Metaverse Our Future World

KSP Season 13 Episode 2:
Metaverse – Our Future World

Writer: Winda AU

Photographer: Winda AU

Metaverse has indeed become a hotly discussed issue and topic lately. Carrying the concept of a virtual world that facilitates communication across distances and regions, Metaverse is a technological breakthrough that has taken the world by storm. This second KSP episode was presented by Mr. Hendrawan Armanto, who is one of the ISTTS lecturers who entered the world of metaverse. Pak Hendrawan will discuss the metaverse in depth in this KSP.

The term metaverse first appeared in the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. In this novel, Neal tells that the metaverse world is an imperfect world, even terrible. Some of the things that arise include technology addiction and various problems such as harassment, discrimination, and others which are finally brought into the real world because the user cannot distinguish that he is in the real world or in the virtual world.

The Acceleration Studies Foundation (ASF) agency explained that in the future the Metaverse Roadmap Summit will be attended and filled by academics, game companies, biospatial technicians, media and anyone who will participate in the metaverse. With the rapid development of technology today, metaverse is not impossible in the near future. Based on the results of the questionnaire regarding what activities you want to do in the metaverse, things that don't smell like games have started to appear such as watching movies, concerts, birthday parties and so on. "This can be our target and the target of companies developing the metaverse," explained Pak Hendrawan. The advantages of metaverse include:

1. Allows many users from all over the world to gather at the same time and place,
2. The metaverse community is a large community that supports the development of the metaverse,
3. Allowing the emergence of new business models, the metaverse will also encourage the development of various industries such as AI, AR, and so on.

Pak Hendrawan said that he found three shortcomings regarding the metaverse. These drawbacks include:

1. The user experience gap is due to differences in the economy and the purchasing power of users
2. There is a danger of data and privacy leaks
3. The third shortcoming is what Neal talks about in his novel Snow Crash. Sexual harassment and other forms of harassment in the metaverse can occur because avatars can attack each other easily.

“If we attack people in the physical world, we can get hit. Whereas in the metaverse there is none. Avatar hitting people? So what? There's no effect on her physique because it's just an avatar. Surely the reason is like that, "explained Mr. Hendrawan. "If there are no rules governing this, the metaverse can become a dangerous world," he added.

There are 7 layers of the metaverse, including: experience, discovery, creator economy, spatial computing, decentralization, human interface and infrastructure. Metaverse is not about three-dimensional graphics. Metaverse is a concept that allows us to eliminate existing physical boundaries. With the loss of existing physical boundaries, will appear various new experiences that we could not previously get. “Suppose we want to get Justin Bieber concert seats at the forefront, they are limited in number and the price is terrible. With no physical limitations, we can all buy front seats because only our virtual ones need to be there and all of us can be exclusive,” said Pak Hendrawan. “Another example, disabled people have physical limitations and cannot climb mountains. Imagine with this metaverse world, only with a VR device he can reach the top of the mountain," he added.

Interested in trying the metaverse? There are several metaverse platforms that are quite popular in 2022, including Hyperverse, Decentraland, Sandbox, Roblox, Epic Games Fortnite, Bloktopia, Cryptovoxels, Metahero, Star Atlas, and many more.

Thank you for sharing Mr. Hendrawan! Metaverse is a disruptive technological breakthrough that will undeniably change the current lifestyle and business model. It is hoped that KSP participants can know more about the metaverse world and the development of the metaverse world can be accompanied by rules that can ensure the safety and comfort of users so that as a result it can bring good changes to all of our lives.