The best way to understand the virtual world of business that’s taking shape is to go deep with the people who dwell daily in that commercial space.
Wharton Global Youth recently spoke with Henry Yan, the co-founder of Metaverse AI, a Cypher Accelerator, a support program for young crypto and Henry: A virtual human is your digital identity in the virtual world. Think about your avatars. I’m sure high school students are very familiar with gaming. In games and virtual worlds, you interact with a lot of virtual characters that are not real. In gaming terms, it’s called an NPC, a non-player character. Those NPCs enrich your experience in the virtual world. To represent yourself in the virtual world, you need to digitize yourself. You will have a 3D avatar that looks like you, talks like you and behaves like you. It can be your agent in the metaverse. They are virtual avatars with intelligence. We really put a lot of emphasis on the intelligence part, because other companies just build a 3D asset that looks like you. But our virtual avatars can learn from your behavior and build intelligence over time, so eventually they can talk like you and think like you. Right now, we’re working with enterprise clients (large companies). We provide those AI virtual beings for different industries, like gaming, fashion and sports. We’re working with some athletes right now to turn them into virtual beings. The virtual avatar for the athletes can interact with various fans and various brands worldwide. Eventually, we will open up the functionality to consumers, so everyone is able to create their own virtual beings. Twitter and Instagram page. She has generated a lot of buzz over the internet. Wharton Global Youth: What is one aspect of the metaverse that you think will blow our minds? Henry: Hyperrealism (the virtual is becoming increasingly real). As you can see in the latest Avatar movie, those avatars are hyperrealistic. You can imagine that the future technology will duplicate every single detail on your expression, your facial movements. Everything becomes hyperrealistic. Also, artificial intelligence will make your avatar very intelligent, so it looks like you and talks like you. Wharton Global Youth: Back to that notion of the self-sovereign metaverse for a moment. Will we have full control over our information, assets and data in this virtual realm? Henry: I believe that’s the only way forward. In a more hyperrealistic internet, which is what we like to call the metaverse because it’s a 3D world, everything gets more real and gets more personal and interconnected. It’s even more important to maintain user privacy. We believe that with technology such as blockchain cryptography and zero-knowledge proof, we can really improve user privacy. Conversation Starters What specifically does Henry Yan mean by the open metaverse? What does he mean by a self-sovereign metaverse? Is that realistic? Do you think it will evolve that way? Do you see yourself someday applying your gaming experiences to the metaverse economy? Which layer of the industry would you choose to be a part of and why? Share your story in the comment section of this article.
