would all these people be talking about the Metaverse if there wasn't a payoff? multiple banks and analysts think it's a $4 trillion industry!
these metaverse skeptics are just technophobes, they need to take a more moderate view
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@davidgerard yup.
web3 is here to stay. Deal with it.
NFTs are here to stay. Deal with it.
The Metaverse is here to stay. Deal with it.
Generative AI is here to stay. Deal with it.
AI/AR glasses are here to stay. Deal with it.
I'm starting to detect a pattern… 😂
@jaredwhite 3D television is here to stay!
I still fucking want the glasses Steve Mann was talking about in the '90s that got derailed when Google fucked up Glass.
@jaredwhite@indieweb.social @davidgerard@circumstances.run There is a corresponding pattern in AI and AI adjacent computer science research. At various times since the 1950s, all of the following were said to be on the cusp of matching or exceeding human intelligence and ushering in the age of The Terminator or The Jetsons: neural networks; expert systems; case-based reasoning; cybernetics; the subsumption architecture; reinforcement learning; neural networks again; recurrent neural networks; reinforcement learning again, this time with neural networks. You have to pose as though you believe if you want to remain a member in good standing. Phil Agre has written about what happens when you openly express that you've lost the faith.
When I was a graduate student in the early 2000s AI agents were all the rage too. Now here we are in 2025 with "agentic AI", the same stuff except with LLMs instead of logic programming in the innards. Somehow we're still pretending that the stuffing in the animatronic toy is what determines whether it's intelligent.
Incidentally, back then I saw a talk that, roughly summarized, argued "quantum computing can't work" and here we are, in 2025, with folks still arguing quantum computing is just about to pop even though the problems from the early 2000s haven't been addressed (as far as I know--not my area of expertise--but I still see papers reporting work on those same problems). So that's fun!
When I was a graduate student in the early 2000s AI agents were all the rage too. Now here we are in 2025 with "agentic AI", the same stuff except with LLMs instead of logic programming in the innards. Somehow we're still pretending that the stuffing in the animatronic toy is what determines whether it's intelligent.
Incidentally, back then I saw a talk that, roughly summarized, argued "quantum computing can't work" and here we are, in 2025, with folks still arguing quantum computing is just about to pop even though the problems from the early 2000s haven't been addressed (as far as I know--not my area of expertise--but I still see papers reporting work on those same problems). So that's fun!
@jaredwhite @davidgerard
a deck of cards is here to stay. Deal with it.
#SorryNotSorry
@jaredwhite @davidgerard Self driving cars, automated checkout at stores, drone delivery, big data, etc etc etc. It's crazy how many inevitable things seem less than inevitable at this point. Tech industry ran out of real ideas in about 2013 and has been floundering since then.
@jaredwhite @davidgerard
I know someone who is still, unironically, trying to push NFTs in 2025 (for business and non-profits now, instead of artists). Some people really don't know when to quit.
@jaredwhite @davidgerard
As William K. Black always says, "it's impossible to compete with unintentional self parody."
@davidgerard
Metaverse is a scam. (yes my investors previously funded metaverse companies) In contrast, the 200 billion dollar NFT market isnt a bubble. Its just getting started.
@davidgerard Look, VR and metaverses are still in their infancy, they're bound to be the next big thing this time! It's not like they've been the next big thing continually since the mid 80s and had untold riches spaffed away on trying to make it happen... Oh, wait...
@davidgerard Back in the days of the Metaverse I remember thinking that it didn't really matter because fetch was so clearly not going to happen. People don't even want to turn on their cameras in meetings; the whole concept was so blatantly useless that at least it wouldn't last for long and then we could go back to normal tech progress. And then we had crypto, and NFTs, and AI, and no, apparently it's just going to be one stupid desperate bubble after another from now on.
@davidgerard "Those metaverse skeptics are such leg people."
@davidgerard if anyone is offering a dump-truck full of money I’ll happily spruik anything