740 --> 00:42:18,740
We don't have this discussion about websites.

590
00:42:18,740 --> 00:42:23,740
We don't have it about email because those are not centralized

591
00:42:23,740 --> 00:42:27,740
in the same way.

592
00:42:27,740 --> 00:42:35,740
Whereas on Twitter, whether you have an account or not depends on who the CEO. is.

593
00:42:35,740 --> 00:42:41,740
And it doesn't matter who.

594
00:42:41,740 --> 00:42:48,740
You think is right.

595
00:42:48,740 --> 00:42:50,740
Maybe Parab was making the right decisions.

596
00:42:50,740 --> 00:42:54,740
Maybe Elon's making the right decisions.

597
00:42:54,740 --> 00:43:01,740
And the fact that there's a specific person whose views on content moderation

598
00:43:01,740 --> 00:43:06,740
you have to take into account is already the failure.

599
00:43:06,740 --> 00:43:11,740
It's irrelevant to me if Elon is more or less right than Parab.

600
00:43:11,740 --> 00:43:14,740
Totally irrelevant.

601
00:43:14,740 --> 00:43:15,740
There's no CEO of email.

602
00:43:15,740 --> 00:43:17,740
There's no CEO of the Internet.

603
00:43:17,740 --> 00:43:21,740
But there is a CEO of our short messaging protocol.

604
00:43:21,740 --> 00:43:27,740
And that is a form of failure case.

605
00:43:27,740 --> 00:43:29,740
E-commerce is similar.

606
00:43:29,740 --> 00:43:35,740
Amazon has reasonable market share in E-commerce, eBay, and its sector.

607
00:43:35,740 --> 00:43:40,740
Network effects are not quite as strong as it's not as bad.

608
00:43:40,740 --> 00:43:48,740
Payments is tragic.

609
00:43:48,740 --> 00:43:52,740
Payments still effectively run through the fiat system.

610
00:43:52,740 --> 00:43:58,740
And they effectively run through a couple of payment processors.

611
00:43:58,740 --> 00:44:04,740
Internet native payments are crypto currencies.

612
00:44:04,740 --> 00:44:10,740
And they're there and they exist.

613
00:44:10,740 --> 00:44:12,740
And they're very, very important.

614
00:44:12,740 --> 00:44:24,740
And they're under constant some form of attack by the non-crypto ecosystem.

615
00:44:24,740 --> 00:44:31,740
And this is not to say that things don't go wrong in crypto, but there has yet to be.

616
00:44:31,740 --> 00:44:39,740
I think a major stakeholder in the non-crypto world to come out and say,

617
00:44:39,740 --> 00:44:47,740
a government of an important country to say, well, this is important for decentralization purposes.

618
00:44:47,740 --> 00:44:52,740
In fact, most of the governments think this is a downside of crypto.

619
00:44:52,740 --> 00:44:58,740
They would like to keep payments under their control.

620
00:44:58,740 --> 00:45:04,740
So you look at this in aggregate and we're kind of coasting.

621
00:45:04,740 --> 00:45:08,740
Things have been getting worse.

622
00:45:08,740 --> 00:45:18,740
The Internet of Today is substantially more centralized than the Internet of 1990 was.

623
00:45:18,740 --> 00:45:20,740
But it's gradual.

624
00:45:20,740 --> 00:45:24,740
It's one step at a time.

625
00:45:24,740 --> 00:45:28,740
Along the way, it gets more convenient.

626
00:45:28,740 --> 00:45:30,740
Along the way, it gets easier to use.

627
00:45:30,740 --> 00:45:32,740
Things load faster.

628
00:45:32,740 --> 00:45:36,740
You have more features and functionality, etc, etc.

629
00:45:36,740 --> 00:45:44,740
So nobody rebels because it's day to day on day to day activity is getting better,

630
00:45:44,740 --> 00:45:50,740
while on for existential reasons getting worse.

631
00:45:50,740 --> 00:46:00,740
I found an interesting draft paper from the IETF in their network working group on centralization

632
00:46:00,740 --> 00:46:03,740
and Internet standards.

633
00:46:03,740 --> 00:46:06,740
Actually, it's a draft paper.

634
00:46:06,740 --> 00:46:10,740
It's not official.

635
00:46:10,740 --> 00:46:18,740
But I liked a couple of things that wrote so much that I just copy-pasted them right into here.

636
00:46:18,740 --> 00:46:20,740
And I'm going to read them.

637
00:46:20,740 --> 00:46:26,740
So the Internet's very nature is incompatible with the centralization of its functions.

638
00:46:26,740 --> 00:46:31,740
As a large heterogeneous collection of interconnected systems,

639
00:46:31,740 --> 00:46:35,740
the Internet is often characterized as a network of networks.

640
00:46:35,740 --> 00:46:45,740
These network related peers who agree to facilitate communication rather than having a relationship of subservience

641
00:46:45,740 --> 00:46:48,740
to others' requirements and coarsionally.

642
00:46:48,740 --> 00:46:54,740
This focus on independence of action carries through the way the network is architect,

643
00:46:54,740 --> 00:46:57,740
for example, in the concept of an autonomous system.

644
00:46:57,740 --> 00:47:05,740
Second, the Internet's first duty is to the end user.

645
00:47:05,740 --> 00:47:10,740
Allowing such power to be concentrated into few hands is counter to the IETF submission

646
00:47:10,740 --> 00:47:15,740
of creating an Internet that will help us build a better human society.

647
00:47:15,740 --> 00:47:19,740
When a third party has unavoidable access to communications,

648
00:47:19,740 --> 00:47:22,740
we quote informational and positional advantages,

649
00:47:22,740 --> 00:47:27,740
gain can be used to observe behavior of an optical effect,

650
00:47:27,740 --> 00:47:31,740
and shape or even deny behavior, the choke point effect,

651
00:47:31,740 --> 00:47:37,740
which can be used by those parties or the states that have authority over them for coercive ends.

652
00:47:37,740 --> 00:47:40,740
I have nothing to add to this.

653
00:47:40,740 --> 00:47:45,740
This is, I couldn't agree with this one.

654
00:47:45,740 --> 00:47:57,740
And then the paper goes on and lists five negative parts of the negative aspects of the concentration of power,

655
00:47:57,740 --> 00:48:00,740
limiting innovation, which we discussed.

656
00:48:00,740 --> 00:48:09,740
Constraining competition, which is similar, the first and the second, often go together.

657
00:48:09,740 --> 00:48:15,740
Reducing availability means that you're not building resilience and redundancy,

658
00:48:15,740 --> 00:48:18,740
and this could be because of unintended effects.

659
00:48:18,740 --> 00:48:23,740
So if you have one ISP and something happens in their facility,

660
00:48:23,740 --> 00:48:27,740
and the whole Internet for your country goes down inadvertently,

661
00:48:27,740 --> 00:48:32,740
that is a reduction of availability accidentally.

662
00:48:32,740 --> 00:48:37,740
But sometimes you have a reduction of availability,

663
00:48:37,740 --> 00:48:44,740
reduction of availability,

664
00:48:46,740 --> 00:48:49,740
intentional, the Egypt Telecom example,

665
00:48:49,740 --> 00:48:52,740
was an intentional reduction of availability.

666
00:48:52,740 --> 00:48:56,740
Creating monoculture,

667
00:48:56,740 --> 00:49:02,740
this is a limiting innovation point, but at the intellectual level.

668
00:49:02,740 --> 00:49:09,740
So this is, if there's a certain set of values or principles that are acceptable to Facebook,

669
00:49:09,740 --> 00:49:15,740
but not to others, and Facebook gets a dominant position on the Internet,

670
00:49:15,740 --> 00:49:22,740
then we all have to go along with those sets of values, principles, forms of speech, what have you.

671
00:49:22,740 --> 00:49:33,740
So the world is a huge diverse heterogeneous place.

672
00:49:33,740 --> 00:49:41,740
We are not all alike at the individual interest group,

673
00:49:41,740 --> 00:49:45,740
regional, national level.

674
00:49:45,740 --> 00:49:48,740
We should not all be alike.

675
00:49:48,740 --> 00:49:58,740
We should not all have to be in a certain way.

676
00:49:58,740 --> 00:50:03,740
But if we then have to run through a specific corporation,

677
00:50:03,740 --> 00:50:07,740
that corporation may, for a variety of reasons,

678
00:50:07,740 --> 00:50:15,740
on purpose or accidentally, voluntarily or coerced by others,

679
00:50:15,740 --> 00:50:25,740
to flatten out squash that human diversity to fit it into a specific standard acceptable black corporation.

680
00:50:25,740 --> 00:50:32,740
And it's very, very hard to say, I'm going to have a corporation

681
00:50:32,740 --> 00:50:39,740
that fully allows all of these differences to exist.

682
00:50:39,740 --> 00:50:52,740
For one, some of the differences are long-standing national disputes among nation states where

683
00:50:52,740 --> 00:50:56,740
certain countries will say, well, you have to say this,

684
00:50:56,740 --> 00:51:01,740
and you're not allowed to say that, and their neighbor will say the opposite.

685
00:51:01,740 --> 00:51:10,740
And since no company is in a position, social media company is not in a position to solve all world conflicts,

686
00:51:10,740 --> 00:51:13,740
they have to take a position on the topic.

687
00:51:13,740 --> 00:51:16,740
And sometimes they're taking three different positions, right?

688
00:51:16,740 --> 00:51:20,740
Their position in country X and their position in country Y

689
00:51:20,740 --> 00:51:23,740
and their position in third countries, and all of them might be different,

690
00:51:23,740 --> 00:51:25,740
and they're trying to balance all these things.

691
00:51:25,740 --> 00:51:30,740
And the only reason they have to try and balance all these things is their is centralized support.

692
00:51:30,740 --> 00:51:36,740
And then the last one is self-reinforcement.

693
00:51:36,740 --> 00:51:40,740
And this is the advantages.

694
00:51:40,740 --> 00:51:52,740
These are the advantages that a certain service has by being in a dominant position.

695
00:51:52,740 --> 00:51:54,740
You see this in search.

696
00:51:54,740 --> 00:52:00,740
If you see all of people search queries and then what they then click on,

697
00:52:00,740 --> 00:52:05,740
you're in a better position to build a better search engine than someone who doesn't.

698
00:52:05,740 --> 00:52:09,740
This is considered a big risk in artificial intelligence or machine learning,

699
00:52:09,740 --> 00:52:11,740
the use of technical term.

700
00:52:11,740 --> 00:52:13,740
But the more data you have, the better your model is.

701
00:52:13,740 --> 00:52:16,740
If your model is better, more people are going to want to use it.

702
00:52:16,740 --> 00:52:19,740
If more people use it, they'll give you more data.

703
00:52:19,740 --> 00:52:27,740
And it spirals.

704
00:52:27,740 --> 00:52:33,740
So these are each of these pretty bad.

705
00:52:33,740 --> 00:52:39,740
And I don't even think these are the bad things.

706
00:52:39,740 --> 00:52:42,740
My greatest worry is democracy itself.

707
00:52:42,740 --> 00:52:46,740
And again, I'm going to sound strange.

708
00:52:46,740 --> 00:52:48,740
I grant you.

709
00:52:48,740 --> 00:52:52,740
I grant you, I'm in a deep minority position here.

710
00:52:52,740 --> 00:52:59,740
I grant you that most people, and I think, remember who I discussed this one.

711
00:52:59,740 --> 00:53:01,740
I think Chris Dixon.

712
00:53:01,740 --> 00:53:10,740
This is like an interesting divide in the world is between people for who the digital world is real

713
00:53:10,740 --> 00:53:15,740
and people for whom it's not.

714
00:53:15,740 --> 00:53:27,740
A lot of people, if I had this discussion with them, might say, well, I mean, what difference does it make what happens on Facebook?

715
00:53:27,740 --> 00:53:30,740
That's not real life, in fact, I could just close my Facebook account.

716
00:53:30,740 --> 00:53:38,740
My real life was my car, my house, my physical goods.

717
00:53:38,740 --> 00:53:49,740
And I deeply disagree with that both today and in the future because I don't know about you,

718
00:53:49,740 --> 00:53:57,740
but I spent the vast majority of my working hours looking at a computer screen.

719
00:53:57,740 --> 00:54:01,740
Your phone also being, you know, a fairly powerful computer.

720
00:54:01,740 --> 00:54:14,740
So between my phone screen and my laptop screen and my desktop screen, I spent the large majority of my waking hours looking at this.

721
00:54:14,740 --> 00:54:28,740
And then sometimes all rare occasions take a break and I don't know, watch a movie on Netflix on my TV, which is also a computer.

722
00:54:28,740 --> 00:54:32,740
Any modern TV is also a computer as well.

723
00:54:32,740 --> 00:54:44,740
That is operating through those same internet service providers who are in content delivery networks and centralized firms who are delivering your whatever you're seeing in your computer screen.

724
00:54:44,740 --> 00:54:54,740
And so my view is I already spent the majority of my life in the digital world and quite frankly the important things in my life.

725
00:54:54,740 --> 00:55:22,740
All of the things that I can afford in the physical world are downstream from my professional activities, which are all intermediate by the digital world.

726
00:55:22,740 --> 00:55:27,740
And I don't know if this has happened to you recently. It happened to me once a few years ago.

727
00:55:27,740 --> 00:55:35,740
Pre-COVID when I was in an office, or even after the office, and the internet went out.

728
00:55:35,740 --> 00:55:48,740
And then we called our internet provider and the internet provider said, yeah, it's going to be out all day.

729
00:55:48,740 --> 00:55:59,740
We spent a few minutes in New York. We spent a few minutes thinking about what to do.

730
00:55:59,740 --> 00:56:07,740
And we realized there was basically nothing we could do.

731
00:56:07,740 --> 00:56:18,740
It was basically we were worthless in the office letter, totally and completely worthless.

732
00:56:18,740 --> 00:56:19,740
It was shocking.

733
00:56:19,740 --> 00:56:36,740
And it was shocking to think about that, you know, about 25 years ago, something in that range, most offices did not have internet.

734
00:56:36,740 --> 00:56:46,740
And so people would go to work and do whatever they were doing and whatever they were doing did not include the internet.

735
00:56:46,740 --> 00:56:50,740
You know, 30 years ago, effectively done it.

736
00:56:50,740 --> 00:56:54,740
And you were thinking about this.

737
00:56:54,740 --> 00:56:59,740
What actually can you do in an office without an internet?

738
00:56:59,740 --> 00:57:07,740
You couldn't send an email. It couldn't browse the web.

739
00:57:07,740 --> 00:57:21,740
Theoretically, you could make some calls, but our CRM was online, our customer relationship management system was online.

740
00:57:21,740 --> 00:57:30,740
So you couldn't record the calls or in fact find the people we were supposed to call because that was also online.

741
00:57:30,740 --> 00:57:35,740
We were literally worthless with other.

742
00:57:35,740 --> 00:57:47,740
So we picked up and went home and this was pre-COVID times, pre-remote work times, but we went and figured, well, whatever the downside is from working from home,

743
00:57:47,740 --> 00:57:51,740
it's a thousand times better than being here with that together with other.

744
00:57:51,740 --> 00:57:55,740
And I've went a few days and it was bracing.

745
00:57:55,740 --> 00:57:58,740
It was shocking.

746
00:57:58,740 --> 00:58:02,740
And they think basically everything is that way now.

747
00:58:02,740 --> 00:58:11,740
The large majority of people are dependent in some capacity on the internet to do anything.

748
00:58:11,740 --> 00:58:22,740
In which case we're in the living digital world and how we interact in a digital world and what is our governance and our architecture in the digital world.

749
00:58:22,740 --> 00:58:25,740
Super important.

750
00:58:25,740 --> 00:58:33,740
And it's super important that we preserve the same models of governance that we have in the physical world in the world.

751
00:58:33,740 --> 00:58:44,740
Or come to that and say, there.

752
00:58:44,740 --> 00:58:51,740
Then introduce a concept that I have stolen from John Robb.

753
00:58:51,740 --> 00:59:11,740
John Robb is a systems slash networks thinker he came out of the military sphere and thinks about networks, tribes and oodle loops and all of these types of things.

754
00:59:11,740 --> 00:59:21,740
But he is concerned about the concept of the long night.

755
00:59:21,740 --> 00:59:26,740
And these are a couple of the streets in order and it's going to read them.

756
00:59:26,740 --> 00:59:34,740
There's disruption, although potentially painful in the short term doesn't last more as a crude a damaging over the long term.

757
00:59:34,740 --> 00:59:40,740
In fact, the true danger posed by an internet work world is opposite of the structure.

758
00:59:40,740 --> 00:59:44,740
The danger is an all encompassing online.

759
00:59:44,740 --> 00:59:53,740
Or thought, as same as a thought and approach reinforced reinforced by hundreds of millions of socially internet work corporations.

760
00:59:53,740 --> 00:59:56,740
A global or thought exceed the ruthless.

761
00:59:56,740 --> 01:00:02,740
The narrows public thought down to a single baron ideological framework.

762
01:00:02,740 --> 01:00:05,740
A ruling network that prevents dissent.

763
01:00:05,740 --> 01:00:15,740
And locks us into stagnation and an inevitable failure as it runs a foul of reality and human nature is ruling network already exists.

764
01:00:15,740 --> 01:00:18,740
This concern, which is not dissimilar for mine.

765
01:00:18,740 --> 01:00:22,740
It's framed differently, but it's not dissimilar.

766
01:00:22,740 --> 01:00:38,740
Is that as we network more and more across centralized services.

767
01:00:38,740 --> 01:00:53,740
It becomes much easier to enforce a certain way of thinking.

768
01:00:53,740 --> 01:00:59,740
A certain way of prescribed and allowed thought.

769
01:00:59,740 --> 01:01:09,740
And what I think we know historically.

770
01:01:09,740 --> 01:01:13,740
That allow freedom of speech that allow freedom of action.

771
01:01:13,740 --> 01:01:30,740
That are more human centric, less.

772
01:01:30,740 --> 01:01:35,740
Out perform in every way.

773
01:01:35,740 --> 01:01:45,740
Quality of life for their citizens.

774
01:01:45,740 --> 01:01:52,740
And they outperform in human freedom and dignity.

775
01:01:52,740 --> 01:02:11,740
And I think that the reason for it is that anything that ends up being hierarchical top down, eventually bottleneckson an information processing side with the people at the top or if you assume away bad intentions which you should not make people in power, ultimately, 

776
01:02:11,740 --> 01:02:20,940
prefer to stay in power. But even if you assume away bad intentions and assume that the people

777
01:02:20,940 --> 01:02:29,340
at the top selflessly want to manage the economy, the country, the society for its benefit,

778
01:02:31,980 --> 01:02:38,460
it is simply impossible for a small group of people at the top of any complex society to make

779
01:02:38,460 --> 01:02:43,580
all the right decisions on every single topic for everyone across the country. It is impossible.

780
01:02:46,540 --> 01:02:51,900
It is why as humans went from smaller societies to larger societies

781
01:02:53,740 --> 01:02:57,020
and simpler societies to more complex advanced societies,

782
01:02:57,020 --> 01:03:07,820
we have decentralized power to let people operate. To let people look around in their

783
01:03:08,620 --> 01:03:12,380
take the simplest example. You are in Washington, D.C.

784
01:03:14,140 --> 01:03:24,460
Would it be logical for you to know if in Santa Fe, New Mexico someone should open an organic grocery

785
01:03:24,460 --> 01:03:31,420
store. If you look at Soviet years central planning five years plan, they were trying to do this

786
01:03:31,420 --> 01:03:37,820
across all 11 time zones of the Soviet Union. Turned out, you can't do it effectively,

787
01:03:37,820 --> 01:03:43,420
it doesn't mean you're not smart, it just means there's too much information for a small group

788
01:03:43,420 --> 01:03:50,460
of people to talk to process. You need to let information process across everyone's brains.

789
01:03:50,460 --> 01:03:58,780
And ultimately, some combination of the people in Santa Fe seeing what's happening in Santa Fe

790
01:03:58,780 --> 01:04:04,140
and some price signals from organic food expensive or inexpensive available or not available

791
01:04:05,660 --> 01:04:12,300
will naturally, it's a somewhat opening or not opening an organic food shop. And it's like this

792
01:04:12,300 --> 01:04:21,500
for everyone. Systems that are centralized information processing systems break down under a certain

793
01:04:21,500 --> 01:04:31,260
level of complexity. And so when he means a single baron ideological framework that runs a foul

794
01:04:31,260 --> 01:04:37,660
of reality in human nature, I believe, I'm going to try and get him on the course in the spring.

795
01:04:37,660 --> 01:04:49,820
I believe to catch that charge, I might have committed for the spring. I believe, this is what he means,

796
01:04:49,820 --> 01:05:00,780
that if you lose diversity of thought, including people who are quote unquote wrong,

797
01:05:00,780 --> 01:05:08,460
you end up with a less successful society, a successful society lets people disagree,

798
01:05:09,020 --> 01:05:14,380
a successful society lets people think wrong things because sometimes it turns out, you know,

799
01:05:14,380 --> 01:05:18,700
most times when people are thinking wrong things, they're actually wrong. But

800
01:05:20,620 --> 01:05:25,900
sometimes when people are thinking wrong things, they're actually very, very, very right and they

801
01:05:25,900 --> 01:05:33,420
help society move forward. And a mature confident society allows this.

802
01:05:35,900 --> 01:05:44,300
And a top down driven monarchy of the whatever century doesn't.

803
01:05:44,300 --> 01:05:46,780
And so,

804
01:05:54,140 --> 01:05:56,220
hold this thought as we're looking next couple slides.

805
01:06:00,540 --> 01:06:07,660
My concern is that we're about to invent a tremendous amount of awesome technology.

806
01:06:07,660 --> 01:06:16,220
Awesome. That is the correct word. I'm not embarrassed to say it. I think over the next 5,

807
01:06:16,220 --> 01:06:22,060
10 and 20 years, we quote unquote fourth industrial revolution technologies.

808
01:06:24,780 --> 01:06:29,340
We'll hit some type of sci-fi level of capability.

809
01:06:29,340 --> 01:06:36,460
And input them all here, you know, biotech belongs on this maybe quantum computing

810
01:06:37,660 --> 01:06:41,420
genetic type of things. But I don't think they're as relevant for this discussion.

811
01:06:42,060 --> 01:06:46,860
The ones that I think are relevant are these. So AI, machine learning.

812
01:06:49,020 --> 01:06:52,700
We've been talking about this for a very long time. On the whole, it has been

813
01:06:52,700 --> 01:07:02,300
generally less exciting than people have expected. But we are not far away from the timeline that

814
01:07:02,300 --> 01:07:11,420
some of the big AI thinkers, none of that, you'll start seeing big leaps in the 2020s. And what

815
01:07:11,420 --> 01:07:19,420
we're seeing from AI platforms like stable diffusion for creating images, opening AI and chat-GPT,

816
01:07:19,420 --> 01:07:24,940
GPT, we may decide that, I mean, you know, Google search results are a form of AI, right?

817
01:07:24,940 --> 01:07:30,220
match.com's feed is a form of AI, adds your big serves as a form of AI. We have those

818
01:07:30,220 --> 01:07:40,060
aside. And they're already forms of AI. We are starting to see the beginning of AI that works

819
01:07:40,060 --> 01:07:47,100
for practical human things, that writes essays, that drives cars reasonably well in some conditions

820
01:07:47,100 --> 01:07:58,060
that can generate poems and photos. And you can look at them now and say, oh, this here is an error.

821
01:07:58,060 --> 01:08:03,740
And here's another error. And here's this thing that's going wrong. And I think for the purpose of

822
01:08:03,740 --> 01:08:11,260
this analysis, it doesn't matter because all those things are getting better every month.

823
01:08:11,260 --> 01:08:20,620
So, pick whatever time frame you want. You think it's three years, you think it's seven years,

824
01:08:20,620 --> 01:08:29,260
you think it's 17 years, it's not 353 years. Within the lifetime of almost everyone

825
01:08:30,700 --> 01:08:37,420
in the audience there, we will see extremely capable AI's. A, B.

826
01:08:37,420 --> 01:08:46,380
Most major countries are heading towards some form of central bank digital currency.

827
01:08:47,980 --> 01:08:54,380
Central bank digital currencies are natively digital currencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum,

828
01:08:55,660 --> 01:09:02,060
but permission with central points of control, central points of programmability. This is viewed

829
01:09:02,060 --> 01:09:12,220
as a feature, not as a bug. It is viewed as a feature that will allow governments to implement

830
01:09:12,220 --> 01:09:22,460
automated rules from at the most basic level, antibody laundering and no-year customer rules to

831
01:09:22,460 --> 01:09:30,940
make sure that you have a very low level of control, negative interest rates to socially desirable spending rules.

832
01:09:30,940 --> 01:09:41,180
You can only spend this much on carbon or meats or what have you this month,

833
01:09:41,180 --> 01:09:49,340
like you've passed your limit. So, these are payment systems and they are payment systems

834
01:09:49,340 --> 01:09:59,340
that, as described by some of their proponents, are much more directive than the payment systems of

835
01:09:59,340 --> 01:10:06,220
our whole lives that ultimately have allowed for most of our lives to be a practical degree,

836
01:10:06,220 --> 01:10:15,020
also the possibility of cash. It is fascinating to me how the social construction over the course

837
01:10:15,020 --> 01:10:27,420
of my lifetime has taken cash from being a perfectly normal wholesome thing. When I was a little kid,

838
01:10:27,420 --> 01:10:34,220
I said, oh, look, you've got your allowance, cash, it's normal. Here's a five dollar bill.

839
01:10:36,220 --> 01:10:42,860
When I was at university, I operated as far as I could remember primarily in cash. I'd go to the ATM,

840
01:10:42,860 --> 01:10:51,260
take up cash for the week, and everyone thought this was perfectly normal. Of course, everyone's aware

841
01:10:51,260 --> 01:10:58,620
that there is some percentage of tax evasion from cash, there is some percentage of money laundering,

842
01:10:58,620 --> 01:11:07,340
drug dealing, as well as all true things, and it is correct that law enforcement authorities

843
01:11:07,340 --> 01:11:17,180
chase these things around, which they should do. But we have gone from a presumption that cash is

844
01:11:18,060 --> 01:11:26,540
default normal, even wholesome, don't say, to a presumption that cash is default suspicious

845
01:11:27,660 --> 01:11:33,260
and should be eliminated, the quote unquote, death of cash. Many countries

846
01:11:33,260 --> 01:11:41,020
here in Europe have now put limits on how much cash you can take out. Israel's done something

847
01:11:41,020 --> 01:11:49,020
somewhere. And within the European Union, there is an absolute strong push to keep producing those

848
01:11:49,020 --> 01:11:57,180
loans. So we will, it is viewed as socially desirable by many parties to eliminate cash.

849
01:11:57,180 --> 01:12:05,020
And then you'll have a fully permissioned system for spending, which will be

850
01:12:06,300 --> 01:12:13,580
solved as done. We will prevent spending on inappropriate things.

851
01:12:15,820 --> 01:12:24,060
So then the next one, mixed reality. Mixed reality, as we saw earlier in this course is

852
01:12:24,060 --> 01:12:30,860
augmented and virtual reality. Once again, over a practical timeframe, it's going to be awesome.

853
01:12:32,220 --> 01:12:38,140
Our glasses are contact lenses, maybe in the fullness of time or neural implants, but I don't know how

854
01:12:38,140 --> 01:12:41,820
that one seems like it has a ways ahead of it. But our glasses, we're sure,

855
01:12:44,540 --> 01:12:53,420
will overlay Google Maps in your field division. They will bring fiddensas into common fields of

856
01:12:53,420 --> 01:13:00,220
vision. They will remind you who the person was at the conference. They will allow you to

857
01:13:00,220 --> 01:13:09,740
transform your working space both aesthetically, but also for productive purposes. Why am I limited to

858
01:13:10,860 --> 01:13:19,500
25 inch screens? Don't worry, you won't be. We will work, we will be able to work and move through

859
01:13:19,500 --> 01:13:28,380
arbitrarily large digital and mixed reality spaces. It's wonderful. It will lead to better

860
01:13:28,380 --> 01:13:34,860
productivity. It will lead to more immersive gaming. It will lead to more human level communication.

861
01:13:36,860 --> 01:13:42,300
Your friends, family, loved ones, romantic partners who are not living near you.

862
01:13:42,300 --> 01:13:50,140
You will see them full size in your field of vision. It's an improvement. It's an improvement

863
01:13:50,140 --> 01:13:56,140
in the quality of human life. It's great. But again, hold that thought.

864
01:14:00,460 --> 01:14:06,060
Big data capture, capturing of all the data, the amount of data that the first three

865
01:14:06,060 --> 01:14:17,100
are going to create will be staggering. And interestingly, the third, you know,

866
01:14:17,100 --> 01:14:20,220
on the ground, he will start picking up by a metric data.

867
01:14:22,780 --> 01:14:24,380
On the reality has

868
01:14:27,580 --> 01:14:30,780
cameras in your field of vision. It might have,

869
01:14:30,780 --> 01:14:40,380
in time, cameras looking at dry. It has much more intrusive data than even the most intrusive

870
01:14:41,260 --> 01:14:49,980
ads you see on life. They'll be able to know in time, are you scared? Are you happy?

871
01:14:51,900 --> 01:14:52,540
Are you lying?

872
01:14:52,540 --> 01:15:01,420
Are you feeling pleasure from whatever it is that you're watching?

873
01:15:05,420 --> 01:15:12,940
Are you socially compliant? Are you a no socially compliant?

874
01:15:12,940 --> 01:15:20,380
No, these things are not in a far sci-fi future, they are within a practical future.

875
01:15:22,380 --> 01:15:26,700
They're not today, we're not there yet. But they're also not 100 years away.

876
01:15:28,460 --> 01:15:31,340
And so you will have these gigantic data streams that

877
01:15:34,060 --> 01:15:37,020
are being driven from the first three. And then, you know,

878
01:15:37,020 --> 01:15:38,720
on Metaverse, which was the name of this course,

879
01:15:38,720 --> 01:15:42,420
which I had said earlier in the course,

880
01:15:42,420 --> 01:15:44,620
and I stand by my definition, it's the internet,

881
01:15:46,140 --> 01:15:49,300
but with better visualization and persistent visual objects.

882
01:15:50,220 --> 01:15:52,540
And so you put these together,

883
01:15:52,540 --> 01:15:57,540
and the good part is our digital experience

884
01:15:57,660 --> 01:15:59,580
is about to get much, much better.

885
01:15:59,580 --> 01:16:04,580
In 10 to 20 years, I'm looking at my computer screens now,

886
01:16:09,500 --> 01:16:13,900
they're basically the same user experience

887
01:16:13,900 --> 01:16:18,900
as the early browsers with slightly better graphics.

888
01:16:21,860 --> 01:16:26,860
The early Netscape was not an order of magnitude different,

889
01:16:26,860 --> 01:16:31,860
and I don't know if there's no doubt in 10 or 20 years,

890
01:16:31,860 --> 01:16:34,860
we're gonna look at this and it's gonna look antiquated.

891
01:16:34,860 --> 01:16:37,860
It was like, gosh, how did people even live that way?

892
01:16:37,860 --> 01:16:39,860
How did people even work that way?

893
01:16:39,860 --> 01:16:43,860
Can you believe the old people used to use the internet

894
01:16:43,860 --> 01:16:48,860
like this, because it's going to become much more realistic,

895
01:16:48,860 --> 01:16:51,860
much more interactive

896
01:16:51,860 --> 01:16:54,860
and it's going to be

897
01:16:54,860 --> 01:16:56,860
a blended space of humans and AIs.

898
01:16:58,860 --> 01:17:02,860
There will be AIs to help with anything,

899
01:17:02,860 --> 01:17:07,860
not just driving, not just walking you through those easy,

900
01:17:07,860 --> 01:17:12,860
but I'm pretty sure our education's gonna change,

901
01:17:12,860 --> 01:17:15,860
and pretty sure the current model of education

902
01:17:15,860 --> 01:17:19,860
is going to get completely rescaled by AIs.

903
01:17:19,860 --> 01:17:21,860
It's all of us gonna be wonderful,

904
01:17:21,860 --> 01:17:26,860
and we'll have a lot of features, but there's a dark side too,

905
01:17:27,860 --> 01:17:30,860
and the dark side looks something like the following.

906
01:17:33,860 --> 01:17:38,860
You will have basically the ability for a company

907
01:17:38,860 --> 01:17:42,860
or a government to have permanent,

908
01:17:42,860 --> 01:17:47,860
holistic surveillance of everyone's environment.

909
01:17:51,860 --> 01:17:54,860
We have already made great leaps in this area.

910
01:17:58,860 --> 01:18:02,860
All of us carry around with us a microphone, at all times.

911
01:18:03,860 --> 01:18:07,860
Which, for most phones and most jurisdictions and most cars,

912
01:18:07,860 --> 01:18:12,860
can also be switched on remotely without you knowing.

913
01:18:12,860 --> 01:18:14,860
If you have told someone in, I don't know,

914
01:18:14,860 --> 01:18:19,860
the 1980s in East Germany under the quite interest of Stasi,

915
01:18:20,860 --> 01:18:24,860
that in the future, people in free countries

916
01:18:25,860 --> 01:18:28,860
will make sure they jam a microphone in their pocket

917
01:18:28,860 --> 01:18:30,860
wherever they go.

918
01:18:31,860 --> 01:18:34,860
People might be surprised, but yet we did,

919
01:18:34,860 --> 01:18:37,860
because it's convenient and useful, and it's nice to have cell phones,

920
01:18:37,860 --> 01:18:39,860
and cell phones now have all these features,

921
01:18:39,860 --> 01:18:42,860
and they have microphones and cameras, and they're pretty useful.

922
01:18:43,860 --> 01:18:46,860
But it's gonna be much more in them, right?

923
01:18:46,860 --> 01:18:48,860
Like our glasses will be seeing our environment.

924
01:18:50,860 --> 01:18:52,860
We'll be tracking our biometric data.

925
01:18:55,860 --> 01:18:57,860
We'll be tracking our biometric data, even through words, right?

926
01:18:57,860 --> 01:18:59,860
It'll be good for health.

927
01:18:59,860 --> 01:19:03,860
I have a watch on that tells me my heart rate and my steps.

928
01:19:03,860 --> 01:19:05,860
It's cool. It's useful.

929
01:19:05,860 --> 01:19:07,860
I want to know my heart rate and my steps.

930
01:19:08,860 --> 01:19:14,860
But I'm pretty sure the same song, and maybe Google, or whatever.

931
01:19:15,860 --> 01:19:19,860
And maybe along the transmittal path, maybe many other people,

932
01:19:19,860 --> 01:19:21,860
maybe national security agencies.

933
01:19:21,860 --> 01:19:24,860
And the national security agencies have any particular interest

934
01:19:24,860 --> 01:19:25,860
in how many steps it is.

935
01:19:25,860 --> 01:19:26,860
You know, of course not.

936
01:19:26,860 --> 01:19:34,860
I am not that, you know, one of the things with the big data is less

937
01:19:34,860 --> 01:19:37,860
that someone is sitting there at the NSA,

938
01:19:37,860 --> 01:19:39,860
being like, oh, wow, 6529,

939
01:19:39,860 --> 01:19:41,860
it's not really getting his cardio in today.

940
01:19:41,860 --> 01:19:43,860
I have no idea it's time for that.

941
01:19:43,860 --> 01:19:45,860
There's billions of people in the world.

942
01:19:46,860 --> 01:19:50,860
But these things are valuable and interesting at the societal level,

943
01:19:50,860 --> 01:19:52,860
at the aggregate level.

944
01:19:52,860 --> 01:19:58,860
And so what you can do if you have this full environment

945
01:19:58,860 --> 01:20:04,860
and you have a centralized metaverse and the internet with better visualization,

946
01:20:04,860 --> 01:20:11,860
you can influence behavior both positively and negatively,

947
01:20:11,860 --> 01:20:15,860
basically at the subconscious level.

948
01:20:15,860 --> 01:20:19,860
One of my favorite

949
01:20:19,860 --> 01:20:26,860
analogies is machines are already breeding humans.

950
01:20:26,860 --> 01:20:28,860
What if that's supposed to mean?

951
01:20:28,860 --> 01:20:31,860
Well, I think in the United States, something like 50% of marriages

952
01:20:31,860 --> 01:20:33,860
come from dating applications.

953
01:20:33,860 --> 01:20:38,860
And dating applications you are presented a feed.

954
01:20:38,860 --> 01:20:44,860
And that feed is trying to somehow predict who you'd like to see.

955
01:20:44,860 --> 01:20:48,860
Or better for worse.

956
01:20:48,860 --> 01:20:50,860
I'm not saying the feed has any negative attention,

957
01:20:50,860 --> 01:20:53,860
but it's good attention.

958
01:20:53,860 --> 01:20:58,860
But it's some machine algorithm that's trying to find you a partner.

959
01:20:58,860 --> 01:21:01,860
And sometimes that turns out to be a spouse and sometimes that to be the

960
01:21:01,860 --> 01:21:04,860
parent of the children you have together.

961
01:21:04,860 --> 01:21:10,860
And in some weird way, a machine has put you together

962
01:21:10,860 --> 01:21:16,860
and the biases of that machine algorithm might change how people match up.

963
01:21:16,860 --> 01:21:19,860
If they change how people match up, they might even, like,

964
01:21:19,860 --> 01:21:23,860
in effect, be changing the gene code, which is weird.

965
01:21:23,860 --> 01:21:24,860
By weird to think about.

966
01:21:24,860 --> 01:21:27,860
But I think it's kind of true.

967
01:21:27,860 --> 01:21:39,860
And can I mention that, but more granular, more immersive, more subconscious

968
01:21:39,860 --> 01:21:49,860
If you are given little dumping hits for doing things in

969
01:21:49,860 --> 01:21:57,860
society approved ways, and it can be done at scale,

970
01:21:57,860 --> 01:22:06,860
it doesn't matter if there isn't someone at the NSA checking in on me.

971
01:22:06,860 --> 01:22:15,860
Personally, in fact, all this stuff doesn't need to be 100% effective.

972
01:22:15,860 --> 01:22:21,860
I'm going to say 80% effective, but it doesn't need to be 80% effective either.

973
01:22:21,860 --> 01:22:28,860
In most countries, the difference between who wins an election is a few percentage points.

974
01:22:28,860 --> 01:22:32,860
Take the United States, you have these famous swing voters.

975
01:22:32,860 --> 01:22:38,860
There's a bunch of people who are always in the vote Republican, a bunch of people who are always in the vote Democrat,

976
01:22:38,860 --> 01:22:45,860
who becomes the president, or who controls the House and the Senate, is some swing voters.

977
01:22:45,860 --> 01:22:50,860
All you need to do is subconsciously influence 5 or 10% of the population.

978
01:22:50,860 --> 01:22:51,860
Move them a little bit.

979
01:22:51,860 --> 01:22:59,860
Move everyone's views 5% in one direction, and you are

980
01:22:59,860 --> 01:23:02,860
in the vote.

981
01:23:02,860 --> 01:23:05,860
That's not a good question.

982
01:23:05,860 --> 01:23:10,860
The tougher version throws in some automated compliance.

983
01:23:10,860 --> 01:23:15,860
And compliance is going to come through the payment system.

984
01:23:15,860 --> 01:23:21,860
That's why I keep harassing everyone about this freedom to transact concept.

985
01:23:21,860 --> 01:23:30,860
The carrot is going to be the dopamine hits.

986
01:23:30,860 --> 01:23:35,860
The stick is a transaction we'll go through.

987
01:23:35,860 --> 01:23:40,860
You're not allowed to do that.

988
01:23:40,860 --> 01:23:44,860
I'm sorry, our scoring says you can't make this payment.

989
01:23:44,860 --> 01:23:52,860
It's going to happen.

990
01:23:52,860 --> 01:23:59,860
Even I wonder if I'm at times overestimating the rest of the land.

991
01:23:59,860 --> 01:24:04,860
This is where what happened in Canada with the truckers was about, how are you telling?

992
01:24:04,860 --> 01:24:11,860
And I say this, even though I almost certainly, from what I can tell, have the opposite political views of the truckers.

993
01:24:11,860 --> 01:24:15,860
They're actually sound like kind of a bunch of jerks, to be honest.

994
01:24:15,860 --> 01:24:24,860
But what was interesting to me is that the way that protest was resolved wasn't through kind of normal law enforcement mechanisms,

995
01:24:24,860 --> 01:24:31,860
but by cutting off their money and then to their families.

996
01:24:31,860 --> 01:24:39,860
God, that was really interesting because that's Canada, and Canada is nobody's idea of some callous dictatorship.

997
01:24:39,860 --> 01:24:43,860
And Canada is like absurdly friendly place.

998
01:24:43,860 --> 01:24:44,860
Liberal democracy.

999
01:24:44,860 --> 01:24:47,860
In the actual liberal democracy.

1000
01:24:47,860 --> 01:24:49,860
Objectively else, they are.

1001
01:24:49,860 --> 01:25:01,860
And yet, Canada discovered the power of the payment system to end the protest.

1002
01:25:01,860 --> 01:25:08,860
And you know, I'm concerned because a lot of people who should be concerned about this thing are concerned because I don't like those guys.

1003
01:25:08,860 --> 01:25:10,860
I'm glad they did it.

1004
01:25:10,860 --> 01:25:12,860
Most truckers had bad intentions.

1005
01:25:12,860 --> 01:25:14,860
Maybe they did.

1006
01:25:14,860 --> 01:25:24,860
The problem is people will use it sometime against your preferred speech.

1007
01:25:24,860 --> 01:25:30,860
Against your preferred organization and protest or religion.

1008
01:25:30,860 --> 01:25:41,860
Because once you can end the social movement, not by winning in the marketplace of ideas, not by winning in elections,

1009
01:25:41,860 --> 01:25:47,860
not by charging them with a crime that they have actually committed.

1010
01:25:47,860 --> 01:25:53,860
But by just saying, okay, you can't pay for stuff.

1011
01:25:53,860 --> 01:26:01,860
There's no exit.

1012
01:26:01,860 --> 01:26:06,860
My credit card won't process this payment, but I can go to cash.

1013
01:26:06,860 --> 01:26:09,860
Cash is gone in this world.

1014
01:26:09,860 --> 01:26:11,860
So you can't go to cash.

1015
01:26:11,860 --> 01:26:15,860
This is a world where I suspect.

1016
01:26:15,860 --> 01:26:22,860
There's at least sectors of this world that consider quote unquote self-hosted quote unquote non-custodial wallets,

1017
01:26:22,860 --> 01:26:23,860
but it's a wallet.

1018
01:26:23,860 --> 01:26:26,860
It's where you have your money in your pocket.

1019
01:26:26,860 --> 01:26:33,860
They want them to go away for custodial wallets and custodial wallets are not wallets at all.

1020
01:26:33,860 --> 01:26:34,860
They're accounts.

1021
01:26:34,860 --> 01:26:37,860
They want people to have accounts, not wallets.

1022
01:26:37,860 --> 01:26:48,860
I put this in here, but there's for sure a sector of the regulatory state that believes it's deserve.

1023
01:26:48,860 --> 01:26:51,860
And they might be well intentioned.

1024
01:26:51,860 --> 01:27:02,860
But what this will mean is you will have given people in power an immensely powerful set of tools.

1025
01:27:02,860 --> 01:27:05,860
And here I'm going to go a little bit abstract.

1026
01:27:05,860 --> 01:27:07,860
This isn't all trying its proper.

1027
01:27:07,860 --> 01:27:11,860
Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.

1028
01:27:11,860 --> 01:27:17,860
And what it means, particularly pre-internet days, pre-industrialized days,

1029
01:27:17,860 --> 01:27:21,860
then, the emperor might be envisioning and has a certain view that you should enter this,

1030
01:27:21,860 --> 01:27:28,860
or you shouldn't say that, but you're in, I don't know, the social law and profits.

1031
01:27:28,860 --> 01:27:31,860
And, okay, I mean, fine.

1032
01:27:31,860 --> 01:27:33,860
The emperor thinks that.

1033
01:27:33,860 --> 01:27:37,860
But I'm going to say there's other things to my friend.

1034
01:27:37,860 --> 01:27:40,860
I'm going to do this other thing here.

1035
01:27:40,860 --> 01:27:47,860
There were practical limits on their ability to enforce their power and they're good,

1036
01:27:47,860 --> 01:27:50,860
but more importantly, bad ideas.

1037
01:27:50,860 --> 01:27:55,860
They were practically limited.

1038
01:27:55,860 --> 01:28:08,860
What is scary about these technologies is not that they allow something that wasn't previously possible.

1039
01:28:08,860 --> 01:28:16,860
It's that they allow it on superhuman scale, and in fact, it will be run on superhuman scale.

1040
01:28:16,860 --> 01:28:19,860
It will be run by AI.

1041
01:28:19,860 --> 01:28:27,860
And this is a set of power we've never given to anyone before.

1042
01:28:27,860 --> 01:28:33,860
And it's going to be sold as socially desirable.

1043
01:28:33,860 --> 01:28:43,860
And the question that needs to be asked, that I have yet to see good answers to,

1044
01:28:43,860 --> 01:28:46,860
is who watches the watchmen?

1045
01:28:46,860 --> 01:28:49,860
Who guards the guards?

1046
01:28:49,860 --> 01:29:02,860
When someone says, oh, we have a CBDC and the nice thing about it, it can only do transactions that are good.

1047
01:29:02,860 --> 01:29:04,860
Sounds great.

1048
01:29:04,860 --> 01:29:09,860
I prefer a society where people only do good transactions and don't do bad transactions.

1049
01:29:09,860 --> 01:29:12,860
It sounds actually socially desirable.

1050
01:29:12,860 --> 01:29:17,860
But who gets to choose them?

1051
01:29:17,860 --> 01:29:24,860
There is usually, I've read a lot about these things, and I've spoken to people about these things.

1052
01:29:24,860 --> 01:29:26,860
I've been called to advise on these things.

1053
01:29:26,860 --> 01:29:31,860
And there's usually very little talk about who gets to decide.

1054
01:29:31,860 --> 01:29:35,860
And what is the democratic governance of those decisions?

1055
01:29:35,860 --> 01:29:37,860
And what is the review process of those decisions?

1056
01:29:37,860 --> 01:29:39,860
What's the transparency of those decisions?

1057
01:29:39,860 --> 01:29:41,860
How can those decisions be challenged?

1058
01:29:41,860 --> 01:29:43,860
There's close to none of that.

1059
01:29:43,860 --> 01:29:48,860
It is assumed that the people in power can make good decisions.

1060
01:29:48,860 --> 01:29:52,860
And then the people not in power will, of course, follow them because they're good decisions.

1061
01:29:52,860 --> 01:29:54,860
But we've passed this.

1062
01:29:54,860 --> 01:29:57,860
We've passed this phase in human development, right?

1063
01:29:57,860 --> 01:30:01,860
This was a phase of pre-constitutional rights.

1064
01:30:01,860 --> 01:30:07,860
Constitutional rights start off by saying the sovereignty is with the individual, not the state.

1065
01:30:07,860 --> 01:30:10,860
You have to follow us, of course.

1066
01:30:10,860 --> 01:30:12,860
But are you default free?

1067
01:30:12,860 --> 01:30:13,860
Yes.

1068
01:30:13,860 --> 01:30:15,860
Are you default allowed to do things?

1069
01:30:15,860 --> 01:30:16,860
Yes.

1070
01:30:16,860 --> 01:30:18,860
Are you default allowed to own things?

1071
01:30:18,860 --> 01:30:19,860
Own things?

1072
01:30:19,860 --> 01:30:20,860
Yes.

1073
01:30:20,860 --> 01:30:24,860
Can the state deprive you of your rights, your freedom, your freedom of speech, your freedom of movement, your property?

1074
01:30:24,860 --> 01:30:29,860
Not without due process.

1075
01:30:29,860 --> 01:30:31,860
The state has to say you did something wrong.

1076
01:30:31,860 --> 01:30:33,860
The thing you did wrong is this.

1077
01:30:33,860 --> 01:30:36,860
The penalty is that you have a jury of your peers.

1078
01:30:36,860 --> 01:30:37,860
You have a lawyer.

1079
01:30:37,860 --> 01:30:39,860
You have, there's a set.

1080
01:30:39,860 --> 01:30:43,860
The hurdle is significant for the state to do it.

1081
01:30:43,860 --> 01:30:53,860
And that creates a version of a level of check on state power.

1082
01:30:53,860 --> 01:31:10,860
If we move all over this to an automated system running on private infrastructure, you know, you don't have any constitutional rights on Facebook's servers.

1083
01:31:10,860 --> 01:31:12,860
They're not yours.

1084
01:31:12,860 --> 01:31:13,860
They're Facebook's.

1085
01:31:13,860 --> 01:31:20,860
Just like you don't have any constitutional right to come into Mark Zuckerberg's house and lecture him in his lover room.

1086
01:31:20,860 --> 01:31:30,860
And this is correct because if you get out of a constitutional right to go in his servers and go in his living rooms, you'd have to assume a coercive state that would force him to let you in.

1087
01:31:30,860 --> 01:31:33,860
So it's correct that you don't have any rights there.

1088
01:31:33,860 --> 01:31:49,860
But if it turns out that we build our whole infrastructure on this type of underlying architecture, all types of policies will be implemented.

1089
01:31:49,860 --> 01:31:53,860
They will be effectively I was unreviewable.

1090
01:31:53,860 --> 01:31:57,860
They will be implemented at scale.

1091
01:31:57,860 --> 01:32:02,860
And they will be abused.

1092
01:32:02,860 --> 01:32:07,860
People keep talking about the state, but the state also means people.

1093
01:32:07,860 --> 01:32:10,860
There is someone in charge of the state.

1094
01:32:10,860 --> 01:32:13,860
The United States, the executive was a president.

1095
01:32:13,860 --> 01:32:17,860
And the president has a lot of power, Congress also has power.

1096
01:32:17,860 --> 01:32:21,860
And those are individual people that just people just like you and me.

1097
01:32:21,860 --> 01:32:25,860
And they're not infallible.

1098
01:32:25,860 --> 01:32:31,860
And in fact, their objectives are unlikely to be wholly pure, some of them likely.

1099
01:32:31,860 --> 01:32:34,860
But they're likely all of them to be wholly pure.

1100
01:32:34,860 --> 01:32:38,860
And so every time you sub here, the word state is a substitute person.

1101
01:32:38,860 --> 01:32:43,860
Should a person have this amount of power?

1102
01:32:43,860 --> 01:32:47,860
Often to me, the answer is no.

1103
01:32:47,860 --> 01:32:54,860
It's not like I think George shouldn't have this amount of power, but I should.

1104
01:32:54,860 --> 01:32:57,860
I don't think I should either.

1105
01:32:57,860 --> 01:33:03,860
But I also don't think any other arbitrary person should either.

1106
01:33:03,860 --> 01:33:07,860
And this is what the nature of a constitutional democracy is.

1107
01:33:07,860 --> 01:33:15,860
The nature of a constitutional democracy puts significant limits on the government's power

1108
01:33:15,860 --> 01:33:18,860
versus what it used to be before with it.

1109
01:33:18,860 --> 01:33:26,860
And if we lose this indirectly in the digital world, in this highly immersive digital world,

1110
01:33:26,860 --> 01:33:28,860
it can be very problematic.

1111
01:33:28,860 --> 01:33:30,860
Now, okay, so this is all, you know, mostly scary.

1112
01:33:30,860 --> 01:33:32,860
And I think it is mostly scary.

1113
01:33:32,860 --> 01:33:38,860
And one of the basis of everything I've been running on the open metaverse,

1114
01:33:38,860 --> 01:33:39,860
what can we do?

1115
01:33:39,860 --> 01:33:41,860
I actually don't think it's much.

1116
01:33:41,860 --> 01:33:42,860
Right.

1117
01:33:42,860 --> 01:33:43,860
And it's difficult.

1118
01:33:43,860 --> 01:33:46,860
And it's very high level.

1119
01:33:46,860 --> 01:33:59,860
And at the first approximation is the first level of abstraction is well,

1120
01:33:59,860 --> 01:34:07,460
Do we have the same rights digitally as we do in the physical world?

1121
01:34:07,460 --> 01:34:11,060
Do we have a default right to privacy online?

1122
01:34:11,060 --> 01:34:17,460
Do we have a default right to ownership online?

1123
01:34:17,460 --> 01:34:18,500
Can you own something?

1124
01:34:18,500 --> 01:34:21,380
Can you own a piece of art?

1125
01:34:21,380 --> 01:34:24,420
Because to own it, you need that quote, unquote, non-custodial

1126
01:34:24,420 --> 01:34:24,920
walk.

1127
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:33,400
If it has to be held in custody by Coinbase or Kraken or BitStamp or JP Morgan Chase,

1128
01:34:33,400 --> 01:34:41,320
well, no, then we're saying we trust our citizens to own a piece of art in their living room,

1129
01:34:41,320 --> 01:34:44,440
but we don't trust our citizens to own a piece of art in the internet.

1130
01:34:47,000 --> 01:34:52,600
Which my view is that's an incorrect decision for society, right?

1131
01:34:52,600 --> 01:34:56,120
In any case, my view is meaning to have the discussions with society.

1132
01:34:57,720 --> 01:35:05,960
As the world becomes more digital, there needs to be a genuine discussion among policy makers

1133
01:35:05,960 --> 01:35:14,840
and the people of what we think the right balance of power is between the state and its citizens

1134
01:35:14,840 --> 01:35:17,640
of the world, noting that everything is a tradeoff.

1135
01:35:17,640 --> 01:35:20,920
Of course, fighting crime is easier when you don't have any rights.

1136
01:35:20,920 --> 01:35:29,000
Of course, but we have decided in at least most constitutional democracies that fighting

1137
01:35:29,000 --> 01:35:32,600
crime is very important, but it's not the only thing that matters.

1138
01:35:33,320 --> 01:35:36,600
Because if it was the only thing that matters, then a cop could walk into your house anytime

1139
01:35:36,600 --> 01:35:37,720
to just check the suit you're in.

1140
01:35:38,440 --> 01:35:42,120
And generally not, if I didn't get a warrant, then I'd go to court, then I'd go through some

1141
01:35:42,120 --> 01:35:43,640
process, right?

1142
01:35:43,640 --> 01:35:46,680
Because you start off with the right suit, then first level is the constitutional.

1143
01:35:46,680 --> 01:35:51,640
The second level is, again, what I keep.

1144
01:35:51,640 --> 01:35:57,880
I'm asking everyone about what I call freedom to transact, which it is a model of

1145
01:35:58,760 --> 01:36:01,320
there needs to still exist some

1146
01:36:05,080 --> 01:36:08,520
default allowed system of transactions.

1147
01:36:09,960 --> 01:36:10,920
We still have one today.

1148
01:36:10,920 --> 01:36:11,640
It's called cash.

1149
01:36:11,640 --> 01:36:15,720
You are default allowed to pay someone with cash.

1150
01:36:17,640 --> 01:36:18,760
Credit cards are not like that, right?

1151
01:36:18,760 --> 01:36:21,400
The credit card goes and goes for an impressing.

1152
01:36:21,400 --> 01:36:24,920
It says yes or no, a third party says yes or no to the transaction.

1153
01:36:26,760 --> 01:36:27,800
But cash is not.

1154
01:36:27,800 --> 01:36:31,560
If I take $20 and I give it to someone and buy a burger and a beer,

1155
01:36:32,440 --> 01:36:34,760
there's no third party in that transaction.

1156
01:36:35,720 --> 01:36:38,760
I believe we need to maintain a default allowed payment system.

1157
01:36:38,760 --> 01:36:46,120
And I believe digitally, because I don't think the CBDCs is the right thing would have been

1158
01:36:46,120 --> 01:36:50,760
for the CBDC's to become default permissions, just like cash is.

1159
01:36:50,760 --> 01:36:52,040
But I don't think I'm going to do that.

1160
01:36:53,960 --> 01:36:57,480
I've been having discussions with the Federal Reserve for a long time.

1161
01:36:57,480 --> 01:36:58,280
I don't do it.

1162
01:36:58,280 --> 01:37:07,240
And so that means being allowed to hold crypto assets in your own world.

1163
01:37:08,760 --> 01:37:10,920
I think that's what the choice is going to build out to.

1164
01:37:12,040 --> 01:37:17,720
And then the last thing, which is also part of my thesis of the one that I think I can

1165
01:37:19,000 --> 01:37:25,560
add the most influence on, is this metaverse with persistent digital objects needs to

1166
01:37:25,560 --> 01:37:32,760
database to store those objects. And that database can be one or several big companies.

1167
01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:35,320
Or it can be a public blockchain.

1168
01:37:36,120 --> 01:37:41,160
And if it's a public blockchain, we have a system to store an arbitrary digital object.

1169
01:37:41,160 --> 01:37:42,120
It's called an NFT.

1170
01:37:44,040 --> 01:37:51,080
And if people can own their NFTs and then companies, organizations,

1171
01:37:51,080 --> 01:37:54,600
governments build applications to use them, that's fantastic.

1172
01:37:54,600 --> 01:37:57,160
Some of those applications can be large and centralized.

1173
01:37:57,160 --> 01:37:58,120
It's also fantastic.

1174
01:37:59,320 --> 01:38:01,960
But they should not control the database of record.

1175
01:38:02,600 --> 01:38:05,800
Because that database of record is a database for our world.

1176
01:38:06,760 --> 01:38:13,640
And so to me, these are, we're at a very interesting path in the road.

1177
01:38:15,640 --> 01:38:16,600
We're fork in the road.

1178
01:38:16,600 --> 01:38:24,760
I think the decisions that are made in the 2020s, over the next four years,

1179
01:38:26,760 --> 01:38:35,160
will determine what the architecture and ultimately the human rights architecture of our life will be

1180
01:38:35,720 --> 01:38:37,160
in the 2030s and afters.

1181
01:38:38,840 --> 01:38:44,680
I think because of the network effects and the kind of monopolistic effects or all

1182
01:38:44,680 --> 01:38:50,040
monopolistic effects of the internet, whatever system gets established in the next few years will

1183
01:38:50,040 --> 01:38:51,240
become the system that wins.

1184
01:38:53,640 --> 01:38:57,720
Just like it's hard to get off Twitter, if everyone stores their,

1185
01:38:57,720 --> 01:39:03,400
take a simple example, digital art is an NFT, then artists will be making digital art as NFT

1186
01:39:03,400 --> 01:39:04,040
in the 2030s.

1187
01:39:04,040 --> 01:39:09,960
If everyone stores it on Facebook art service, that's what's going to work.

1188
01:39:09,960 --> 01:39:13,080
We'll find out which one it is over these few years.

1189
01:39:13,080 --> 01:39:18,440
I think it is, there are things we can do.

1190
01:39:19,960 --> 01:39:22,280
I don't think it's clear which way it's going to go.

1191
01:39:24,360 --> 01:39:28,200
In some countries, it is clear that it's going to go on the permission side.

1192
01:39:29,160 --> 01:39:31,640
I guess you should probably state this in reverse.

1193
01:39:32,600 --> 01:39:35,960
In many countries, they've already decided they're going to permission route.

1194
01:39:35,960 --> 01:39:40,680
China seems to be building out and permission blockchain.

1195
01:39:40,680 --> 01:39:41,880
Architecture.

1196
01:39:41,880 --> 01:39:46,280
And then the question is, if the other countries, if there will be countries,

1197
01:39:46,280 --> 01:39:49,240
that run an open architecture.

1198
01:39:50,760 --> 01:39:51,800
I hope they do.

1199
01:39:51,800 --> 01:39:53,560
I think it's going to be better for the world that they do.

1200
01:39:54,200 --> 01:39:55,720
I don't think it will happen automatically.

1201
01:39:56,360 --> 01:40:00,680
I don't think it will happen without people, you know,

1202
01:40:02,200 --> 01:40:09,000
having a discussion about what they think they deserve from as a citizen in a digital world.

1203
01:40:09,000 --> 01:40:13,320
And I'm hoping we can help stimulate some of that discussion.

1204
01:40:13,320 --> 01:40:16,200
So I'm going to stop here.

1205
01:40:16,200 --> 01:40:20,600
This is probably the most personal of the presentations on the other ones.

1206
01:40:20,600 --> 01:40:22,280
I tried to be somehow neutral.

1207
01:40:23,960 --> 01:40:25,880
I am not neutral here.

1208
01:40:26,920 --> 01:40:28,360
I think that's probably fair to say.

1209
01:40:29,160 --> 01:40:34,840
I do not think it is 50-50, if we should have a completely permission.

1210
01:40:34,840 --> 01:40:38,840
And digital architecture versus a permissionless one.

1211
01:40:39,640 --> 01:40:43,000
And it's equally good for society if we have either one.

1212
01:40:44,120 --> 01:40:44,520
I am.

1213
01:40:45,880 --> 01:40:48,680
I have a point of view or a bias, if you want to call it.

1214
01:40:50,520 --> 01:40:54,680
But that's what I'm sharing in this presentation.

1215
01:40:54,680 --> 01:40:56,760
So I am going to stop here.

1216
01:40:57,960 --> 01:41:01,640
George, if I can maybe look at some questions.

1217
01:41:01,640 --> 01:41:11,000
And I'll maybe for another 15 minutes or so.

1218
01:41:31,640 --> 01:41:41,560
I'm trying to get into the Discord chat where the questions are.

1219
01:41:41,560 --> 01:41:43,640


1220
01:41:43,640 --> 01:42:06,280
Okay.

1221
01:42:13,640 --> 01:42:26,640


1222
01:42:26,640 --> 01:42:30,640


1223
01:42:30,640 --> 01:42:39,640
Okay, there are a few questions regarding the exam. I will take this and then there are a couple of questions for 6529.

1224
01:42:39,640 --> 01:42:51,640
So, first question, will completing this course count toward course credit for UNIC MSc students? The quick answer is no.

1225
01:42:51,640 --> 01:43:08,640
In the future, we plan to have a for credit version of this course, as you might remember from our initial lectures, The University of Nicosia in the process of accrediting a new master's degree, the master's in metaverse systems we hope to.

1226
01:43:08,640 --> 01:43:16,640
To be able to launch this in the coming couple of months and the first class will start in September 2023.

1227
01:43:16,640 --> 01:43:31,640
So, if this happens, this course will be made into a credit course, it will have a different form of assessment, obviously, for the students that are taking it for credit.

1228
01:43:31,640 --> 01:43:47,640
So, the short answer is that this particular course with this particular assessment that I mentioned the multiple choice quiz for the end will not count towards, towards course credit for our students.

1229
01:43:47,640 --> 01:43:56,640
Another question is the certificate generative art, as I've said, we don't have all the details yet so I cannot commit, but most likely.

1230
01:43:56,640 --> 01:43:58,640
Yes.

1231
01:43:58,640 --> 01:44:05,640
Another question, is there a way to do the full course to obtain the certification.

1232
01:44:05,640 --> 01:44:09,640
I'm not sure what exactly the student means here.

1233
01:44:09,640 --> 01:44:22,640
I mean, this is the full course. So, if you take the exam and score 60% or higher as I've said, you will get the certificate of completion as an NFT on Ethereum.

1234
01:44:22,640 --> 01:44:35,640
If you would like to do so. So, yeah, I don't know if you meant something else, please let us know.

1235
01:44:35,640 --> 01:44:41,640
6529, I don't know if you have access to the questions or do you want me to read them for you because I think they're.

1236
01:44:41,640 --> 01:44:55,640
I have them, I see three of them here. The first one I'm laughing, I don't mean.

1237
01:44:55,640 --> 01:45:16,640
Yeah. Both, I guess. I'm going to go with both. I don't know, usually these things do start for pleasure, don't be George. So, I'm going to say both, but if that's wrong, it's probably pleasure first in business afterwards.

1238
01:45:16,640 --> 01:45:27,640
That pleasure is a business, isn't it? So, yeah, it might be pleasure for the end user, but it might be a business application for the ones who develop some markets.

1239
01:45:27,640 --> 01:45:55,640
Yep, yep, yep. All right, is the network state a new hybrid global structure, or does it become an alternative pseudo digital government place? So, this is very

1240
01:45:55,640 --> 01:46:09,640
difficult and interesting question. I've spoken about it and we'll discuss this with him on his session because he's the expert on it.

1241
01:46:09,640 --> 01:46:26,640
And he has a more ambitious view of it, that makes sense of his concept. But he thinks of it even taking on indirectly physical space.

1242
01:46:26,640 --> 01:46:40,640
And I'm going to say his view.

1243
01:46:40,640 --> 01:46:59,640
And he controls physical space, it's like this. Distributing on Physical space but my view is very different.
 
1244
01:46:59,640 --> 01:47:13,640
Very long time, if ever, give up default control of societal governance.

1245
01:47:13,640 --> 01:47:32,640
And so what this, what I think these are going to be, are groups of people who operate in parallel to this. I mean, is the Catholic Church a network state.

1246
01:47:32,640 --> 01:47:56,640
And so, it's a very valuable, yes, right, like there's many people around the world who share a set of values, who contribute economically to those values, who have shared physical facilities around the world.

1247
01:47:56,640 --> 01:48:12,640
And in some countries, universities, the Vatican also has a very small nation state, but I don't think that's the important part. I mean, the Catholic Church, I think, by logic is a network state.

1248
01:48:12,640 --> 01:48:31,640
In mature nation states, people are fine with this, right, in some nation states they are, it was all they want to like control it, but like in my current nation states, like the Catholic Church and share your beliefs with others and that's fine.

1249
01:48:31,640 --> 01:48:56,640
And so I think it's conceptually for me it's conceptually like that. It's something like, and I'm not saying it's like a religion, from that perspective, but it's something like a religion in how it can be, it's a different layer of people's lives organized in parallel to the nation state.

1250
01:48:56,640 --> 01:49:02,640
So, I think that's how it ends up.

1251
01:49:02,640 --> 01:49:21,640
Okay, can you comment on feudalistic state, web 3 appears to be from a societal evolution perspective, or if you disagree with this view, do you think the development of space will follow a parallel path to societal evolution but it's sped up right?

1252
01:49:21,640 --> 01:49:26,640
I don't think I understand the question to be honest.

1253
01:49:26,640 --> 01:49:30,640
I think web 2 is more feudalistic right now than web 3.

1254
01:49:30,640 --> 01:49:37,640
I think web 2 is almost, almost completely feudalistic.

1255
01:49:37,640 --> 01:50:01,640
So, if you work, if you make a large part of your life on Facebook, well, you don't really have any rights at all there, right? They can just end your account at any time for any reason.

1256
01:50:01,640 --> 01:50:10,640
That's it, I don't really anything. And that seems to me to be a feudal type relationship.

1257
01:50:10,640 --> 01:50:19,640
Web 3 I don't think is that way, necessarily, and definitely not as bad.

1258
01:50:19,640 --> 01:50:33,640
I think we have an opportunity to have self sovereign actions in web 3 that perhaps we don't do web 2.

1259
01:50:33,640 --> 01:50:41,640
That's how I understand the question list.

1260
01:50:41,640 --> 01:50:49,640
Do you have any other ones or have I bored everyone to death already on the stop?

1261
01:50:49,640 --> 01:50:55,640
I don't see any other questions, no, I think this covers it all.

1262
01:50:55,640 --> 01:51:06,640
I guess we can renew our appointment for next Wednesday unless we amount something earlier than that which I don't think so at this stage.

1263
01:51:06,640 --> 01:51:10,640
It's only Balaji that is missing, correct?

1264
01:51:10,640 --> 01:51:12,640
Yeah, we'll see.

1265
01:51:12,640 --> 01:51:15,640
We don't have any concerns now, but we will.

1266
01:51:15,640 --> 01:51:36,640
For Balaji, nobody in the next panel discussion is next Wednesday with regarding the metaverse and it's with Ryan from Oncyber, Charlie Cohen and Maxim Perumal, correct?

1267
01:51:36,640 --> 01:51:42,640
That one's going to be wild. We have Ryan and Maxim and Charlie, it's going to be wild.

1268
01:51:42,640 --> 01:51:49,640
A lot of different and exciting viewpoints in that one.

1269
01:51:49,640 --> 01:51:51,640
I'm really looking forward to it.

1270
01:51:51,640 --> 01:51:57,640
Okay, we all are and you're going to be moderating it, so I'm sure it's going to be fine.

1271
01:51:57,640 --> 01:52:01,640
Great, so I'll see you next week then, everyone.

1272
01:52:01,640 --> 01:52:02,640
All right.

1273
01:52:02,640 --> 01:52:04,640
Bye bye for now.

1274
01:52:04,640 --> 01:52:05,640
Bye bye.

1275
01:52:05,640 --> 01:52:07,640
Bye bye.