June 30, 2024 • 39 mins
Dave Birch is an authority and an ambassador for identity systems. And a great conversationalist. With co-author Victoria Richardson, he’s just published Money in the Metaverse: Digital assets, online identities, spatial computing and why virtual worlds mean real business. (US link here).
In this discussion with Steve and George, Dave introduces the book and takes us into their thinking about secure, private transactions in the metaverse. Or metaverses as he points out because it will be a multi-metaverse world.
Dave doesn’t let the slow evolution of 3D hardware or its high price stand in the way of his enthusiasm. We’ve seen similar transitions before, ones that drive ubiquity and precipitous hardware cost declines so it's time to get out ahead of what's coming.
Much of the conversation is relevant to today’s concerns, in advance of widespread metaverse adoption. So take a listen.
A note on their book.
Even if you are slightly skeptical (or more) about metaverse breadth or arrival date, Money in the Metaverse is a very worthwhile read as it discusses so many of the essential components and concerns that apply in today’s world. The challenges, and solutions, to identification and privacy are examined at depth. Victoria and Dave have used the bright light of use cases, stories, and tech from our current situation to explore identity infrastructure that works in the real world and, according to them, may work better in the metaverse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Making Data Better, a podcast about
data quality and the impact ithas on how we protect, manage
and use the digital datacritical to our lives.
I'm George Peabody, partner atLockstep Consulting, and thanks
for joining us.
With me is Lockstep founder,steve Wilson.
Hello, steve.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good evening.
Greetings from a different timezone, a different time of night
.
Good to be with you again,George.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, I'm up earlier than normal, I confess.
So, Steve, we have the greatgood fortune of bringing on an
important thinker on digital,have the great good fortune of
bringing on an important thinkeron digital identity, and that,
of course, is Dave Birch, who isan author, advisor, commentator
on digital financial services,a thought leader in digital
(00:55):
identity and digital money, andwho holds a number of advisory
roles across these fields.
And he is the author ofIdentity is the New Money and a
payments expert.
Along with co-author VictoriaRichardson, he authored Money in
the Metaverse, Digital Assets,Online Identities, Spatial
Computing and why Virtual WorldsMean Real Business, published
(01:16):
just last month by LondonPublishing Partnership.
His co-author, VictoriaRichardson, is COO of MECO, a
company focused on verifiabletrust and data.
And well, with that minimalistintroduction of your
accomplishments, Dave, welcometo Making Data Better.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was minimalist, but it was very kind.
George, it's really nice to seeyou again.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Good to see you too.
We are excited about this bookthat you've written.
Well, I would say, in typicalfashion for you, dave, it's a
leap pretty far forward into thefuture from my humble
perspective.
Let's just start at thebeginning.
As I've been reading your book,I just come away with the
question of is the metaverse thenext incarnation of the
(01:58):
internet?
Is that why you wrote Money inthe Metaverse?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, actually why I wrote it was more to do with the
money bit than the metaversebit, because it happens that I
was invited to an event in themetaverse using Spatial and it
was fun.
I really enjoyed it.
I went to an event and I metlots of people that I hadn't
spoken to for a while, from allover the world, and we were all
(02:22):
walking around as our avatarsand meeting each other, and it
was really good.
I really enjoyed it.
You know, the um communicationsand connectivity were great and
then I wanted to buy somethingand in order to buy something, I
had to come out of themetaverse, go to like a 2d
representation, scan a qr code,which took me to a website, and
(02:46):
then type in card details andthen go back into the metaverse
um, and it sort of didn't seemright to me and I just I just
kept thinking this can't be howthings are going to work.
This.
Surely I would be doing thingsinside the.
You know the way I think aboutthese things and I spoke to a
few people about it.
(03:06):
I spoke to a guy who actuallyused to work for me a long time
ago, but a guy who's a veryexperienced iOS developer, and
he said it's insane to thinkthat people are going to buy
things, you know, taking off theglasses.
And I started to look around anda lot of things I was reading
were pushing me towards the kindof DeFi, tokenization side of
(03:27):
things, which I mean I you know,steve and I have discussed this
many times when I remainskeptical about cryptocurrency.
I'm always open to new ideasabout that, but I'm slightly
unconvinced.
But when it comes totokenization, digital assets,
web3 I I'm very.
I mean, this is the nextgeneration financial market
(03:49):
infrastructure.
There's absolutely no doubtabout it.
So the fact that people weretalking about this in the
metaverse and that sort of madesense to me.
You know, you go in themetaverse, I give you a fungible
token, you give me anon-fungible token, the there's
no clearing, there's nosettlement, there's no.
That all kind of made sense tome.
But then, of course, I broughtmy old perspective to it and
(04:10):
thought, well, okay, that soundsgood, but it can't work unless
we have some kind of digitalidentity infrastructure, because
I need to know that you'rewhatever over 18, or a lawyer or
resident in australia, or Imean whatever it is.
You know, know and so.
And then that got me thinkingabout wallets and about how
these would all be connected.
(04:30):
And you know, I know a fair bitabout wallets, but I don't know
everything.
But I knew that victoria did so, um, I spoke to victoria about
it and of course, she's abrilliant digital strategist.
So as soon as I started talkingabout these things, she
immediately gave me a frameworkfor thinking about it, which was
incredibly helpful.
And so I thought, actually, whynot do the experiment of
(04:54):
co-authoring?
I've not done it before.
Victoria kindly accepted the uh,the challenge.
I have to say it was fun, itwas a, it was a great way to
write and, you know, she turned,I think, what was a pretty good
book into into what's turnedout to be a great book.
So it was a very goodexperience.
But yeah, it all goes back,george, to me just being in the
(05:14):
metaverse and thinking thiscan't be right, this isn't going
to be how people are going tobuy and sell and and so on, and
that's what let me, you know,let me down that line of
thinking.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I loved your gentle mocking of the idea that
one would go to a virtual bankbranch in the metaverse.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Well, because that's not such a far out.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I mean, I just think those no, no, no, no, no, no, no
, no, no, no.
The last 10 years in fintech,embedding financial services at
the point of need yes, exactlyyes why on earth would I be
schlepping my way over to some?
Yes, exactly virtual branch totalk to a virtual teller when I
should be able to affect thepayment when I'm making the
(05:58):
transaction.
And, oh, maybe I want to getcredit for a credit, a line of
credit or insurance to cover upmy purchase, whatever it might
be.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That's where the margins are going to be.
The bank can come to you IfBarclays wants to talk to me
about something in the middle ofit.
They can show up where I am.
I don't need to go to themanymore.
I couldn't help making fun ofthat.
I didn't mean to bedisrespectful.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I will be.
It's okay, I'll take that on.
Um, one of the things thattroubles me is that, uh, my
experience of metaverse thus farhas really largely been big
tech.
Who are, let's face it, they'relandlords, and they're actually
more than landlords, so theywrite the rules of engagement
(06:46):
within their territory right.
And your book really envisionsan alternative construction
where there's an open andinteroperable metaverse.
Yes, I mean.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I don't claim any originality for that thought.
I mean, when I began to sort oflook into it the, the, the
first definition that sort ofstuck in my mind I saw a thing
in the financial times whichsaid um, I mean, I'm
paraphrasing, I don't have it infront of me, but it said
something like the differencebetween virtual worlds and
metaverses is that in metaverses, your identity and your assets
(07:23):
are yours, not the platforms.
You know when, when you, whenyou buy your magic sword in
world of warcraft, you, youthink it's like yours, but it's
not really yours, it belongs tothe platform, it belongs to
blizzard entertainment, and theycould delete it tomorrow or
they could duplicate it or theycould do whatever they wanted
with it.
The the crucial distinctionbetween virtual augmented
(07:44):
reality and metaverse is in ametaverse, the things are yours,
the identity is yours, the, theassets are yours and you can
move them between theseenvironments, and that's that's
the sort of big breakthrough.
Now, of course, that immediatelyled me and I, and that made
sense to me.
You know, I sort of saw that.
Okay, that's right, Iunderstand.
(08:04):
That sort of saw that.
Okay, that's right, Iunderstand that.
But of course that immediatelyled me into thinking, okay, but
how?
I mean I like that construction, but how would it actually work
?
And that's um.
That's why I think the uh, itsounds futuristic to talk about
tokens and digital assets orwhatever.
It sounds futuristic, it isn't.
It actually isn't really, ifyou think.
(08:26):
Just focus on the metaverse fora second, because you said about
, like a lot of people.
You know, my first kind ofexperience was you go and look
at the facebook thing, you putthe goggles on and it's like,
yeah, I mean whatever, it'sreally not that interesting, and
you put the goggles away.
You don't think about itanymore.
Meanwhile, of course, facebookhas been continually developing,
refining that.
(08:47):
The, the smart glasses, theaddition of ai to the smart
glasses, delivering the kind ofar, vr, and the augmented
reality stuff through theglasses, as well as the new
versions of the virtualanti-goggles, have changed a lot
of things.
I think it's it's of more thanpassing interest that one of the
best-selling applications infact, I think it's it's of more
than passing interest that oneof the best-selling applications
in fact I think it mightactually, at this point, be the
(09:08):
best-selling application on theheadset is the over 50s fitness
club.
You know, because I mean steveand I might well be able to kind
of get each other going.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You know like okay, but we don't want to look at
each other, first thing in themorning.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I mean we want to.
Yeah, the avatars are a muchbetter.
And then, of course, along comeapple and uh.
If you read the first reviewsof the apple uh vision pro, I
mean I remember reading one Ithink it was vanity fair, but I
can't remember and said you know, he spent a couple of hours
playing in these Apple glasses.
He was doing some spreadsheetsand doing some work and whatever
(09:50):
.
And he said, when he took theglasses off and opened up his
MacBook Pro, it felt likesomething.
And I remember this quotedistinctly.
He said, you know, he had atop-of-the-range MacBook and he
said it felt like somethingpulled from the rubble of a
Soviet power station, you know.
So it's like you know, we'reonly at the very start of that.
(10:13):
This is like you know, they'vebuilt the Newton and you've got
to kind of imagine what theiPad's going to look like.
I mean, that's the kind of wayI think of it.
I said to somebody the other day.
Someone said well, you know,these things are expensive.
Who's going to pay $3,000 forthese headsets?
And I'm like, well, me for one.
I actually tried to buy them,but you can't because they're
(10:34):
geofenced so you can't take themoutside the US at the moment.
But just ask yourself this.
I mean, when I bought my firstapple I mean it's a long time
ago, this is early 80s incalifornia when I bought my
first apple it cost, if memoryserves, I think it costs about
two and a half thousand dollarsor something like that.
(10:55):
I don't know the numbersexactly.
Three thousand dollars isn't alot.
That's what a mac cost.
That's what your first compactportable cost.
I mean, that's, you know.
It's a starting point.
So so the first thing to pointout is that you know a lot of
our experience with themetaverse doesn't really tell us
where we are, even a year on.
(11:16):
I was just one of the companiesI work with.
They just bought those facebookheadsets, the oculus.
They just bought them for allof their developers because they
found that having thedevelopers have their meetings
in virtual reality space wasmuch more productive than having
them meet on zoom or on phonecalls, and they wanted all their
(11:37):
developers to begin thinkingabout how their products are
going to look, how they're goingto work in that 3D environment.
So people are already lookingin that direction.
Meanwhile, if you look at thenext generation of consumers
that are coming along, I meanwe're old, so we tend to think
what the kids are doing isYouTube or TikTok or whatever.
(11:58):
But if you actually look at thefigures for you know hours of
attention per week what thatnext generation, the younger
kids, are doing is already inthe proto metaverses.
So, in other words, the, themajority of their attention is
already going on roblox,minecraft, fortnite well, you
might think of as the protometaverses.
(12:20):
So so in a few years time, it'sgoing to be quite natural for
them to.
I mean, that's how they meettheir friends, that's how they
socialize, that's how theyconnect, you know.
So, in a very short time,brands are going to need to be
in those spaces as well,otherwise they won't be able to
connect with them.
Look at what's happened at tv.
(12:41):
I know this is a bit of adistraction, but I was at a
focus group for a bank thing.
It doesn't matter what, um, butthey do.
These focus groups where you'renot allowed to speak.
You sort of sit around theoutside and they have a.
They have a um, an experiencedperson in the middle who's
talking to these were teenagers.
You know, they were 16 yearsold.
So they have an experiencedperson in the middle who's
(13:02):
talking to the teenagers and yousit around the edge and you
can't say anything.
You just have to listen and,and what they're asking these
kids about is some sort ofbanking products, but they have
to disguise the question so thekids don't know what they're
anyway.
The point is, at one pointduring this, uh, the person in
the middle said something about,um, an advertisement for a bank
(13:23):
on the television.
Which advertisement did youlast see?
Or something like that.
And these kids were absolutelyblank.
They had absolutely no ideawhat she was talking about
because they never watchedtelevision.
And if they were watchingtelevision, they wouldn't be
watching it when there was abank add-on, because they'd be
playing with their phones.
Or well, that's where we'regoing next.
(13:46):
You know, if you look at someof the stuff that's going on, I
mean I was looking a couple ofdays ago.
I was looking, I mean forreasons which had to do with
work, not completely frivolously.
Someone had built a giant modelof Hogwarts or something in
Minecraft and.
I think like how much work wasthat?
It's astonishing, you know.
(14:06):
So the amount of effort that'salready going into the
proto-metaverses is substantial,but it's hamstrung by the fact
that the things that they buildaren't theirs.
They belong to the platform.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So we've got that issue of ownership and control.
Yeah, 100%.
How do we bridge from themetaverse to the real world?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And is that an old guy's feeling that we need to do
that, or is it going to giveway at some point?
Well, I do feel that I want totalk about authenticity, which
is, I think, the third pole ofthis.
Yeah, you may know Mike fromthe Confidential Computing
Consortium.
We had him on in episode 13,.
Dave, I'm talking about hisbook, which is all about trust.
(14:52):
I need to read the title Trustin Computer Systems in the Cloud
Great book Comparing trustonline and trust in the real
world, and how does one buildand augment the other.
We think that trust.
You know you talk a lot aboutidentity.
I think that authenticity is areally good way of looking at
(15:14):
that, because it's another wayof looking at the question what
do you need to know aboutanything and how do you know
that it's real At some level?
We're trying to avoid, you know, dictionaryism.
Um, at some, at some level, theuniverse is not real.
You know, maybe nothing is real.
So have you reflected on whatdoes authenticity mean?
(15:37):
Like what is authentic?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
well, I think there's two.
You know, when you say thatsteve, there are sort of two
lines of thinking which I thinkcome to the front.
So the first is you know, ofcourse, um, in the metaverse
nothing's well, I mean, let'sput to one side what, what real
means, but these things are allvirtual, of course, um, and we
certainly don't want themetaverse to end up as, uh, the
(16:03):
mess that we're in at the momentwith the internet, where you
know, nothing's real and youhave no.
You know, I mean literally inmy twitter feed today.
There's stuff there and I'mlooking at this thinking is this
real?
You know, there's like the.
There's like a page from thebbc with some bbc presenter and
he's and I glanced at it andhe's, he's shilling some
cryptocurrency, like what.
What is it?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
and of course, it's not real it's all this morning
about the general election inthe uk.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
That that's yeah, unfortunately that turns out to
be real.
But well, real, uh, and I'm?
I know I'm looking at my emaillike I I see a thing from wait,
what would?
What did paypal ask me?
I almost clicked on it.
I'm thinking what is this andwhy are paypal asking me to do
this again?
You know, I'm about to click onit and I realize it's fake.
It's not real at all.
(16:49):
You know, I get a message on mywhatsapp saying hey, you need
to call me back about this.
I'm almost about to.
And then, like, wait, hold on asecond.
Why would?
Why would they whatsapp me?
You know, like at the moment,the onus is on us, right?
It's a text message fromCommonwealth Bank and I have to
try and figure out whether it'sreal or not.
The metaverse cannot work likethat.
(17:10):
Steve, you're spot on.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
How is it actually going to work?
Do we have a handle yet on it?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Because the whole panoply that was missing from
the internet, the stuff thatthat's been our bread and butter
for you know, a generation keysand certificates and digital
signatures and encryption andwhatever has to be part of the
warp and weft, not somethingthat's added on on top.
So you know, if I'm going to,let's say, you and I are booking
(17:40):
tickets for to go and see acomedy, I mean with something
actually happened to you and Iare booking tickets for to go
and see a comedy.
I mean with something thatactually happened to me.
So you and I are bookingtickets to go and see a comedy
event in the metaverse and youhave to be over 18 in order to
do this.
There shouldn't be any issue ofyou having to show pictures of
your driving license or whatever.
It should simply be the casethat when you, when you walk up,
(18:01):
you don't even see it, like ifyou're not 18, it's not even
there, you don't see anything.
It should be that you know, ifI get a message that's from
Steve, I shouldn't have todouble check, because you know,
if it wasn't really from Steve,I would never see it, because
somewhere in the infrastructuresomething would hold on.
That signature doesn't checkout.
(18:21):
It's got to be like that.
Um.
I was reading some stuff theother day from the what they
called the content um coalition.
I've gone blank on the name yeahyeah, um, about this thing
about so you can tell where thephotos have been edited.
I mean, I I'm a maximalist onthis.
I would just say, like in anymetaverse I'd want to take part
in, if the photo doesn't have adigital signature that says this
(18:44):
comes from the New York Timesor from George Peabody, I don't
want to see it.
I just I don't even see it.
So a crucial distinctionbetween the metaverse and the
internet and the virtual worldswe have now is that that's going
to be part of theinfrastructure.
You know, you've seen it whenyou put on your apple glasses,
(19:05):
they do the, they do thebiometric scan.
You know I can't deliver yourcredentials to somebody else
because it just doesn't work.
You know I, there's no option.
So that's, that's the firstthing.
But the second thing is thisallows us a more sophisticated
construction of what identity is, and instead of continuing to
(19:27):
import what I think of as sortof analog notions into the
digital world, instead of makingsort of digital versions of
analog things, we can sort ofstart again with a more granular
construction.
We have a whole set of tools atour disposal now that the people
that built the originalinternet didn't have.
We go into the metaverse withpure multi-party computation,
(19:51):
with homomorphic encryption,with zero-knowledge proofs, with
cryptographic blinding, withsecure elements in our devices.
We go into the metaverse with acompletely different toolkit and
I think it's going to be anabsolute step change and the
implications of that are quiteclear because if it turns out
(20:14):
that the metaverse is a safer,more secure place to do business
, that directly translates intolower transaction costs and that
directly translates in apressure to move transactions
into the metaverse.
So, when it comes to it, vastmajority of customers in, let's
say, five years time, the factthat you'll be able to buy your
(20:35):
car insurance quicker andcheaper and easier if you stick
your facebook headset on, youknow that will become
commonplace.
That will just be, instead ofthe kids just putting them on
just to play Fortnite, they'llbe putting them on to go to
school, go to work, interactwith brands.
If you look at some of the casestudies that Victoria has
(20:55):
chosen from the book, I thinkshe's picked out things which
are very I don't want to saymundane that's the wrong word
but not super complicated,special cases Every day, yeah,
but everyday stuff, yeah,exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But having said that, I am worried.
George's point at the openingabout metaverse that we've seen
so far is the construction ofplatforms.
Somebody's going to pay forthat of platforms.
Somebody's going to pay forthat.
Have you have you thought aboutthe economics of whether or not
the net cost of this is reallygoing to fall because somebody's
going to have to pay a premium?
I get it that authenticity isgoing to lower cost, but is that
(21:32):
really going to net out?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
well, look, I mean, I I haven't.
I can't show you a spreadsheetabout that, but um, given, I
just saw some figures thismorning that say fraud in the UK
.
Well, reported fraud in the UKfor banks was a billion pounds
last year.
Jesus, I think there's someslack in the system.
I sort of remember that in theUS, I think the single case of
(21:58):
pandemic business support fraudwas I don't even remember what
it was 200 billion trillion, youknow, or something.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
You know there is plenty of slack in there.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Given some of the astonishing data breaches in
Australia, ranging from, youknow, optus to Working's Men,
clubs, working's Men I thinkthere's plenty of slack in the
system there to take that up.
If we think about how theoriginal so you get one of these
headsets just because I want todo the fitness thing or, you
know, play some game or whatever, and then in a couple of years
(22:31):
time, so I need to book thetickets for that thing, oh,
actually, I'll just do it withthe headset and then, a couple
of years after that, it's oh, Ireally do need to go and think
about refinancing the house.
Oh, to go and think aboutrefinancing the house.
Oh, wait, if I look over thereI can see, you know, and the way
that the apple glass is verycleverly, you know, because we
talk about.
We've been talking about themetaverse, like the capital m,
but actually, of course, themetaverse is a superset of lots
(22:53):
of different metaverses.
The metaverse where we go to doour fitness thing isn't going
to be the same metaverse where,you know, I don't know, broker
dealers go to negotiate.
It's not going to be the samemetaverse that auto engineers go
to to to design cars.
And there's going to be lots ofmetaverses, um, but the fact is
, if it becomes natural to youknow, without even thinking
(23:16):
about it, you put the glasses on, you go into the metaverse
which best suits what you wantto do now, when you say, who's
going to pay for it?
I think for a lot of thesethings, and it's possibly
because I think there is alittle bit of reaction about
platforms, you know.
Uh, so I do think brand has abig role to play in that.
Um, there'll be trusted brandslike disney where people will
(23:38):
want to go to do things.
But I also wonder and I mean,you probably think I'm saying
this just to be annoying, but Ithink it's actually true but if
you look at the history of hownew technologies have permeated
and you take into account thattwo of the very large platforms
that the EU have designatedunder the Digital Markets Act
(24:03):
are Pornhub and StripChat, Ithink you can see another route
into the mass market.
Yeah well, I just think youknow we shouldn't be too prissy
about these kind of things.
That's how stuff happens, sothere's sort of different ways
that those metaverses couldevolve, but I think the general
point is that you put theheadset on because you want to
(24:27):
go and or, as somebody wassaying to me earlier on today in
a different context, you wantto go play pickleball and then
it's just easier just to keepthe headset on when you want to
buy the car insurance.
I mean, that's kind of how itworks.
And there's also theconnectivity issue.
If you look at why, are kidslogging into Fortnite after
school and meeting their friendsin Fortnite?
(24:48):
It's the connectivity aspect ofit.
So if you think of that inmercenary revenue terms like
this weekend is the cup final,manchester City versus
Manchester United I can't bethere.
If I could put on my glasses andI'm in the stands there
watching the game, would I dothat rather than watch it on TV?
(25:09):
Yes, I would.
Would I pay $10 more thanwatching it on TV?
$20 more?
Wouldn't think twice about it.
I would happily pay $20 more.
Now take that a step further.
I'll happily pay $20 to put theheadset on and I'm there in the
stand watching the game.
But if my buddies could puttheir headsets on as well and
(25:30):
we're all standing togetherwatching the game, I wouldn't
care about paying fifty dollars,a hundred dollars for that.
That's a different experience.
You know, going to the game isone thing, going to a game with
your friends is a completelydifferent thing, so that
connectivity aspect of it isalso very critical.
It isn't just the content, it'show you experience that and how
you're connected to otherpeople to experience that.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I haven't had the pleasure of a vision probe, but
I believe that the veracity isextraordinary, so it is vivid.
It's much higher resolution Iblogged about seven or eight
years ago.
My early experience of Twitterfor a couple of years was
forming really deep andmeaningful relationships with
people that were so strong thatwhen I did meet them
face-to-face we thought that wehad been friends for much longer
(26:17):
.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
People thought that we'd always.
No, but you're right, steve,that was an interesting part of
the twitter phenomenon, yeahyeah, there's people I know
really well now because of,because of twitter you know,
sorry, george, we got a bitsidetracked answering the
question.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That was a well worth the the.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Uh well, it's hardly a detour, in fact the
authenticity point steve makes,though, is very is very central
to this, because and it's notthe same as identity, and I
actually I don't I don't havethe book in front of me right
now.
I probably should get get a bitbetter at this promotional
stuff.
But one of the examples I thinkI use in the book was from the
(26:59):
pandemic when there was an issuein the US Was it Los Angeles, I
can't remember Somebody saidlook, we've started this online
discussion group for emergencyroom physicians that are dealing
with COVID to share experiencesand whatever.
And of course you know it'simmediately problematic because
(27:20):
you've no idea whether theperson coming in is actually a
physician or not, or just someinternet lunatic that wants to
join in.
So the crucial enabler for thatwasn't you know whether you're
Dave Birch or Steve Wilson orwhatever it's, whether you're
dave birch or steve wilson orwhatever it's, whether you're an
accredited emergency roomphysician whose license is
currently valid in california.
(27:42):
Now I can see that in themetaverse, the ability to easily
transport and demonstrate thosecredentials becomes very
transformational compared to theoriginal internet, where you
didn't know who anybody was or,more to the point, you didn't
know what anybody was.
Um, in the internet, you gotinto this kind of well.
Actually, you have it now withsocial media because you know
(28:03):
people are saying, uh, in, incertain areas this is already
sort of becoming law, uh.
But I can see the situationwhere you've got a room for
teenagers who have some kind ofparticular mental health issues
or something like that, and youwant to make sure the only
people in that room are actuallyteenagers or are mental health
(28:26):
professionals who are accreditedor something like that.
That will become very naturalin the metaverse, because
because managing thosecredentials and certificates is
part of the infrastructure, notsome crazy add-on I mean look
how far we've got with just.
I mean I know it sounds, but Imean we've had digital
signatures for 25 years.
Right, nobody uses them, no oneknows how to use it properly.
(28:51):
That's not quite true when I getmessages from facebook no, no,
my messages from facebook areencrypted and digitally signed,
because facebook have an optionthat says would you like our
communication to be secure?
Click here and then you uploadyour public key to do it.
My bank doesn't do that.
When I get an email from mybank, I've absolutely no idea
whether it's from the bank ornot.
(29:11):
You know, and and in fact Imean I probably shouldn't make
fun, but one of the I did take ascreenshot of it one of the
emails I had I had at christmas.
So I had an email from my bankwhich said, uh, it was to do
with christmas and it was liketop tips to stay safe from fraud
this christmas.
And one of the top tips wasnever click on a link in an
(29:33):
unsolicited email.
You know, and I read down and atthe bottom of the email is for
more information about ouranti-fraud act, which is click
on this link you know, it's likeso Facebook can encrypt and
sign stuff, but my bank can't,and that doesn't seem anyway.
If that was part of theinfrastructure, we could stop
thinking about it you know I ofthe infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
We could stop thinking about it.
I've always particularly comingfrom payments, where there's
margin for all the providers tobe interested in the business.
In the security business we'relooking at a cost-based problem.
So I'm intrigued and I mayagree with youave that with um,
if I'm paying a hundred dollarsto be able to stand next to my,
my friends who want man you towin um, you know that's, there
(30:24):
may be margin there to be ableto build out that kind of
security infrastructure thatyou're talking about, because,
god, as you say, we haven't seenit in the real world.
One of the things that stilltroubles me is the interface
between the world that you'retalking about, dave, this secure
(30:45):
metaverse, and the very factthat I am a biological being.
Someone's got to know about mefor legibility purposes from the
government.
How is it that I can beidentifiable in the metaverse as
(31:05):
a human being?
What do I have to enroll withto be able to participate in a
situation?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Let me say two things about that, george, because I
think Steve will find one ofthem more controversial than the
other.
So, first of all, the importantpoint, I think, is when we're
talking about transactions inthe metaverse, in almost all
cases I don't actually care whoyou are.
What I care is that you'reauthorized to do some kind of
(31:32):
transaction or not.
Whether you're George Peabodyor not, I don't care.
Are you authorized to sell methis ticket or enter this
emergency, I mean whatever?
So who you are really isn'tthat important.
The fact that you're a personmight be important, but not the
fact that you're a particularperson.
So I might need to know incertain circumstances I'm
actually dealing with a humanbeing in In most cases I really
(31:56):
don't.
You know, when I go to the bank.
This happened to me the otherday when I was using the chat
thing at the bank because Ineeded the IBAN, the
International Bank AccountNumber, and I come where is this
?
And I look on the website, Ican't see it.
So I go to sort of the chatthing.
I said, well, you know, can youconfirm your name and address?
(32:18):
And I'm like no, what's thatgot to do with it?
Like just tell me the well,once those chatbots get a bit
more intelligent.
So you know, it sees I don'tknow, maybe it sees my ip
address or it sees I've accessedsomething else and it can
answer in natural language.
You need to look on the topright of the statement, which
was true.
I hadn't looked at that sort ofthing, you know.
(32:39):
Do I care that was a person ornot?
I, I really don't.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I just care that we're talking about risk.
We're talking about risk-basedassessments, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
so most, most times, it really doesn't matter.
Or to Steve's point about thedistinction between, um, you
know, kind of authenticity andidentity, that I think is
heading towards the fractal,like I.
I I wonder, like I look at theinternet right now and I think
(33:09):
this is you know, I can't tellwhat's real and what's not real.
I think this is absolutelyappalling, you know, I don't
know, maybe a lot of peopledon't care what's real and
what's not real.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I think this is absolutely appalling.
I don't know.
Maybe a lot of people don'tcare what's real and what's not
real.
We're certainly converging, isthat?
In all of these situations, thequestion should be what do you
really need to know about thecounterparty?
Or what do you really need toknow about that image that's in
front of you?
Or what do you really need toknow about the man you ticket
that you think that you justbought?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
ticket that you think that you just bought.
So yeah, I mean, theauthenticity of those things I
think is is, you know, obviouslyyou, you know you simply
wouldn't be able to buy a ticketthat wasn't authentic.
It just the system justwouldn't work.
I mean, tickets are actually avery good example, because
tickets are a perfect use casefor nfts.
You know, a ticket to go to thecup final on saturday in this
seat, in this row, that's,that's a perfect example of an
(33:56):
nft.
You know you can't make acounterfeit one.
There's just no such thing as acounterfeit one.
You know, it's like with peopleI, you know, and I I'm not an
anthropologist, so I I don'tknow how this is gonna pan out,
but I already read evidence andin fact there's an example in
the book that, um, that victoriauses.
There are interesting use casesalready where you have people
(34:17):
who prefer to talk to a computerLike there's not just in a
weird kind of way where you seepeople have boyfriends and
girlfriends that arenon-existent, although I did
notice there's a little US casestudy in there which was a thing
where women had virtualboyfriends they were talking to
(34:39):
and they were sending thesevirtual boyfriends some
inappropriate pictures.
So the platform turned this off, turned off the ability to send
these pictures, and the userswere outraged by it.
We enjoyed sending thosepictures and the fact that
they're not mad.
They know that these don'texist, they're just virtual, but
(34:59):
there's a lot there we don't,or certainly there's a lot there
that I don't understand.
So this issue about real andnot real person, not a person,
this to me, this is look, itlooks very fractal.
I don't quite know where that'sgoing.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I look very fractal.
I don't quite know where that'sgoing.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think we've got trainingwheels on at the moment, largely
because of risk, largelybecause we feel as though any
risk mitigation or any makinggood is going to happen in the
real world.
So you know, that's our senseat the moment.
I'm with you.
This could change.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I remember working on a project years ago, steve,
(35:58):
which was to do with car loansactually, and and I remember
distinctly the bank to see ifthey're potentially eligible for
this low.
But they would go to a kioskand put their personal details
into a kiosk and so the bankcould actually wasn't a bank, it
was a.
It was a non-bank financialinstitute.
But the point is they coulddrive up their, their rate of
(36:18):
giving out these car loans bygetting people to come to kiosks
instead of phoning up.
And now that was 20 years ago.
Things have moved on and changedthere, but there is something
there, you know.
I mean, maybe there are, maybethere's things to do with my
finances or other things.
I would, I would rather go intothe metaverse.
I.
I need that trust, I need thereputation.
(36:40):
I need to know that I really amtalking to a financial advisor
or a psychiatrist or a bankmanager or a bank robber or you
know whatever.
Um, who they are don't care.
Are they real, personal?
Not, not sure I care.
You know you could.
You could see a situation whereyou have economic avatars, bots
(37:04):
that are regulated under the.
In the uk we have the financialconduct authority duty of care.
You could imagine seeing botsthat are regulated under the
financial conductuct Authorityduty of care, and I wouldn't
care in the slightest whether itwas a real person or not, as
long as it's properly regulated,you know, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We're still very much in a social experiment, and
where we're headed, I mean aparticular concern I've got is
(37:53):
seeing kids just completelyfocused on their smartphone and
not being able to look up andinteract with other individuals,
distractibility in school andall that kind of thing.
Well, that's part of theexperiment that we're all
undergoing and all participantsin.
So, Dave, what you're pointingis very interesting and I really
appreciate your time.
I think we need to wrap this up.
I'm finding the book reallyintriguing and stimulating, so
I'm looking forward toparticularly diving into
(38:14):
Victoria's use cases.
They deserve some detailedexamination.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
All I'll say, George, is when you begin to think
about it.
It seems far-fetched when youfirst think about it, but the
more time you spend thinkingabout it, the fact that we're
going to be living and workingin this kind of different way,
it's really not as crazy as itsounds at first.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, David, thanks so much for joining us on Making
Data Better.
Really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It's great to see you guys.
I wish I could see you at theMetaRite Interverse, but maybe
next week.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
There you go.
Well, next time we'll try thisin Spatial or something like
that and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Great talking to you.
Welcome to Making Data Better, a podcast about
data quality and the impact ithas on how we protect, manage
and use the digital datacritical to our lives.
I'm George Peabody, partner atLockstep Consulting, and thanks
for joining us.
With me is Lockstep founder,steve Wilson.
Hello, steve.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good evening.
Greetings from a different timezone, a different time of night
.
Good to be with you again,George.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, I'm up earlier than normal, I confess.
So, Steve, we have the greatgood fortune of bringing on an
important thinker on digital,have the great good fortune of
bringing on an important thinkeron digital identity, and that,
of course, is Dave Birch, who isan author, advisor, commentator
on digital financial services,a thought leader in digital
(00:55):
identity and digital money, andwho holds a number of advisory
roles across these fields.
And he is the author ofIdentity is the New Money and a
payments expert.
Along with co-author VictoriaRichardson, he authored Money in
the Metaverse, Digital Assets,Online Identities, Spatial
Computing and why Virtual WorldsMean Real Business, published
(01:16):
just last month by LondonPublishing Partnership.
His co-author, VictoriaRichardson, is COO of MECO, a
company focused on verifiabletrust and data.
And well, with that minimalistintroduction of your
accomplishments, Dave, welcometo Making Data Better.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was minimalist, but it was very kind.
George, it's really nice to seeyou again.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Good to see you too.
We are excited about this bookthat you've written.
Well, I would say, in typicalfashion for you, dave, it's a
leap pretty far forward into thefuture from my humble
perspective.
Let's just start at thebeginning.
As I've been reading your book,I just come away with the
question of is the metaverse thenext incarnation of the
(01:58):
internet?
Is that why you wrote Money inthe Metaverse?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, actually why I wrote it was more to do with the
money bit than the metaversebit, because it happens that I
was invited to an event in themetaverse using Spatial and it
was fun.
I really enjoyed it.
I went to an event and I metlots of people that I hadn't
spoken to for a while, from allover the world, and we were all
(02:22):
walking around as our avatarsand meeting each other, and it
was really good.
I really enjoyed it.
You know, the um communicationsand connectivity were great and
then I wanted to buy somethingand in order to buy something, I
had to come out of themetaverse, go to like a 2d
representation, scan a qr code,which took me to a website, and
(02:46):
then type in card details andthen go back into the metaverse
um, and it sort of didn't seemright to me and I just I just
kept thinking this can't be howthings are going to work.
This.
Surely I would be doing thingsinside the.
You know the way I think aboutthese things and I spoke to a
few people about it.
(03:06):
I spoke to a guy who actuallyused to work for me a long time
ago, but a guy who's a veryexperienced iOS developer, and
he said it's insane to thinkthat people are going to buy
things, you know, taking off theglasses.
And I started to look around anda lot of things I was reading
were pushing me towards the kindof DeFi, tokenization side of
(03:27):
things, which I mean I you know,steve and I have discussed this
many times when I remainskeptical about cryptocurrency.
I'm always open to new ideasabout that, but I'm slightly
unconvinced.
But when it comes totokenization, digital assets,
web3 I I'm very.
I mean, this is the nextgeneration financial market
(03:49):
infrastructure.
There's absolutely no doubtabout it.
So the fact that people weretalking about this in the
metaverse and that sort of madesense to me.
You know, you go in themetaverse, I give you a fungible
token, you give me anon-fungible token, the there's
no clearing, there's nosettlement, there's no.
That all kind of made sense tome.
But then, of course, I broughtmy old perspective to it and
(04:10):
thought, well, okay, that soundsgood, but it can't work unless
we have some kind of digitalidentity infrastructure, because
I need to know that you'rewhatever over 18, or a lawyer or
resident in australia, or Imean whatever it is.
You know, know and so.
And then that got me thinkingabout wallets and about how
these would all be connected.
(04:30):
And you know, I know a fair bitabout wallets, but I don't know
everything.
But I knew that victoria did so, um, I spoke to victoria about
it and of course, she's abrilliant digital strategist.
So as soon as I started talkingabout these things, she
immediately gave me a frameworkfor thinking about it, which was
incredibly helpful.
And so I thought, actually, whynot do the experiment of
(04:54):
co-authoring?
I've not done it before.
Victoria kindly accepted the uh,the challenge.
I have to say it was fun, itwas a, it was a great way to
write and, you know, she turned,I think, what was a pretty good
book into into what's turnedout to be a great book.
So it was a very goodexperience.
But yeah, it all goes back,george, to me just being in the
(05:14):
metaverse and thinking thiscan't be right, this isn't going
to be how people are going tobuy and sell and and so on, and
that's what let me, you know,let me down that line of
thinking.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Well, I loved your gentle mocking of the idea that
one would go to a virtual bankbranch in the metaverse.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Well, because that's not such a far out.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I mean, I just think those no, no, no, no, no, no, no
, no, no, no.
The last 10 years in fintech,embedding financial services at
the point of need yes, exactlyyes why on earth would I be
schlepping my way over to some?
Yes, exactly virtual branch totalk to a virtual teller when I
should be able to affect thepayment when I'm making the
(05:58):
transaction.
And, oh, maybe I want to getcredit for a credit, a line of
credit or insurance to cover upmy purchase, whatever it might
be.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That's where the margins are going to be.
The bank can come to you IfBarclays wants to talk to me
about something in the middle ofit.
They can show up where I am.
I don't need to go to themanymore.
I couldn't help making fun ofthat.
I didn't mean to bedisrespectful.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I will be.
It's okay, I'll take that on.
Um, one of the things thattroubles me is that, uh, my
experience of metaverse thus farhas really largely been big
tech.
Who are, let's face it, they'relandlords, and they're actually
more than landlords, so theywrite the rules of engagement
(06:46):
within their territory right.
And your book really envisionsan alternative construction
where there's an open andinteroperable metaverse.
Yes, I mean.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I don't claim any originality for that thought.
I mean, when I began to sort oflook into it the, the, the
first definition that sort ofstuck in my mind I saw a thing
in the financial times whichsaid um, I mean, I'm
paraphrasing, I don't have it infront of me, but it said
something like the differencebetween virtual worlds and
metaverses is that in metaverses, your identity and your assets
(07:23):
are yours, not the platforms.
You know when, when you, whenyou buy your magic sword in
world of warcraft, you, youthink it's like yours, but it's
not really yours, it belongs tothe platform, it belongs to
blizzard entertainment, and theycould delete it tomorrow or
they could duplicate it or theycould do whatever they wanted
with it.
The the crucial distinctionbetween virtual augmented
(07:44):
reality and metaverse is in ametaverse, the things are yours,
the identity is yours, the, theassets are yours and you can
move them between theseenvironments, and that's that's
the sort of big breakthrough.
Now, of course, that immediatelyled me and I, and that made
sense to me.
You know, I sort of saw that.
Okay, that's right, Iunderstand.
(08:04):
That sort of saw that.
Okay, that's right, Iunderstand that.
But of course that immediatelyled me into thinking, okay, but
how?
I mean I like that construction, but how would it actually work
?
And that's um.
That's why I think the uh, itsounds futuristic to talk about
tokens and digital assets orwhatever.
It sounds futuristic, it isn't.
It actually isn't really, ifyou think.
(08:26):
Just focus on the metaverse fora second, because you said about
, like a lot of people.
You know, my first kind ofexperience was you go and look
at the facebook thing, you putthe goggles on and it's like,
yeah, I mean whatever, it'sreally not that interesting, and
you put the goggles away.
You don't think about itanymore.
Meanwhile, of course, facebookhas been continually developing,
refining that.
(08:47):
The, the smart glasses, theaddition of ai to the smart
glasses, delivering the kind ofar, vr, and the augmented
reality stuff through theglasses, as well as the new
versions of the virtualanti-goggles, have changed a lot
of things.
I think it's it's of more thanpassing interest that one of the
best-selling applications infact, I think it's it's of more
than passing interest that oneof the best-selling applications
in fact I think it mightactually, at this point, be the
(09:08):
best-selling application on theheadset is the over 50s fitness
club.
You know, because I mean steveand I might well be able to kind
of get each other going.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You know like okay, but we don't want to look at
each other, first thing in themorning.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I mean we want to.
Yeah, the avatars are a muchbetter.
And then, of course, along comeapple and uh.
If you read the first reviewsof the apple uh vision pro, I
mean I remember reading one Ithink it was vanity fair, but I
can't remember and said you know, he spent a couple of hours
playing in these Apple glasses.
He was doing some spreadsheetsand doing some work and whatever
(09:50):
.
And he said, when he took theglasses off and opened up his
MacBook Pro, it felt likesomething.
And I remember this quotedistinctly.
He said, you know, he had atop-of-the-range MacBook and he
said it felt like somethingpulled from the rubble of a
Soviet power station, you know.
So it's like you know, we'reonly at the very start of that.
(10:13):
This is like you know, they'vebuilt the Newton and you've got
to kind of imagine what theiPad's going to look like.
I mean, that's the kind of wayI think of it.
I said to somebody the other day.
Someone said well, you know,these things are expensive.
Who's going to pay $3,000 forthese headsets?
And I'm like, well, me for one.
I actually tried to buy them,but you can't because they're
(10:34):
geofenced so you can't take themoutside the US at the moment.
But just ask yourself this.
I mean, when I bought my firstapple I mean it's a long time
ago, this is early 80s incalifornia when I bought my
first apple it cost, if memoryserves, I think it costs about
two and a half thousand dollarsor something like that.
(10:55):
I don't know the numbersexactly.
Three thousand dollars isn't alot.
That's what a mac cost.
That's what your first compactportable cost.
I mean, that's, you know.
It's a starting point.
So so the first thing to pointout is that you know a lot of
our experience with themetaverse doesn't really tell us
where we are, even a year on.
(11:16):
I was just one of the companiesI work with.
They just bought those facebookheadsets, the oculus.
They just bought them for allof their developers because they
found that having thedevelopers have their meetings
in virtual reality space wasmuch more productive than having
them meet on zoom or on phonecalls, and they wanted all their
(11:37):
developers to begin thinkingabout how their products are
going to look, how they're goingto work in that 3D environment.
So people are already lookingin that direction.
Meanwhile, if you look at thenext generation of consumers
that are coming along, I meanwe're old, so we tend to think
what the kids are doing isYouTube or TikTok or whatever.
(11:58):
But if you actually look at thefigures for you know hours of
attention per week what thatnext generation, the younger
kids, are doing is already inthe proto metaverses.
So, in other words, the, themajority of their attention is
already going on roblox,minecraft, fortnite well, you
might think of as the protometaverses.
(12:20):
So so in a few years time, it'sgoing to be quite natural for
them to.
I mean, that's how they meettheir friends, that's how they
socialize, that's how theyconnect, you know.
So, in a very short time,brands are going to need to be
in those spaces as well,otherwise they won't be able to
connect with them.
Look at what's happened at tv.
(12:41):
I know this is a bit of adistraction, but I was at a
focus group for a bank thing.
It doesn't matter what, um, butthey do.
These focus groups where you'renot allowed to speak.
You sort of sit around theoutside and they have a.
They have a um, an experiencedperson in the middle who's
talking to these were teenagers.
You know, they were 16 yearsold.
So they have an experiencedperson in the middle who's
(13:02):
talking to the teenagers and yousit around the edge and you
can't say anything.
You just have to listen and,and what they're asking these
kids about is some sort ofbanking products, but they have
to disguise the question so thekids don't know what they're
anyway.
The point is, at one pointduring this, uh, the person in
the middle said something about,um, an advertisement for a bank
(13:23):
on the television.
Which advertisement did youlast see?
Or something like that.
And these kids were absolutelyblank.
They had absolutely no ideawhat she was talking about
because they never watchedtelevision.
And if they were watchingtelevision, they wouldn't be
watching it when there was abank add-on, because they'd be
playing with their phones.
Or well, that's where we'regoing next.
(13:46):
You know, if you look at someof the stuff that's going on, I
mean I was looking a couple ofdays ago.
I was looking, I mean forreasons which had to do with
work, not completely frivolously.
Someone had built a giant modelof Hogwarts or something in
Minecraft and.
I think like how much work wasthat?
It's astonishing, you know.
(14:06):
So the amount of effort that'salready going into the
proto-metaverses is substantial,but it's hamstrung by the fact
that the things that they buildaren't theirs.
They belong to the platform.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So we've got that issue of ownership and control.
Yeah, 100%.
How do we bridge from themetaverse to the real world?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
And is that an old guy's feeling that we need to do
that, or is it going to giveway at some point?
Well, I do feel that I want totalk about authenticity, which
is, I think, the third pole ofthis.
Yeah, you may know Mike fromthe Confidential Computing
Consortium.
We had him on in episode 13,.
Dave, I'm talking about hisbook, which is all about trust.
(14:52):
I need to read the title Trustin Computer Systems in the Cloud
Great book Comparing trustonline and trust in the real
world, and how does one buildand augment the other.
We think that trust.
You know you talk a lot aboutidentity.
I think that authenticity is areally good way of looking at
(15:14):
that, because it's another wayof looking at the question what
do you need to know aboutanything and how do you know
that it's real At some level?
We're trying to avoid, you know, dictionaryism.
Um, at some, at some level, theuniverse is not real.
You know, maybe nothing is real.
So have you reflected on whatdoes authenticity mean?
(15:37):
Like what is authentic?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
well, I think there's two.
You know, when you say thatsteve, there are sort of two
lines of thinking which I thinkcome to the front.
So the first is you know, ofcourse, um, in the metaverse
nothing's well, I mean, let'sput to one side what, what real
means, but these things are allvirtual, of course, um, and we
certainly don't want themetaverse to end up as, uh, the
(16:03):
mess that we're in at the momentwith the internet, where you
know, nothing's real and youhave no.
You know, I mean literally inmy twitter feed today.
There's stuff there and I'mlooking at this thinking is this
real?
You know, there's like the.
There's like a page from thebbc with some bbc presenter and
he's and I glanced at it andhe's, he's shilling some
cryptocurrency, like what.
What is it?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
and of course, it's not real it's all this morning
about the general election inthe uk.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
That that's yeah, unfortunately that turns out to
be real.
But well, real, uh, and I'm?
I know I'm looking at my emaillike I I see a thing from wait,
what would?
What did paypal ask me?
I almost clicked on it.
I'm thinking what is this andwhy are paypal asking me to do
this again?
You know, I'm about to click onit and I realize it's fake.
It's not real at all.
(16:49):
You know, I get a message on mywhatsapp saying hey, you need
to call me back about this.
I'm almost about to.
And then, like, wait, hold on asecond.
Why would?
Why would they whatsapp me?
You know, like at the moment,the onus is on us, right?
It's a text message fromCommonwealth Bank and I have to
try and figure out whether it'sreal or not.
The metaverse cannot work likethat.
(17:10):
Steve, you're spot on.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
How is it actually going to work?
Do we have a handle yet on it?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Because the whole panoply that was missing from
the internet, the stuff thatthat's been our bread and butter
for you know, a generation keysand certificates and digital
signatures and encryption andwhatever has to be part of the
warp and weft, not somethingthat's added on on top.
So you know, if I'm going to,let's say, you and I are booking
(17:40):
tickets for to go and see acomedy, I mean with something
actually happened to you and Iare booking tickets for to go
and see a comedy.
I mean with something thatactually happened to me.
So you and I are bookingtickets to go and see a comedy
event in the metaverse and youhave to be over 18 in order to
do this.
There shouldn't be any issue ofyou having to show pictures of
your driving license or whatever.
It should simply be the casethat when you, when you walk up,
(18:01):
you don't even see it, like ifyou're not 18, it's not even
there, you don't see anything.
It should be that you know, ifI get a message that's from
Steve, I shouldn't have todouble check, because you know,
if it wasn't really from Steve,I would never see it, because
somewhere in the infrastructuresomething would hold on.
That signature doesn't checkout.
(18:21):
It's got to be like that.
Um.
I was reading some stuff theother day from the what they
called the content um coalition.
I've gone blank on the name yeahyeah, um, about this thing
about so you can tell where thephotos have been edited.
I mean, I I'm a maximalist onthis.
I would just say, like in anymetaverse I'd want to take part
in, if the photo doesn't have adigital signature that says this
(18:44):
comes from the New York Timesor from George Peabody, I don't
want to see it.
I just I don't even see it.
So a crucial distinctionbetween the metaverse and the
internet and the virtual worldswe have now is that that's going
to be part of theinfrastructure.
You know, you've seen it whenyou put on your apple glasses,
(19:05):
they do the, they do thebiometric scan.
You know I can't deliver yourcredentials to somebody else
because it just doesn't work.
You know I, there's no option.
So that's, that's the firstthing.
But the second thing is thisallows us a more sophisticated
construction of what identity is, and instead of continuing to
(19:27):
import what I think of as sortof analog notions into the
digital world, instead of makingsort of digital versions of
analog things, we can sort ofstart again with a more granular
construction.
We have a whole set of tools atour disposal now that the people
that built the originalinternet didn't have.
We go into the metaverse withpure multi-party computation,
(19:51):
with homomorphic encryption,with zero-knowledge proofs, with
cryptographic blinding, withsecure elements in our devices.
We go into the metaverse with acompletely different toolkit and
I think it's going to be anabsolute step change and the
implications of that are quiteclear because if it turns out
(20:14):
that the metaverse is a safer,more secure place to do business
, that directly translates intolower transaction costs and that
directly translates in apressure to move transactions
into the metaverse.
So, when it comes to it, vastmajority of customers in, let's
say, five years time, the factthat you'll be able to buy your
(20:35):
car insurance quicker andcheaper and easier if you stick
your facebook headset on, youknow that will become
commonplace.
That will just be, instead ofthe kids just putting them on
just to play Fortnite, they'llbe putting them on to go to
school, go to work, interactwith brands.
If you look at some of the casestudies that Victoria has
(20:55):
chosen from the book, I thinkshe's picked out things which
are very I don't want to saymundane that's the wrong word
but not super complicated,special cases Every day, yeah,
but everyday stuff, yeah,exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But having said that, I am worried.
George's point at the openingabout metaverse that we've seen
so far is the construction ofplatforms.
Somebody's going to pay forthat of platforms.
Somebody's going to pay forthat.
Have you have you thought aboutthe economics of whether or not
the net cost of this is reallygoing to fall because somebody's
going to have to pay a premium?
I get it that authenticity isgoing to lower cost, but is that
(21:32):
really going to net out?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
well, look, I mean, I I haven't.
I can't show you a spreadsheetabout that, but um, given, I
just saw some figures thismorning that say fraud in the UK
.
Well, reported fraud in the UKfor banks was a billion pounds
last year.
Jesus, I think there's someslack in the system.
I sort of remember that in theUS, I think the single case of
(21:58):
pandemic business support fraudwas I don't even remember what
it was 200 billion trillion, youknow, or something.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
You know there is plenty of slack in there.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Given some of the astonishing data breaches in
Australia, ranging from, youknow, optus to Working's Men,
clubs, working's Men I thinkthere's plenty of slack in the
system there to take that up.
If we think about how theoriginal so you get one of these
headsets just because I want todo the fitness thing or, you
know, play some game or whatever, and then in a couple of years
(22:31):
time, so I need to book thetickets for that thing, oh,
actually, I'll just do it withthe headset and then, a couple
of years after that, it's oh, Ireally do need to go and think
about refinancing the house.
Oh, to go and think aboutrefinancing the house.
Oh, wait, if I look over thereI can see, you know, and the way
that the apple glass is verycleverly, you know, because we
talk about.
We've been talking about themetaverse, like the capital m,
but actually, of course, themetaverse is a superset of lots
(22:53):
of different metaverses.
The metaverse where we go to doour fitness thing isn't going
to be the same metaverse where,you know, I don't know, broker
dealers go to negotiate.
It's not going to be the samemetaverse that auto engineers go
to to to design cars.
And there's going to be lots ofmetaverses, um, but the fact is
, if it becomes natural to youknow, without even thinking
(23:16):
about it, you put the glasses on, you go into the metaverse
which best suits what you wantto do now, when you say, who's
going to pay for it?
I think for a lot of thesethings, and it's possibly
because I think there is alittle bit of reaction about
platforms, you know.
Uh, so I do think brand has abig role to play in that.
Um, there'll be trusted brandslike disney where people will
(23:38):
want to go to do things.
But I also wonder and I mean,you probably think I'm saying
this just to be annoying, but Ithink it's actually true but if
you look at the history of hownew technologies have permeated
and you take into account thattwo of the very large platforms
that the EU have designatedunder the Digital Markets Act
(24:03):
are Pornhub and StripChat, Ithink you can see another route
into the mass market.
Yeah well, I just think youknow we shouldn't be too prissy
about these kind of things.
That's how stuff happens, sothere's sort of different ways
that those metaverses couldevolve, but I think the general
point is that you put theheadset on because you want to
(24:27):
go and or, as somebody wassaying to me earlier on today in
a different context, you wantto go play pickleball and then
it's just easier just to keepthe headset on when you want to
buy the car insurance.
I mean, that's kind of how itworks.
And there's also theconnectivity issue.
If you look at why, are kidslogging into Fortnite after
school and meeting their friendsin Fortnite?
(24:48):
It's the connectivity aspect ofit.
So if you think of that inmercenary revenue terms like
this weekend is the cup final,manchester City versus
Manchester United I can't bethere.
If I could put on my glasses andI'm in the stands there
watching the game, would I dothat rather than watch it on TV?
(25:09):
Yes, I would.
Would I pay $10 more thanwatching it on TV?
$20 more?
Wouldn't think twice about it.
I would happily pay $20 more.
Now take that a step further.
I'll happily pay $20 to put theheadset on and I'm there in the
stand watching the game.
But if my buddies could puttheir headsets on as well and
(25:30):
we're all standing togetherwatching the game, I wouldn't
care about paying fifty dollars,a hundred dollars for that.
That's a different experience.
You know, going to the game isone thing, going to a game with
your friends is a completelydifferent thing, so that
connectivity aspect of it isalso very critical.
It isn't just the content, it'show you experience that and how
you're connected to otherpeople to experience that.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
I haven't had the pleasure of a vision probe, but
I believe that the veracity isextraordinary, so it is vivid.
It's much higher resolution Iblogged about seven or eight
years ago.
My early experience of Twitterfor a couple of years was
forming really deep andmeaningful relationships with
people that were so strong thatwhen I did meet them
face-to-face we thought that wehad been friends for much longer
(26:17):
.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
People thought that we'd always.
No, but you're right, steve,that was an interesting part of
the twitter phenomenon, yeahyeah, there's people I know
really well now because of,because of twitter you know,
sorry, george, we got a bitsidetracked answering the
question.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
That was a well worth the the.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Uh well, it's hardly a detour, in fact the
authenticity point steve makes,though, is very is very central
to this, because and it's notthe same as identity, and I
actually I don't I don't havethe book in front of me right
now.
I probably should get get a bitbetter at this promotional
stuff.
But one of the examples I thinkI use in the book was from the
(26:59):
pandemic when there was an issuein the US Was it Los Angeles, I
can't remember Somebody saidlook, we've started this online
discussion group for emergencyroom physicians that are dealing
with COVID to share experiencesand whatever.
And of course you know it'simmediately problematic because
(27:20):
you've no idea whether theperson coming in is actually a
physician or not, or just someinternet lunatic that wants to
join in.
So the crucial enabler for thatwasn't you know whether you're
Dave Birch or Steve Wilson orwhatever it's, whether you're
dave birch or steve wilson orwhatever it's, whether you're an
accredited emergency roomphysician whose license is
currently valid in california.
(27:42):
Now I can see that in themetaverse, the ability to easily
transport and demonstrate thosecredentials becomes very
transformational compared to theoriginal internet, where you
didn't know who anybody was or,more to the point, you didn't
know what anybody was.
Um, in the internet, you gotinto this kind of well.
Actually, you have it now withsocial media because you know
(28:03):
people are saying, uh, in, incertain areas this is already
sort of becoming law, uh.
But I can see the situationwhere you've got a room for
teenagers who have some kind ofparticular mental health issues
or something like that, and youwant to make sure the only
people in that room are actuallyteenagers or are mental health
(28:26):
professionals who are accreditedor something like that.
That will become very naturalin the metaverse, because
because managing thosecredentials and certificates is
part of the infrastructure, notsome crazy add-on I mean look
how far we've got with just.
I mean I know it sounds, but Imean we've had digital
signatures for 25 years.
Right, nobody uses them, no oneknows how to use it properly.
(28:51):
That's not quite true when I getmessages from facebook no, no,
my messages from facebook areencrypted and digitally signed,
because facebook have an optionthat says would you like our
communication to be secure?
Click here and then you uploadyour public key to do it.
My bank doesn't do that.
When I get an email from mybank, I've absolutely no idea
whether it's from the bank ornot.
(29:11):
You know, and and in fact Imean I probably shouldn't make
fun, but one of the I did take ascreenshot of it one of the
emails I had I had at christmas.
So I had an email from my bankwhich said, uh, it was to do
with christmas and it was liketop tips to stay safe from fraud
this christmas.
And one of the top tips wasnever click on a link in an
(29:33):
unsolicited email.
You know, and I read down and atthe bottom of the email is for
more information about ouranti-fraud act, which is click
on this link you know, it's likeso Facebook can encrypt and
sign stuff, but my bank can't,and that doesn't seem anyway.
If that was part of theinfrastructure, we could stop
thinking about it you know I ofthe infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
We could stop thinking about it.
I've always particularly comingfrom payments, where there's
margin for all the providers tobe interested in the business.
In the security business we'relooking at a cost-based problem.
So I'm intrigued and I mayagree with youave that with um,
if I'm paying a hundred dollarsto be able to stand next to my,
my friends who want man you towin um, you know that's, there
(30:24):
may be margin there to be ableto build out that kind of
security infrastructure thatyou're talking about, because,
god, as you say, we haven't seenit in the real world.
One of the things that stilltroubles me is the interface
between the world that you'retalking about, dave, this secure
(30:45):
metaverse, and the very factthat I am a biological being.
Someone's got to know about mefor legibility purposes from the
government.
How is it that I can beidentifiable in the metaverse as
(31:05):
a human being?
What do I have to enroll withto be able to participate in a
situation?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Let me say two things about that, george, because I
think Steve will find one ofthem more controversial than the
other.
So, first of all, the importantpoint, I think, is when we're
talking about transactions inthe metaverse, in almost all
cases I don't actually care whoyou are.
What I care is that you'reauthorized to do some kind of
(31:32):
transaction or not.
Whether you're George Peabodyor not, I don't care.
Are you authorized to sell methis ticket or enter this
emergency, I mean whatever?
So who you are really isn'tthat important.
The fact that you're a personmight be important, but not the
fact that you're a particularperson.
So I might need to know incertain circumstances I'm
actually dealing with a humanbeing in In most cases I really
(31:56):
don't.
You know, when I go to the bank.
This happened to me the otherday when I was using the chat
thing at the bank because Ineeded the IBAN, the
International Bank AccountNumber, and I come where is this
?
And I look on the website, Ican't see it.
So I go to sort of the chatthing.
I said, well, you know, can youconfirm your name and address?
(32:18):
And I'm like no, what's thatgot to do with it?
Like just tell me the well,once those chatbots get a bit
more intelligent.
So you know, it sees I don'tknow, maybe it sees my ip
address or it sees I've accessedsomething else and it can
answer in natural language.
You need to look on the topright of the statement, which
was true.
I hadn't looked at that sort ofthing, you know.
(32:39):
Do I care that was a person ornot?
I, I really don't.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I just care that we're talking about risk.
We're talking about risk-basedassessments, right yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
so most, most times, it really doesn't matter.
Or to Steve's point about thedistinction between, um, you
know, kind of authenticity andidentity, that I think is
heading towards the fractal,like I.
I I wonder, like I look at theinternet right now and I think
(33:09):
this is you know, I can't tellwhat's real and what's not real.
I think this is absolutelyappalling, you know, I don't
know, maybe a lot of peopledon't care what's real and
what's not real.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
I think this is absolutely appalling.
I don't know.
Maybe a lot of people don'tcare what's real and what's not
real.
We're certainly converging, isthat?
In all of these situations, thequestion should be what do you
really need to know about thecounterparty?
Or what do you really need toknow about that image that's in
front of you?
Or what do you really need toknow about the man you ticket
that you think that you justbought?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
ticket that you think that you just bought.
So yeah, I mean, theauthenticity of those things I
think is is, you know, obviouslyyou, you know you simply
wouldn't be able to buy a ticketthat wasn't authentic.
It just the system justwouldn't work.
I mean, tickets are actually avery good example, because
tickets are a perfect use casefor nfts.
You know, a ticket to go to thecup final on saturday in this
seat, in this row, that's,that's a perfect example of an
(33:56):
nft.
You know you can't make acounterfeit one.
There's just no such thing as acounterfeit one.
You know, it's like with peopleI, you know, and I I'm not an
anthropologist, so I I don'tknow how this is gonna pan out,
but I already read evidence andin fact there's an example in
the book that, um, that victoriauses.
There are interesting use casesalready where you have people
(34:17):
who prefer to talk to a computerLike there's not just in a
weird kind of way where you seepeople have boyfriends and
girlfriends that arenon-existent, although I did
notice there's a little US casestudy in there which was a thing
where women had virtualboyfriends they were talking to
(34:39):
and they were sending thesevirtual boyfriends some
inappropriate pictures.
So the platform turned this off, turned off the ability to send
these pictures, and the userswere outraged by it.
We enjoyed sending thosepictures and the fact that
they're not mad.
They know that these don'texist, they're just virtual, but
(34:59):
there's a lot there we don't,or certainly there's a lot there
that I don't understand.
So this issue about real andnot real person, not a person,
this to me, this is look, itlooks very fractal.
I don't quite know where that'sgoing.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I look very fractal.
I don't quite know where that'sgoing.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think we've got trainingwheels on at the moment, largely
because of risk, largelybecause we feel as though any
risk mitigation or any makinggood is going to happen in the
real world.
So you know, that's our senseat the moment.
I'm with you.
This could change.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I remember working on a project years ago, steve,
(35:58):
which was to do with car loansactually, and and I remember
distinctly the bank to see ifthey're potentially eligible for
this low.
But they would go to a kioskand put their personal details
into a kiosk and so the bankcould actually wasn't a bank, it
was a.
It was a non-bank financialinstitute.
But the point is they coulddrive up their, their rate of
(36:18):
giving out these car loans bygetting people to come to kiosks
instead of phoning up.
And now that was 20 years ago.
Things have moved on and changedthere, but there is something
there, you know.
I mean, maybe there are, maybethere's things to do with my
finances or other things.
I would, I would rather go intothe metaverse.
I.
I need that trust, I need thereputation.
(36:40):
I need to know that I really amtalking to a financial advisor
or a psychiatrist or a bankmanager or a bank robber or you
know whatever.
Um, who they are don't care.
Are they real, personal?
Not, not sure I care.
You know you could.
You could see a situation whereyou have economic avatars, bots
(37:04):
that are regulated under the.
In the uk we have the financialconduct authority duty of care.
You could imagine seeing botsthat are regulated under the
financial conductuct Authorityduty of care, and I wouldn't
care in the slightest whether itwas a real person or not, as
long as it's properly regulated,you know, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
We're still very much in a social experiment, and
where we're headed, I mean aparticular concern I've got is
(37:53):
seeing kids just completelyfocused on their smartphone and
not being able to look up andinteract with other individuals,
distractibility in school andall that kind of thing.
Well, that's part of theexperiment that we're all
undergoing and all participantsin.
So, Dave, what you're pointingis very interesting and I really
appreciate your time.
I think we need to wrap this up.
I'm finding the book reallyintriguing and stimulating, so
I'm looking forward toparticularly diving into
(38:14):
Victoria's use cases.
They deserve some detailedexamination.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
All I'll say, George, is when you begin to think
about it.
It seems far-fetched when youfirst think about it, but the
more time you spend thinkingabout it, the fact that we're
going to be living and workingin this kind of different way,
it's really not as crazy as itsounds at first.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Well, David, thanks so much for joining us on Making
Data Better.
Really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It's great to see you guys.
I wish I could see you at theMetaRite Interverse, but maybe
next week.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
There you go.
Well, next time we'll try thisin Spatial or something like
that and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Great talking to you.
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