The metaverse and new jobs
Jean-Christophe HUC
Directeur Technique r&d | CTO | Expert en industrialisation logicielle & Innovation IA
Jobs are one of the basic elements of the economy.?The number of jobs created in a quarter is used as an index to show the strength of economic growth.?Job creation is always a key ingredient in the “goody basket” offered by politicians during an election cycle.?If the number of existing jobs goes down in a quarter, it’s called a contraction; if that number goes down a little for an entire year, it’s called a recession, and if it goes down a lot, it’s called a depression (and that’s depressing!).
A longtime concern of workers and their unions has been the fear that technology would reduce the number of available jobs.?They reasoned, logically it would seem, that the more processes were automated, the more jobs would be lost, and therefore the higher unemployment would be.
But the facts have shown otherwise.?Indeed, statistics have shown since 1900 that automation has increased the number of jobs, rather than the other way around.?The real numbers have shown that whenever there is an increase in technology, while there is a loss of jobs in some sectors, there is an even greater net increase in jobs.
So, today, as we hear more and more about the new “metaverse” from people like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and others talk about all the jobs that it’s going to create, what do they mean?
New Technology
As mentioned above, new technology has almost always created new jobs, and often entire industries (think about the advent of the automobile and aircraft).?In fact, if you can think of new technology that has created a net loss of jobs to the overall economy, please share that with sources in the comments!
But the metaverse is not the simple invention of a single new technology.?The metaverse, as envisioned by these men and a host of other women and men, will see a stunning array of new technology being created.?In fact, never before in the history of man has there been a time when we will see new technology and the jobs that go with it being created at such an explosive rate!
There are, on the new technology list, things that are likely years, if not many years away from coming into fruition.?One example is the holodeck, a Star Trek invention that we will come back to in a minute.
But there are many other technologies being worked on that have already been invented with working models or at least working prototypes that require many hours of research, development, and refining to enter the marketplace.
Some of these have already been added but are not as elegant as we would like to see.?An example is the (face it) very clunky virtual reality headsets.?These are not the kind of head gear most people would go out to dinner wearing.?But the goal for them is to develop virtual reality headsets that look, wear, and feel little different from glasses made to correct vision.
Such glasses are already being tested for AR (augmented reality).?Google Glass was laughed at by many when it first came out with Google Glass.?Now, while Google’s own product never really hit the mainstream, it’s still here, but so are many other versions of AR headwear that wear just like glasses.?Here’s a little challenge for you.?Can you discover another startling product of AI (artificial intelligence) being used in this video about these glasses? (Hint:?listen carefully!)
But just with smart glasses, alone, have come many advances in industry, medicine, education, and of course, gaming.?AR, science fiction just a couple of decades ago, is now a working reality.?Along with that have come many new, good quality and high-paying jobs in the tech sector, too.
But the metaverse offers something new, or at least nearly new – virtual products.
We’ve actually had these for a long time, but many people may not have realized it.?From the moment that digital recording became a reality, virtual products began to exist.
The first ones were mainly used for photography and music – some would argue that those are not virtual products, but in reality, they are.?They may have been stored on hardware such as compact discs and hard drives, but they were not limited to having to be printed in some form in order to be shared around the world.?All that was required was the internet, a computer to send from with the right software, and a computer to receive to with the correct software.?Suddenly, images and music could be instantly shared anywhere the internet was accessible.
The giant that made photography affordable to everyone for more than one hundred years, Kodak, suddenly went out almost completely out of business.?Vinyl records practically disappeared, and record stores did.?Before long, VHS tapes and players disappeared.?VHS rental businesses quickly made the switch to DVDs, but it turned out that the DVD rentals would quickly become a thing of the past, as Netflix, Youtube, and others eclipsed that market.But most of the jobs that were lost were minimum wage jobs, and in their place, a vast number of high-tech jobs opened up to feed the new technologies that were exploding.
People who likely never would have made it have become famous via their own video channels on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Vimeo, Rumble, and many more.?There doesn’t seem to be any limit, yet, to the ever-increasing number of video sharing platforms, and people are getting famous on them – and a fairly hefty number of them are earning a pretty good income from the advertising revenue their channels generate.
But this is only a hint of what is coming with the metaverse.?And yes – the metaverse is coming.?Mark Zuckerberg in his annual message to the world spoke long and enthusiastically about it, and if you took in his talk (you should), you might be forgiven for thinking that he invented the metaverse (Didn’t Al Gore invent the internet??Just kidding!)
The reality is that Mark Zuckerberg did not invent the metaverse, nor does he actually make that claim, although he has claimed the name, Meta, for his main company. But his enthusiasm is well-founded.
May be you know Decentraland, a 3D virtual world open to the public in february 2020. Virtual estate in decentraland are NFTs which can be bought by the cryptocurrency MANA.
The metaverse opens up incredible opportunities.
It has gigantic appeal to everyone from children and teachers, to businesses wanting to reduce their costs while increasing their productivity, to hardcore gamers, and many, many others.
?Fitness, gaming, gambling, music, movies, travel, education, technical training, technology training, medical training and upgrading, transportation, energy, space exploration – these are just a handful of the industries that will be affected by and a part of the metaverse.
?As mentioned in this article, “The metaverse is going to be the greatest leap in technology and jobs in the history of mankind.”?
?Remember I mentioned the holodeck of Star Trek lore??
The holodeck was a deck on a starship where someone using it could create their own virtual world.?They could save the program, so that when they entered the deck, they could simply call up the program and there they would be, in their own world, with everything as it would be if they were really there.
There would be “real” people (whom some of the characters had romantic relationships with), and the surroundings would be as real as if they really were real.?In fact, they were all part of a very elaborate hologram, and something we are told by experts, today, is impossible.
But engineers are known to say, tongue in cheek, that the impossible is very, very difficult to overcome.?And it has long been said that humans will eventually, if we’re here long enough, eventually invent anything that we have first dreamed up in science fiction.?Remember, conventional wisdom said that man would never fly, either.
But that aside, there is a real, genuine drive to create such technology, which in itself is creating more and more really good jobs.
Even more important, the main driving force, the very thing that makes people want a holodeck in the first place, is our insatiable desire to be entertained.?Digital entertainment is huge, growing quickly, and shows no sign of slowing down.
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The biggest part of that right now is gaming.?Everyone has smartphones, all smartphones come with games, and people are downloading new games from Apple Store and Google Play continuously. But simply games on the phone are only part of the equation.?Gaming is such an important industry, right now, that the industry is driving new PC technology.?There are a lot of hardcore gamers who play every day, and sometimes all day, who want greater and greater power, speed, and lifelike graphics.?Their appetite is insatiable.?But there are also a growing number of people who play resource gobbling games every day who are not quite as hardcore as those previously mentioned, but who still want the full experience when they sit down to play – or maybe stand.
People are also playing games with virtual reality headsets, and with modern smartphone technology, are even using them with their phones.?This in turn drives the demand for better VR headsets and faster, more powerful smartphones.
In this article, we can have a first look of these new jobs in this virtual unlimitless world. New jobs could just as well be in Fashion, Health & Well-being, Social Activities, Leisure, Real Estate, Music, etc.
Below few examples of ne jobs:
1. Digital Fashion Designer
Our avatar will have to wear outfits that they can choose according to our desire, our mood, the situation, or the event in which we are participating.
2. Metahuman Doctor
All of our biometric and physiological data will be digitized and contained in our metahuman avatars, especially those related to our health conditions.
3. Metaverse Tour Guide
the Metaverse will have an infinity of immersive worlds, it will pave the way for a new form of tourism.
4. Construct Architect
A construct is an element developed from scratch, which can be a place, an experience, an object, with which one or more users can interact simultaneously or separately, in a dynamic way.
5. Artifact Chaser
6. Smart Contract Lawyer
For digital asset transactions, this could be a transfer of ownership for a certain amount of cryptocurrency.
7. Data Bounty Hunter
With this new type of profession such as Data Bounty Hunter, it is the data-based digital economy business model as we know it today, operated by the biggest companies such as the GAFAM, which will have to be reviewed.
8. Digital Asset Executor
What happens to these after our death? What about our Metahuman avatar?
9. Real-estate agent
Such as in the reality, you could buy and sell parcels, houses.
So, the reality is (and this is not simply virtual reality) that the metaverse is going to create a vast number of jobs.?We’ve only touched, just grazed, the technology that is going to come out of this, and with fantastic human ideas coupled with today’s (and tomorrow’s) AI, growth cannot be anything but exponential!
Next part coming soon ;)
Jean-Christophe
My book "A technology Safary" is available on Amazon here.?
Follow me?on Twitter??@cto_software, and visit my blog for more articles?https://www.jchuc.com
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