[Media -seeing the World] Issue 61: Create the Yuan universe, and the dream has not yet entered the reality

Seeing the world

In 2021, a "Yuan Universe" boom swept the world, making this concept a synonymous in future technology. However, what exactly is the Yuan universe? Let's take a look at how the founder of this word and science fiction writer Neil Stephenson described in the "avalanche" created in the 1990s: "The only difference between this street and the real world is that it is not really true Existence. It is just a computer drawing protocol, written on a piece of paper, placed on a certain place ... To put it more precisely, they are just some software that are used throughout the global fiber network for public use. "

This passage reflects the author's initial idea of ​​the Yuan universe -the use of network technology to realize the virtual space of unlimited approximation of reality. After the avalanche, we witnessed the advent of the information age: the Internet siege the city in real life, the communication speed from 2G to 5G, the concept of the Internet of Things, blockchain, and NFT (non -homogeneity) continued to emerge ... Now watching again, many application results of these technologies have surpassed Neil Stephenson's initial conception and move forward.

Online games are considered a form of closer to the Yuan universe. In 2021, an online game developer named "ROBLOX" first systematically interpreted the concept of the Yuan universe and opened a new stage of the Yuan universe. ROBLOX has a game platform that allows players to create their own game world and interact with other players. It can pin some emotional and social relationships in the virtual game world. It can be said that "life" is part of them. The experience of long -term operation of online games has allowed Roblox to summarize the major characteristics of the Yuan universe: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversification, anywhere, economic systems, and civilization, which has become a new benchmark for the concept of the Yuan universe.

Not only are online games trying to approach the Yuan universe, but also social media. In October 2021, the American social media platform Facebook was renamed Meta, and the real -world social network was deduced to the ambition of the Yuan universe. Its huge influence also made the concept of the Yuan universe successfully coming out and entered the vision of more people. Can social media really integrate into the Yuan universe? Maybe. Compared with online games, more people are willing to devote their efforts in social media to create "human settings" (that is, character settings, including names, age, height, birth, learning, etc.), record life, maintain social relationships, and even even It seems that as long as you can build a more real virtual environment, huge amounts of social media users will naturally participate in it. The new virtual community developed by domestic social media Tencent QQ allows users to create their own image in it, and match this image with clothing, buy virtual real estate, and set up furniture to create a personal virtual space. Of course, this new feature also has social attributes. Users can invite friends to "go to their own homes" or "go out to visit". The test version of this function also implies that there will be a wider public community outside the personal space. This is the typical case of social media layout.

Using network technology to create a virtual space, although the above cases have a characteristic of the Yuan universe, whether entertainment or social, it is just a adjustment to real life. If you want to create a more closer to reality, users need to allow users to be able to allow users A series of important activities to realize real life, such as investment and output every day, and then benefit. This may be a bit abstract, but it is not rare for the production of virtual content that invested in manpower and material resources, produced virtual products and benefits. All kinds of virtual products have long been embedded in our lives. These products can be published on the Internet, videos and other pan -entertainment, pan -knowledge content, or digital music, painting and other art works. In the downstream of content production, there are usually various commercial monetization methods to enable virtual content to generate true benefits. If you match blockchain or NFT technology, and a relatively complete standardized system, you can realize the economy of virtual products based on virtual products. Operating, even financial activities.

So, if we combine the virtual economy with the virtual space of the game and social media, whether we can create a real Yuan universe, there are still many difficulties, one of which is technical difficulties: how to make people who are in the Yuan universe, have and have a goodness of the universe. Do you have the same feelings in the real world?

Virtual reality technology refers to the technology of using a computer to generate a virtual world that can directly apply visual, hearing and touch feelings to the participants, and allows them to observe and operate. Virtual reality technology can project some sensory into the virtual space, but expensive equipment and lower comfort make it difficult to popularize. It can be said that the current technology cannot provide the immersion needed by the Yuan universe.

Even if technical problems can be overcome, another difficulty from ethics is more difficult to solve: Will we really allow a virtual world that can replace real life? Technical barriers alone and technical monopolies can cast a shadow of the Yuan universe, let alone the fear of the social form of the "Matrix" -like social form. Compared with the realization of the future, the Yuan universe is more like an integrated imagination of many technological achievements in the past, and therefore become a new ideal of technological development. Just as we have already stepped into the "Siber" society, but we do not know. Same.

Author: Fu Yan

Engineer of the China Science and Technology Museum Network Science and Technology Department

(Reprinted from this article: "Popular Science Times" 2022-7-8 (2nd edition) "Media Eye Watch the World" column)

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