John Carmack Issues Some Words of Warning For Meta and Its Metaverse Plans (arstechnica.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Oculus consulting CTO John Carmack has been bullish on the idea of "the metaverse" for a long time, as he'll be among the first to point out. But the id Software co-founder spent a good chunk of his wide-ranging Connect keynote Thursday sounding pretty skeptical of plans by the newly rebranded Meta (formerly Facebook) to actually build that metaverse. "I really do care about [the metaverse], and I buy into the vision," Carmack said, before quickly adding, "I have been pretty actively arguing against every single metaverse effort that we have tried to spin up internally in the company from even pre-acquisition times." The reason for that seeming contradiction is a somewhat ironic one, as Carmack puts it: "I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not actually the best way to wind up with the metaverse."
Today, Carmack said, "The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox." That said, Carmack added, "I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything." That's because a single bad decision by the creators of that walled-garden metaverse can cut off too many possibilities for users and makers. "I just don't believe that one player -- one company -- winds up making all the right decisions for this," he said. The idea of the metaverse, Carmack says, can be "a honeypot trap for 'architecture astronauts.'" Those are the programmers and designers who "want to only look at things from the very highest levels," he said, while skipping the "nuts and bolts details" of how these things actually work.
These so-called architecture astronauts, Carmack said, "want to talk in high abstract terms about how we'll have generic objects that can contain other objects that can have references to these and entitlements to that, and we can pass control from one to the other." That kind of high-level hand-waving makes Carmack "just want to tear [his] hair out... because that's just so not the things that are actually important when you're building something." "But here we are," Carmack continued. "Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made."
Today, Carmack said, "The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox." That said, Carmack added, "I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything." That's because a single bad decision by the creators of that walled-garden metaverse can cut off too many possibilities for users and makers. "I just don't believe that one player -- one company -- winds up making all the right decisions for this," he said. The idea of the metaverse, Carmack says, can be "a honeypot trap for 'architecture astronauts.'" Those are the programmers and designers who "want to only look at things from the very highest levels," he said, while skipping the "nuts and bolts details" of how these things actually work.
These so-called architecture astronauts, Carmack said, "want to talk in high abstract terms about how we'll have generic objects that can contain other objects that can have references to these and entitlements to that, and we can pass control from one to the other." That kind of high-level hand-waving makes Carmack "just want to tear [his] hair out... because that's just so not the things that are actually important when you're building something." "But here we are," Carmack continued. "Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made."
Can't wait (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one can't wait to hear about the mandated meeting horror stories when Facebook requires everyone internally to meet in the Metaverse.
I agree with John on this one. VR has definitely gotten good enough that you can do practical things with it, but Facebook looks like they are going to completely fail with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds good, as soon as someone hacks the avatar so it always displays a steaming hot cup of coffee and is totally not sleeping.
Zuckerberg must have really enjoyed his sunburn-free trip to Haiti.
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I don't think Metastabook cares about you or your need for coffee cups.
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Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no idea what this metaverse stuff is all about but I know that Facebook is a shitty company, no matter what they decide to call themselves. If you want to completely destroy a good concept then by all means, give it to Facebook and they will make it trash that spies on you. I'll acknowledge when they make some technological achievement but beyond that, I'm not going to be interfacing with any Facebook related company.
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I have no idea what this metaverse stuff is all about...
Basically the same as Second Life [wikipedia.org], as far as I can tell. I doubt even Second Life was the first time the idea came up.
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I have no idea what this metaverse stuff is all about
The metaverse stuff is decribed in Neal Stephenson's book Snow Crash from 1992. If you do not want to read the whole book, Skip the first chapter, chapters 2~4 (IIRC) will paint a decent picture of the metaverse...
Re: (Score:2)
This "meta: thing is merely lipstick on a pig.
{^_^}
no thanks (Score:2)
Zoom3D (Score:2)
They are working on Zoom3D. No thanks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If they can figure out a way to turn a dull Zoom meeting into a first person shooter, I'm in.
Re: (Score:2)
If they can figure out a way to turn a dull Zoom meeting into a first person shooter, I'm in.
I watched the meta promo video, and god, there was this person continually flipping over spinning round and round and distracting from everything. So annoying. I think you may have the correct approach to this.
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Well, I was just voting on Sally's proposal. Sorry about the mess on the conference room table.
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If they can figure out a way to turn a dull Zoom meeting into a first person shooter, I'm in.
Good game! I can think of some twerps at work who would deserve a zap from my hyper-laser. Can I press a button so the marketing guy gets an electric shock in the bum every time he says "think outside of the box", or "going forward", or other blah?
Re: Zoom3D (Score:2)
IDSPISPOPD
(clips through the void space)
"Oh shit, look what our competitors are doing!"
Leaving? (Score:2)
He sounds like he is annoyed and maybe ready to ditch Facebook/Meta.
Re:Leaving? (Score:5, Interesting)
backslashdot mused:
He sounds like he is annoyed and maybe ready to ditch Facebook/Meta.
Nah. Carmack is a visionary who is also a freaking king god coder. As it turns out, he's also an unassuming guy who is much more into building cool stuff than tearing other peoples' efforts down.
I got to meet him and spend some time chatting with him at the Transmeta (!) rollout in Mountain View, back in 2000. Nice guy, and not at all the kind of ego monster you meet so often in the more stratospheric levels of Silly Valley.
I'm confident that frustration, rather than annoyance, is what he was expressing. Zuckerberg is clearly a high-function autistic who also happens to be a malignant narcissist. Essentially, he's convinced he can bulldoze any obstacle in his path, and bully or lie his way out of any unanticipated consequences along the way. Carmack, by contrast, is a visionary who long ago learned the painful lesson that you really do have to crawl before you can walk - much less run.
The Metaverse as a concept is Carmack's baby - although I'm sure he'd be the first to acknowledge cyberpunk SF as its inspiration. For Zuckerberg, it's as much about (Squirrel!) diverting attention from the Facebook Papers scandal as it is setting a new direction for his company. Yes, his interest in artificial and mixed reality is a well-established thing, but he sees both as an avenue to plumb ever deeper depths of data rape in the interest of his own, personal profit, whereas Carmack sees the future of both as converging toward a world not unlike that of Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End.
Since there's every reason to believe that both Alphabet and Apple are deeply interested in bringing mixed reality to the masses - and Microsoft would also love to play, if only its tech didn't so thoroughly suck - I think we will see some version of a metaverse become part of everyday reality within the next decade or so. The danger that Carmack sees appears to me to be that building castles in the sky requires anti-gravity to work. And a working, multi-platform-interoperative metaverse is going to require a lot of attention to unglamorous details on the front end of the development effort in order to build a solid, functional foundation for the pretty bits.
So I don't think he'll be leaving any time soon, because it's too important to him, personally, that the thing be done right, and he's one of the few people in the Meta organization who both understands what that will entail, and who wields sufficient influence there to try to steer the ocean liner away from the rocks that neither Zuckerberg nor his coterie of inner-circle yes men are willing to even admit might exist, much less be accorded any actual concern ...
Re: (Score:2)
So I don't think he'll be leaving any time soon, because it's too important to him, personally, that the thing be done right, and he's one of the few people in the Meta organization who both understands what that will entail, and who wields sufficient influence there to try to steer the ocean liner away from the rocks that neither Zuckerberg nor his coterie of inner-circle yes men are willing to even admit might exist, much less be accorded any actual concern ...
If the thing is done right but controlled by the wrong hands that will be worse than it not being done at all. If he does this work for Zuckerberg then Zuckerberg owns and controls it and all of the evil of Facebook will go with that. Once the thing is working and established as a dominant platform, Carmack can be discarded and the whole data-rape thing will be forced in without problems. Carmack may be a god at coding but if he's willing to stay around and do this for Facebook he's not thinking through t
Re: Leaving? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
kubajz noted:
Great post but beware - the book is called "Rainbows End" which has a somewhat different meaning than "Rainbow's End". I only noticed it on my second reading :)
Nice catch!
I'd say it alters the meaning more than "somewhat," however ... !
Hey John Carmack (Score:1)
I told you so.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: What exactly is a "metaverse"? (Score:2)
Second Life with VR goggles.
Just ignore everything mentioning the metaverse. After a couple years, everyone will have forgotten about the metaverse, except for Zuckerberg, who will be obsessing over how everything went so wrong...
Conway's Law (Score:1)
Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
LOL that got me to thinking about what kind of organizational structure Meta will have, and I couldn't stop laughing.
The first thing to be done is to port PHP to VR, so you can code in the true language.
The Oracle has spoken (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Second Life, metaverse, been there, done that. (Score:2)
Having spent plenty of time years upon years ago in Second Life, the metaverse is a tool and entertaining and enriching. Kinda' the opposite of what Farcebork is about. Linden Lab's design enabled users. But also obviously isn't mainstream despite all the PR and wealth gains at the time.
Ultimately the issue becomes does it distract from quality of life like FB does, or does it enhance it? Obviously that company is the worst option, and the entire premise is kind of in need of a purpose that isn't served
John sold his soul to the devil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Carmack joined Oculus in 2013, before it was acquired by Facebook, in 2014. I am sure he made a ton of money out of that acquisition, but I don't think that was a motivator for him - he was supporting Oculus tech for years before that. I think he just likes VR and driving graphics tech forward.
He'd never say it but I often wonder if he regrets it; it triggered the Zenimax/Oculus lawsuit and I simply can't imagine him as the sort of person that would be happy in a company like Facebook.
(Oh) Dear John... (Score:2)
I will apologize for the pun right away, But John and his buddy Mark need to get some fresh air and some sunshine. We don't need computers intermediating every social interaction.
Firstly, TikTok is melting the next generation's brains and attention spans to the point where they have to walk away or burn out completely. FB and Insta aren't the best players in the game they want to play.
We had months of enforced social isolation and the mental health costs of that are still to be counted, and they want to go
Did anyone consider, whether we actually want it? (Score:4, Insightful)
That seems to be what is so often missed when it comes to grand schemes about building a "metaverse".
Who is it for?
It seems to me, if the likes of zuckerburg get to decide, it's going to be for advertisers & commerce - pretty much a micro-payment system from day one, where you get to pay with your data or a facebook controlled cryptocurrency.
Every single aspect will be controlled by facebook - a centralised lock-in.
What should it be like?
Like the internet of old, in terms of unfettered access and the ability for anyone to host parts of a metaverse.
A complete free-for-all, with all the warts, all the foibles, failures, successes and creativity that the human race collectively represent.
Totally open source, from the ground up.
Why would you use it? ... well, necessary for existence. The graphics are way better too.
Damned if I know. I will admit I'm now too old to understand why you would choose to spend time in a virtual world, when the real one is
Sure, you could argue for many "to escape the mundanity of life" - but I'm pretty sure, if that's your attitude, you'll be just replicating that mundanity in a metaverse.
I reminded of the Red Dwarf episode, "BTL" - "Better than Life", but the book explained this episode far better.
The concept of "game heads", unable to escape, whilst in real life, their bodies slowly wasted away. The game also exposed the players psychological weaknesses, in the case of Arnold Rimmer, it was a nightmare - very funny too!
I've no doubt some form of metaverse is going to happen, but I'm inclined to believe, it won't be open source, it won't be a creative free space - it'll be controlled by the mega-corporations.
Did anyone question if we actually want this? (Score:3)
That seems to be what is so often missed when it comes to grand schemes about building a "metaverse".
Who is it for?
It seems to me, if the likes of zuckerburg get to decide, it's going to be for advertisers & commerce - pretty much a micro-payment system from day one, where you get to pay with your data or a facebook controlled cryptocurrency.Every single aspect will be controlled by facebook - a centralised lock-in.
What should it be like?
Like the internet of old, in terms of unfettered access and the ability for anyone to host parts of a metaverse.A complete free-for-all, with all the warts, all the foibles, failures, successes and creativity that the human race collectively represent.Totally open source, from the ground up.
Why would you use it?
Damned if I know. I will admit I'm now too old to understand why you would choose to spend time in a virtual world, when the real one is... well, necessary for existence. The graphics are way better too.Sure, you could argue for many "to escape the mundanity of life" - but I'm pretty sure, if that's your attitude, you'll be just replicating that mundanity in a metaverse.
I reminded of the Red Dwarf episode, "BTL" - "Better than Life", but the book explained this episode far better.The concept of "game heads", unable to escape, whilst in real life, their bodies slowly wasted away. The game also exposed the players psychological weaknesses, in the case of Arnold Rimmer, it was a nightmare - very funny too!
I've no doubt some form of metaverse is going to happen, but I'm inclined to believe, it won't be open source, it won't be a creative free space - it'll be controlled by the mega-corporations.
Re: Did anyone question if we actually want this? (Score:2)
The graphics engine IRL is sick, but the world design is super repetitive and littered with all sorts of filler content that impedes your ability to get to the interesting and beautiful things the engine makes possible.
6/10
Re: (Score:1)
Also, choice of avatars is really sub-par.
Re: High level is easy, coding is hard - see Xanad (Score:2)
That's why Gates did it right: he just stole things and used his better business acumen to turn others' ideas into bigger money printers.
Soundproof masks... (Score:2)
Keep in mind what's happening over at Google. (Score:2)
Since Facebook is doing this, you can pretty much guarantee that Google has a group arguing that they need to pivot the company to go all-in on the future of the metaverse. Half the Google Lively people are horrified and trying to talk them down, the other half are "Yeah. This is a great idea!" A bunch of people are arguing "Don't you remember how badly we screwed up Google+?", and a bunch of people are arguing "Remember how many improvements the Google+ push brought?" [Hint: I'm not naive enough to bal
Well that's guaranteed (Score:2)
a stale idea (Score:2)
Re: a stale idea (Score:2)
In the year 2039: "Hey I got a great idea! What if we made VR meetings with virtual comfortable chairs, VR shopping centers, VR everything! The public will love this and will never go back to clicking through boring oldfashioned websites. We will all be zillionairs!" ..sigh :-\
VR hype, again (Score:2)
Back in the 90s "VR museums" and "VR shopping centers" etc.. got the public excited for about 5 minutes before faded so deep in obscurity, that only a couple people remember it.
Once again, the public may get excited for 5 minutes before it's back to clicking through old fashioned text and image websites.
Maybe this is just a company trying to ride the current 1990s retrofeels wave.
Meetings are not reality anyway (Score:2)
People I know quite well as rational and well-meaning go into meeting mode in meetings. I am guilty of this I think. Most people are not used to making presentations, or answering questions in front of an audience. Some people are good at meetings. Whether they are good at anything else is another matter.
It would be nice to have a meeting in some country pub garden on a nice day, to distract from the generally useless blah. However, I don't see any kind of headset being able to provide that experience to a
Astrozuck (Score:2)
I love the not-so-subtle implication that Zuck is one of said architect astronauts