Exponential Finance: Living In A Virtual World

By B.J. Murphy

From June 10-11 in NYC, the Singularity University and CNBC partnered up to host Exponential Finance. Many top minds in the fields of STEM were present, and all were there for one purpose – to explain how exponentially growing technologies are impacting, and will impact, business. One speaker, in particular, looked beyond the physical scope of exponentially growing technologies and instead focused on a technology which allows people to escape their physical realities.

This speaker was Philip Rosedale, who is prominently known as the creator of über-popular online virtual world Second Life (SL). During his speech he talks about how he came to create SL, how SL impacted his conception of reality, and the projects he’s working on now that’ll bring the entire offline world into the online world.

The world in which Philip Rosedale promotes at Exponential Finance is that of something similar to Plato’s “Theory of Forms” – two interconnected worlds which makes up the sum of what we consider reality. Unlike Plato’s idea, however, the worlds in which Rosedale talks about is the offline and online worlds. Rosedale has been dedicating all of his time and efforts in blurring these two worlds together.

SL was just the beginning. With his new company High Fidelity Inc., he and his team are creating much more immersive virtual worlds that pays greater attention to both facial features and body movements. It’s the start of a grand revolution in not just business, but in reality in its entirety! During his speech he predicts that, in the coming years, virtual worlds won’t just be the chosen setting for gamers, but will be used by everyone – from businessmen to teachers, families to newly weds. People will actually want to go on vacation in these worlds, rather than spend lots of money to physically travel elsewhere.

Rosedale isn’t wrong. We’re nearing ever closer towards the next paradigm shift – the blurring of offline and online; augmented reality! Facebook’s acquisition of the popular virtual reality goggles Oculus Rift isn’t simply a random business act, but is preparation for the world that is coming soon. Eventually our physical bodies and virtual bodies will be conjoined, traversing the same material space. From then on, we won’t be referring to them as “physical reality” or “virtual reality,” but simply reality. In fact, we’re doing this now with aided mediums such as our smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Our greatest ventures won’t be in outer space, but in cyberspace!

Philip Rosedale

Philip Rosedale is the founder of Linden Lab, which created Second Life in 2003. Since then, Rosedale has stepped away from SL and co-founded a privately held company called High Fidelity Inc., which is dedicated to creating next-gen virtual worlds.

“High Fidelity powers inter-connected virtual worlds, using new hardware devices to catalyze entirely new kinds of interactions between avatars.”

Photo Credit: Exponential Finance / Digital Arts

August 22, 2014 By B.J. Murphy

About the author

B.J. Murphy is the Editor and Social Media Manager of Serious Wonder. He is a futurist, philosopher, activist, author and poet. B.J. is an Affiliate Scholar for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) and an Ambassador for the robotics company Humai.

Cage Yue

If Philip Rosedale is so emphatic about the real world needing to collide and indeed merge with the virtual world, why did he abandon Second Life and leave it to die the death it has? I was there in 2008 when the world media were reporting real life fortunes were being made in Second Life, and big name acts such as David Bowie and U2 were making tentative moves to appear there, along with the likes of Duran Duran, Suzanne Vega… there was a massive buzz going on. Then suddenly, without warning, Linden Labs smacked up the cost of owning land there by a massive amount, around 40% if I recall. Then they followed that with a double whammy by imposing VAT tax at source for European users. Immediately those two steps wiped out all the business ventures being pursued online in SL by anyone based in Europe other than fashion and shopping. That of course wiped out most of the male interest. Since then SL has been largely the domain of women into blogging and/or fashion. Subsequent management have driven the wedge to separate real life and online life even further apart by opening the doors to what was an adult virtual world, to children, even in the face of high profile opposition and a majority of online users thinking that this was not just the wrong thing to do, but believing it to be seriously placing children at risk. You simply would never dream of doing such a thing in the real world! Once again this decision drove away hordes of Second Life stalwarts.

But to come back to Philip Rosedale. Do you seriously think, Phil, that adding a few more facial gestures and some more subtle body movements to the animations id the key to making things work? OMG!!! If that is the case then you simply have no idea whatsoever and your plans are just going to nose dive into the nearest manure pile! Serioulsy you need to get a life and start to LISTEN to the people who bought into your dream at the start or very soon thereafter. They have been saying all along what needs to happen to make things work online, and what needs to be got ridden of. You STILL are not listening Phil!

Customer loyalty Phil…. that is where it is at. Listen to what your customers are saying. Linden Labs have a very public track record of doing the very opposite and of taking and implementing decisions that fly in the face of their user base wishes and advice. It is a sure fire way to kill off your own business.

LISTEN

That is the secret.

Listen to what people want, do not try to tell people what you think they need!