SXSW Day Two Recap: Metaverse, Meta Humans, and Meta Ideas | Blog

The second day of SXSW. Are you ready to get into installations, conversations, as well as creative inspiration?

 Web3, Decentralization, and DAO

There's no doubt what the buzzwords of SXSW 2022 will be Web3, decentralization metaverse, decentralization, DAO Blockchain, crypto, blockchain.

Confused? Do not worry, There are plenty of sessions which cover everything from basics to the intricacies of how you can start your own.

The first of our sessions for the day "2022: The Year of the DAO" We got right into it. What is a DAO? In simple terms it's an autonomous decentralized organization that uses web3 primitives to build a new structure or business without a central leader. To put it in simple terms, one of our speakers explained it as "it's like a group chat using a shared bank account."

The advantage of DAOs DAO is that it's fast and less expensive to establish in comparison to an established entity which has less regulatory and the need for capital. It also operates on a more communal level that allows investors to collaborate with the founders in a much more open relationship unlike traditional investments. This type of collaboration could mean anything from the investment in capital to investing skills and resources.

The advantages and convenience of cryptocurrency being used in the world today. Within a matter of weeks, the sum of $50 million was accumulated in crypto and deposited with Ukraine. Ukrainian government. If you were to go through the traditional methods of investing, that money influx will take longer to get to liquidity, essentially not giving those who need it access at the pace they really require the funds.

So how do you join a DAO? The panel suggested you start with a simple approach: go into an existing DAO chat room and announce that you're here and want to be affiliated and ask which of the contributors who are core. From there, there's the bounty program that allows you to earn a few simple tasks like noting notes during meetings. In time, you'll gain confidence and can step into the full-time project or even become a leader. After you've been in leadership, you're your own primary contributor. It's not just that you sign up to the DAO as the only job you have however, it's more that you are able to join and then over time earn a full-time salary as you build social capital along the way (and in the intervening time you can earn equity, ownership or NFTs in the meantime).

The issue for some is that DAOs can be an opt-in-only style of culture. In contrast to a traditional job, or even a club and even a club, no one will tell you what to do. This is also one of the things that some people find fascinating concerning them. Contributions are made in a manner that works for you. Up until now, companies were not permitted to compensate contributors, without having for an ethical and legal manner. And so when you come into a community, and make a contribution, you might get a token of appreciation in what the panelists describe as the Ownership Economy.

The next step for DAO? The barriers to entry could be high for some, so the next phase comes down to DAO tools. What can individuals do to make it easier for them to gain entry into the world? That's the next question the market faces in its search for broader appeal.

We then caught up on "Connecting Web3 With the Real World" that aims to identify Web3 as "a reinventing of the way people agree with each other as well as how they can agree with each other through the use of platforms, institutions as well as any other system." Sergey Naarov of Chainlink seeks to move us away of the paper-based guarantee system and advocate for Web3 that puts us into a world of (cryptographically) assured results.

What is Web3? Sergey explains it succinctly: "Web3 is a reinvention of the way people interact to each other and how they agree with each by means of the use of platforms, institutions and any number of other platforms."

Web3 gave way naturally to the next subject of discussion: how to guarantee authenticity and ownership in the new, murky world of Web3.

 Protecting Creatives ' Work The Digital Provenance and NFTs

Top of mind for creatives in this constantly changing landscape of the creator economy is how to ensure they're properly acknowledged with respect to their contribution. While NFTs grow in adoption and use, there's a greater sense that it's possible to trace the trail through blockchain and have transparency throughout the entire process. However, is there a way to do this before minting?

On the other hand, as our culture faces an ever-growing thread of misinformation or fake news. How can editorial teams know that images as well as the creative content they're publishing are legitimate? What can we do to ensure that readers are aware they are looking at images from the present rather than four years ago?

That's the kind of questions Adobe tried to answer in their session "Protecting Creatives ' Work with Digital Provenance and NFTs."

If we can delineate the different stages of an artwork into three distinct phases: art provenance, mint and token provenance. We've resolved the problem of credit in the second two stages, however there's an unanswered question concerning the initial.

To help combat that, Adobe launched the Content Authority Initiative to combat that, they launched the Content Authority Initiative. It is a completely open source and open standard initiative that has partners from across the entire industry. The goal of their program is easy and, according to Will Anderson noted, "instead of speculating about what's true, we can prove the truth."

The current standard procedure is to to discredit an image, through proving that it's been manipulated or was not feasible to take the picture in that moment. Instead, Adobe sought to switch the process and build more trust through proving the truth.

That's how Content Credentials emerged in the belief that it is possible to add cryptography to metadata to ensure tamper-proof credentialing on creative material. By using Content Credentials in Photoshop the creators are in complete control of what and how they want to show their credentials based on facts regarding the source of the image including authorship, modification and device information, the type of software, and other subjects. And on the flip side, viewers of media can go to a verification site and see all of this cryptographically assigned metadata through an audit trail which ensures the authenticity of an photo and the creator.

By taking on both the sides (the viewer and the artist), we can look at the issue of artistic authenticity with the advent of art made digitally.

As we continue to discuss about the future of creative thinking, DAOs, blockchain, and more, it follows the same pattern that we should consider the humane aspects of technology. That's why we headed over to the expert...

 Humane Technologies: Why the Social Dilemma is Not Destiny

Center of Humane Technology Co-Founder Tristan Harris discussed the wisdom we need to steer towards the next generation of technology. He began by discussing a similar issues to those we have learned earlier in the day - deceitful practices and the ever-growing presence of these. As the world grows increasingly complex and the technology is growing at a faster rate and our capacity to react to change isn't keeping with. The complexity gap is growing and the only way to bridge the gap is wisdom.

The group was exposed to the shortcomings of the current modes of thinking when it comes to addressing the issues of our time. And Tristan spoke extensively about the perception gap and the longer we spend online - particularly on social media - the bigger our gap of perception is. He presented the example: if you ask Republicans how many Democrats consider themselves LGBTQIA+, they'll claim 1/3. The real number is around six percent. This led to covering "reality jamming" - where we have lesser empathy for one another because we live in negative perceptions about each other. In essence, social media drives further divisions by exploiting weakness in the brains of people.

Here's where humane technology is at work.

Where existing tech is focused on central product principles that give users what they want while acknowledging all techs have benefits as well as bad aspects, a technologically savvy technology could be more sensitive to human weaknesses and try to limit negative externalities. When technology is non-biased, we could shift to the notion that technology must support fairness and justice.

In the end, he concluded by encouraging people to read more about the program currently being designed by his company.

 Keynote: Reggie Fils-Aime

Reggie Fils-Aime was the former President and COO for Nintendo of America and is present at SXSW the year before to discuss about growing trends, innovation, and how we should be thinking about gaming, the metaverse, and much more. In his chat with Bloomberg's Emily Chang, he spoke about the metaverse "For me I see the metaverse as an online space in which you can interact with friends in a game and social type of environment. It's social, digital, and there's an ability to truly interact with your friends and people who have the possibility of becoming friends. I believe that certain elements of the metaverse exist."

It all points to the modern world that Reggie is a pioneer in his capacity as a leader in gaming. As the world of gaming has evolved, Reggie spoke to the importance of technology that is emerging - specifically blockchain - and it's potential in play-to-own gaming.

"I'm an avid blockchain user as it's a truly compelling technology. I'm also a believer in the idea of playing-to-own in video games." The notion is that you're able to put many hours in a game and then switch to something different is a great way to make money from what you've created. Imagine you could sell the island you built on your Animal Crossing area. If blockchain technology was embedded in the development and code of your game you can do just that. However, the important thing to keep in mind is however we build it, it needs to make sense to the player as well as the developer of the game or company.

 And a whole lot of other fantastic ideas Installations, ideas, and inspiration...

From hearing metahumans interview live on stage by Mark Cuban to understanding how Saatchi Art evolved its iconic Other Art Fair to become The Other Avatars (and sell out in record time of 20 minutes) as well as a visit to NFT Doodles, SXSW was full of equal parts excitement and knowledge. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to explore the realm of immersive storytelling and the next generation of technological advancements.