Questioning the metaverse

Over ten years ago, I supported the launch of Kinect for Windows. Microsoft released a software development kit (SDK), hoping companies would develop unique (and profitable) uses for the Kinect motion sensing device. While there was tremendous enthusiasm around the SDK, commercial applications were few and far between.

I recall talking to a gamer who had a Kinect device, but rarely used it because when he finished work, the only way he wanted to interact with a game was by moving a joystick and tapping buttons.

His remark stuck in my mind and resurfaced a few days ago upon meeting IIze Zigurs, a professor of information systems who focused on the intersection of information technology with collaborative work in an increasingly virtual world. What makes her work unusual is that it was published in the early 2000’s, over two decades ago.

She foresaw today’s metaverse, a virtual reality where people can socialize, work, play, and explore immersive digital spaces, enlivened by virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.

Decades earlier in 1932, Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, introducing readers to the feelies, movies that enabled viewers to experience the same sensations – sights, hearing, and touch – as the characters on the screen when they grasped the two knobs on the sides of their seats.

The feelies were intended to distract the masses from the realities of their lives, plunging them into fantastical worlds.

I pause.

There are two sides to everything. Immersive experiences enable medical students to learn in ways that would otherwise be impossible. Digital twins simulate what has yet to be conceived. Virtual reality allows someone, 1,000 miles away, to assist. And augmented reality helps first responders see through walls and buildings.

I can’t help wondering, however, the value of my creating an avatar that can wander around wooly mammoths, interact with stegosauruses, leap over molten lava, and barter with cave men. Or whether shopping in a virtual grocery store could possibly replace the delight of picking up a peach, inhaling the fragrance, feeling the velvety skin, and anticipating how it’ll taste.