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2023-09-22T14:49:54.016Z

Enter the Marthaverse

with

Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld

On this weeks episode of The Futurists we engage with Metaverse futurist Dr. Martha Boeckenfeld all the way from Switzerland. Robert and Martha get deep into the debate of what is the Metaverse, and where do we go after lackluster performance from the likes of Meta. Brett tries to play referee.

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this week on the futurists Dr Martha buenfeld money is gone as we know it or
there is no [Music]
money hey there welcome back to the futurists I'm Rob Turk and I'm thrilled to have my co-host Brett King here with
me this week hi Brett how you been hey good yeah writing in writing mode today so uh starting you know getting trying
to get this other book out so yet another book good I just did a big piece myself on uh copyright in the age of
artificial intelligence which turns out to be a really interesting topic I know copyright people like ready to fall asleep when they hear it but it actually
turns out to be quite good um man you think do you think that we have to
completely revisit the concept of intellectual property in the AI World well I think you know the listen the
principles of intellectual property have been around for 300 years I don't think that's going to change it's just that that's not necessarily the right tool to
govern AI with and so people are trying to force fit AI into copyright it doesn't fit neatly and uh there are a
dozen cases coming now against AI companies um they're all going to fail that's my prediction they are not going
to be successful copyright infringement lawsuits yeah but watch the space uh coming soon we'll have a couple experts
from the field come in and they can correct me where I'm wrong yeah I mean at what point does it um you know in
generative AI at what point does it diverge enough from the seeding seated
data that it no longer representative of the seated data you know like that's
well the AI companies would say immediately right because when you're training something on on billions of parameters really hundreds of millions
of texts it's very hard to say like this particular text now the lawsuits are going to try to make that case and to prove it they're going to have to show
first that the the data that the system was trained on that particular book or you know that particular work and then
they'll have to show points of similarity um and then they'll have to show that there was commercial damage that somehow that reduced the the
commercial prospects for the original book that's going to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to do so let's hold that for a future show um
personally yeah we should definitely get into it I I mean I do think that um you know there are sort of clear cases of Ip
uh an you know a recording artist that's that's uh having AI or AI produce tracks
uh movie stars uh you know in in you know there are there are opportunities
and actually there are fantastic opportunities and right now everybody's obsessed right now with protecting what they've got and hanging out the stuff
from the past no I think as an actor being able to just rent out your you know Bruce Willis would have been very
happy to do that I think times you know just rening out his digital identity to
to produce although there there's some controversy surrounding that but why don't we get into our guest for today
let's introduce Our Guest so today we have a guest coming to us from Spain by way of Switzerland Dr Martha buenfeld Dr
Martha buenfeld welcome to the show it's a pleasure to have you with us today maybe maybe it's us that's welcome to
the Martha verse which is what you like to talk about your uh your view but uh let's get into the Martha verse tell us
about that yeah thanks a lot uh super excited being here and welcome to the mar verse as you say and I would say
that King verse would also be another name which quite revealing Kingdom it's the Kingdom right Kingdom yeah exactly
we have already with fortnite we have a lot of Kingdoms so maybe we don't need that
anymore well great so um for those that uh um aren't familiar with you you are
the dean of the metaverse academy um you're an ambassador for the allstar
woman da that's uh you're also um previously uh digital platform advisor
at UBS and currently on the board of directors of Jan Al in Switzerland um
you spend your time between Switzerland and Spain is that correct yeah that's correct that's
correct Yes sounds pretty hard to beat that sounds very nice um what keep the most
focused like what's the busiest thing that you're that's that that you're working on right now uh the business
thing is working with Brands and the focus is really on education uh so could be startups or could also be what we
call incumbents so Banks it's very interesting when they come and have all these ideas about what they want to do
and they uh they don't really know where to go but they have clear ideas they want to be in the central land or uh for
those who don't know is a blockchain based metaverse and where some of the big guys are even uh though maybe not
many people go there uh or sandbox or the like U but I think it's very
important that is start with experiences so I am focused on providing experiences
in metaverse so now I have my own metaverse created exactly for that purpose so that I can train people
understand what are the use cases what the this is for how should they focus also really to create something which is
outstanding for their brand what how they how they can be also very loyal to
what they do today like Lego very being very loyal in everything they do to uh
creating something where they educate children and also educate parents and having this interconnection between
parents and children and I think that is loyalty to your brand this is true value
and what we have in terms of Imaging Tech is not much different okay so I want to get into this we've had a number
of guests on the show who talked about the metaverse including um Mark pesi and
Tony paresi who actually invented it back in the 1990s um each of them came on the show and spoke about what they're
doing um and um and some of the new projects that they they've been working on it's been a lively topic for us here
and it keeps coming back but lately the metaverse has been kind of on the Downs slope you know the past year has been
very tough on the metaverse first uh Facebook got clobbered you know their their investors bailed out the price the
share price dropped by 60 70% uh tremendous setback for them that hasn't
deterred Mark Zuckerberg he continues to invest apparently he invested about $40 billion do total in building out
Facebook's version of the mediverse um but in general The View has been that this is not something that's taken off
yet or it's quite clicked yet with the public can you talk a little bit about the state of the metaverse today yeah I
think it's a big misconception um because um Facebook rebranded to meter
that everyone immediately says okay The Meta versus meter so that is a my you completely wrong because you have a lot
of use cases and one of the biggest one and we know that's the most highly valued company right now is NVIDIA they
are working uh with so-called Universe where they create and help companies uh
with industrial met versus so semons BMW all the big companies have a digital
twin of their now of their entire processes of their creative teams and so
on so they have dto avatars D twin AI you name it and that is much bigger than
excuse me uh when you say meta has invested 14 billion I mean
this is penuts we had in 2022 we had VCS investing in vb3 and metaverse and
basically all I wouldn't say all one thing but different layers of what is coming uh so people said the meterse is
dead because meter basically is not successful but that's well hang on it's not just meta's failure and it is clear
Ai and spatial Computing but if you think but you're throwing a whole bunch of turns let's let's break them apart
here because I'm asking about the metaverse we can certainly get into this is the thing no no no but I think the
misconception is one metaverse is not meter and two metaverse is not something separate it's not a space where you go
to even though I have my merse you go to the meterse there a very very excellent layer chart from John ROV years ago
where I said this is seven layers of the meterse you have the infrastructure you have ai you have special Computing you
have augmented reality it's all part of it but no one is using that stuff I mean
just let's to be let's be clear no one's using it when you go to decentral land or if you go to sandbox you mentioned
those two decentralized versions of the metaverse they are complete failures there is no one there the server it
might say there's 700 people on the server but you will see no one but again I I think I see where Martha is going
with this this is a slice of the metaverse it's a it's a metaverse environment but metaverse as a
competency or as an arena involves the whole digital twin concept it involves
um you know the concept of digital assets you know so this is I mean this is a bit contentious but you know when
Tony paresi and Mark pesi come on the show and they talk about web 3 they're talking about the 3D web right but when
we talk about web 3D in the metaverse perspective when now talking about the third generation of web and that
includes sort of this basic infrastructure around digital assets and and um the decentralized web sure but
that also let's be clear no one's using that either well but hang on dude look at what Shanghai just announced a
basically a trillion dooll digital asset infrastructure play today okay plenty of people are investing and it is like a
black hole that absorbs an enormous amount of cash the point is that no consumers are using any of this stuff
today the big part of the metaverse you know and Martha jump in
here I think the big part of the metaverse is smart contracts and it's no no you're just okay if I may if
I may say so there is I would say no one knows what the metaverse really is so you ask different expert they have
different definitions but it's very clear is the next generation and if we
talk about the vision is something different from what also BR you
described the little pieces of the puzzle like is you have a world which consists of different countries but each
different country doesn't mean it's a world so it's the same with the meterse you have different you have dentaland
you have scent box you have meter uh and then no one's using any of them the point I'm making is very simple it's all
these things are being built and enormous amounts of cash are being burned but there's no evidence of traction with consumers industrial
meterse is a separate topic so don't let talk about this one and then we'll turn please please Martha please Martha hang
on let me just finish the sentence because I really want to make the point clear because it's a little confusing from this conversation I'm asking one
specific question which is about consumer adoption and now you guys are talking about web three you're talking about decentralization you're talking
about smart contract that's all separate I'm asking one simple question who's using the metaverse today
who so there is which I agree uh with you as always as we have an innovation
and we you are very well aware of hype St goals so we are not even at the High
with meters so we start we have an innovation trigger uh we are before in
my view before the hype cycle so it's the same as we the typical example with
a smartphone how many people have used a smartphone at the beginning so it's a normal I would say Innovation cycle and
it's normal for exponential growth it starts very slowly so if you ask who are the webst stre people who are the people
for example who come to my merse so you know that spal usually when you have 50
people wow that's amazing so I have since March I have over I have now 8,000
views which is a great success and I don't even have everyday events so who's
coming there there are different people there are the VB stre you can say native but hang on it's not the native who are
10 15 20 years old is those who are 35 plus years old who are totally excited
about web stre and then you have those people I fortunately can take along because of my education and because of
all the efforts I do I take them with me so they easily easily get into this and
you said at the beginning you have been there so you know it's by desktop so there are a lot of and it's that to
based basically also correctly pointing out but in my view we are on a journey
so saying today no one is using it yes it's correct because we are very very
early and we have an adaption cor curve which we see slowly slowly slowly and
sometimes it's frustrating because you think oh my God am I alone but luckily in the different
networks there are so many wonderful people and I haven't seen I have to say the same uh community building the same
dedication passion in any other community before I've been as you said in platform ecosystem digitization this
is different but but second life has been around for 20 years and there's a million users in other words second life
has a thousand times more users than any current metaverse it's a significant
difference right so there is I would say Roo I would say Roblox is a prototype
metaverse okay sure I mean you can okay you can just run with this thing and and say anything's a metaverse but that sort
of dilutes the concept in my perspective I'm trying to get a clear understanding there are plenty of projects where the founders of the project decare this is a
metaverse and it's a destination as Martha pointed out it's a sort of a 3D immersive site um you could wear VR
goggles but no one does and people who own VR they use it twice a month and average so this has been I would say
immersive versions of digital worlds have not been very successful yes g game worlds have been extraordinarily
successful and it's clear that the game companies have the best opportunity what's puzzling to me is why aren't more
metaverses a game it clearly works people understand G why also to your point I think you have maybe not the
right statistics for sandbox it's not that sandbox is not successful there have one of the blockchain
based uh basically applications which are more successful because they have games and as we know we have three
billion Gamers and those three billion gamers are not all 15 to 20 years old they're also older because the gaming
aspect is also uh that's why spatial has started to to introduce the gaming and in spatial there are 40 plus here old
you know they are the old guys like us here on the call you can say the normal guys because we it's
intuitive just last night I was looking at I was looking at some reviews of spatial to get ready for this interview
they said spatial is a lonely experience and that was my experience of it as well there's nobody there we don't have to
beat the horse to death offer industrial
metaverse hang on so sorry hang on MAR I'm sorry industrial metaverse is a separate topic and it's quite an
interesting one and there are is's a growing number of people who believe that we're going to build a metaverse by building a network of digital twins
These are 3D representations of real world facilities say typically a factory sort of an advanced manufacturing
Factory but increasingly they're getting larger scale so now we're starting to see digital twins that are City scale or digital twins of airports or other
complex industrial uh Enterprises would you like to talk a little bit about that because that might be an interesting
topic for us to cover since you mentioned it yeah I think we are beating the horse to death just I don't give up
on the B2 on b2c side so first of all clearly industrial metor it's I think in
very short terms is more or less Nvidia who is very very focused on that you have now also M Microsoft raising their
hands but you have the big guys you have the cens you have the BMW you have really beautiful use cases Microsoft
closed their industrial metaverse team they they shut that down they're pivoting to AI which actually candidly most companies are pivoting to AI
because we're seeing the take up we're seeing the adoption there there's hundreds of millions of people using AI unlike the
metaverse a couple of days they announced that they are very focused on the industrial MERS they haven't closed
it down at all yeah Microsoft but put it aside I think
lens is still a big part of their uh yeah yeah let's put it aside and just say there is a huge traction on the
industrial mediverse as you say there are tons of application one I personally
very very much like is the uh twin of the earth which Nvidia is working on for climate change for simulations and you
when you say Virtual Worlds you use Virtual Worlds you use digal twins you use AI you use what they call the am
Omniverse which is really really beautiful the the other application where is heavily used and that's not
only industrial is in healthcare so there are a lot of applications also
where you use D of human beings uh for virtual trainings for doctors but also
one where they have separated cjoint twins with expert from London doctors and expert from Brazil so this is also
one of the applications definition of the metaverse is vague and is Big so
there are applications but I don't deny that when you go to spal you feel lonely because if there is no event what can
you do there same for the others so what is hindering the adoption I think that is more the question and you named it we
don't want to run around with this big headsets we don't so now Apple has made
a big thing about spatial Computing is basically augmenting everything but you
also have an immersive button so this would change even though you say it's heavy it's big then you have you men I
don't know if you've seen that AI pin beautiful from one of the people work
basically at Apple one of the big guys uh he has founded this company and you
you must look at this because there's a convergence of technology which is quite different from when we had second life
10 years ago so this convergence to Technologies is going to take a certain amount of
time I think a lot of people have been very enthusiastic about it particularly people coming from crypto after 2017
where they felt like there was momentum of course crypto goes and spikes so of course you know there's a period of
momentum and then there's a reset that seems to be the case the pattern there but the idea was that we were going to move into a decentralized web an
enormous amount of money was invested in that space and a huge number of startups were created I I want to take this in a
slightly different direction Robert um you know again as a as a futurist you
know um I mean I think it's just a timing issue right well that's what I
was about to say before you jumped in yeah that's the point to build this infastructure decentralized web is a gigantic
undertaking but but there's I I think um I mean you can argue about timing but I
don't think there's any scenario where we don't develop this capability right because I don't know how you express the
digital world and how you meld the digital and physical without these
Concepts right you know you you you know you'd have to base basically say listen like look you know um you know we can
talk about meta but um you know Apple has just endered into the spartial
Computing game yeah and they're again blowing the lines of what the metaverse
will be because they are clearly working towards a view of um digital immersion
into the physical space think about Apple's entry in the space is that they're not using the term metaverse
they're just getting rid of it perspective it's it's radioactive using spal Computing right um but you know if
you're trying to argue what is the difference between spal Computing and metaverse you know you're going to you're going to run into very difficult
definitions in terms of you you could say no no no no no that's not actually
actually there's Nuance there that's worth unpacking because one thing that one thing that Apple did not show is an
immersive 3D World right they didn't show that what they're showing is augmented reality overlays typically
right so they're saying we're going to bring 3d Compu or what they're calling spatial Computing into the workflow and into entertainment and into social space
but it's going to be an overlay on the real world approach what we didn't see
but we know that they're working on it right is that we didn't see them with a real world version of their Ari glasses
where you could walk around on the street you can't you know Vision Pro you can't do that with right you know I
think Apple has been uh doing an amazing job that avoided AI the hyd and they
avoided the metaverse so to your point they have done augmented reality spatial
Computing is part of this several layers of the metaverse but they also have the
magic button so they have an immersive button where you can go into immersive
worlds but they know that the consumer is not ready for it and they don't make it when you see all the movie they have
done the video they don't make it a oneman show you sit on the sofa you can still still see the ey because the eyes
for the interconnection are the most important they have now also soled the haptic stuff because haptic is also so
important for your brain so they have been so smart in how they bring this to
the world I agree with you on that I think it's going to be exciting to see what happens with Vision Pro Martha at
this point we like to get our know get to know our guests better personally and at this point we're gonna ask you a series of short questions before we take
a break uh Brett why don't you go for it let's do the lightning round
okay Dr Martha um first of all what was the first science fiction you remember being
exposed to uh the early version of Star Trek and I was probably five uh because my
brother is 10 five years older and he loved everything around it uh so we the
two younger sisters were forced to watch it and also we played it so we we played
barie later but we played first science fiction so I was uh Captain Ura if you
remember yes very good um what what what technology do you think is most changed
Humanity AI I think that will for sure um name a
futurist or an entrepreneur that has influenced the way you think and why Peter
diamandes The Singularity guy we're gonna have him on the show in a few weeks right Robert
oh maybe one other one which has impressed me over the last couple of months vishan from mind Valley I'm now
following I I think he is I mean he is you should have him um
he is one uh he's now doing an AI course as well which I'm joining uh to become
an AI Evangelista um so it's amazing it's absolutely amazing
work what's the best prediction an entrepreneur futurist or sci-fi practitioner has ever made do you
think um in terms of prediction again amandes he uh he he has this quote where
he says be before uh it becomes a breakthrough it's a crazy idea and I
think that holds true for any Innovation we see pretty much last
one uh this is a bit sci-fi but what science fiction story is most representative of the future that you
hope for are you going to say Ready Player One dystopian
future um I don't doesn't have to be dystopian but you you think no it doesn't have to be dystopian I haven't
seen to be honest with you and I'm really I love science fiction still um
anything which attracts me so much that I say I want to live in that future okay
cool well I mean I'm I'm a big fan of the culture series for me and Bank and I
don't mind the uh the blue Mars outcome for the Martians from Kim Stanley
Robinson who we're going to have on in September so but anyway but let's have a quick Break um you're listening to the
futurists I'm your host Breck King with Rob Turk and we have Dr Martha
bockenfeld uh we're going to be back right after this break to continue our
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one fintech podcast and radio [Music] show welcome back to the futurists I'm
your host breett King with Rob Turk joining me in the hosting chair today um and uh we have uh we're we're into the
Martha verse not the metaverse the Martha verse Dr Martha is uh with us um
Dr Martha you know you you've got a bunch of you know quite impressive
commercial credentials you know you've spent time working at some very serious organizations you still are you you it's
just been announced you're advising the G20 right now um which is all incredibly
impressive but when did you switch from being a digital um evangelist to being a
futurist in within the uh within your career I would say that yeah I switched
quite early I have been very fortunate I've been always very very much
supported in what I'm doing so even though I had like I was a CEO of alha
Bank I I had the liberty or I wouldn't say even though because I was a SE of a
bank also I had the Liberty to work with people who are uh into new technologies
and the more you get into it so I worked with the digital lab from deoe for example if if you go there and see and
that was like would say six seven years ago and you see uh 3D printer for food 10 years ago and
then you see our 3D and everything you become like wow you know this is already
here the future is now it's not something which we have to think about
in the future and then you start thinking okay if the future is now what does it mean so you feel around also in
your management team maybe people are not yet there how do you get those people on board how do you bring them
into the next level and what I realized very early on is it's it's it's
experiencing so everything you experience becomes real and that's why
I'm also so excited about virtual world so even though I go in there with a
desktop as we discussed before with VB 2 I sort of experience it in a different way so everyone who has created an
avatar immediately thinks okay I want the Avatar to be XY that or when we have
now apple I want my digital TR to be XY that because he feels your self- extension but then you also think about
okay that's now so if that is already the future which is now what's next what's the next big thing as Steve Jobs
would say what can we do with it because it's not like okay fine I can go on
Virtual Worlds but what does it mean for us what does it mean for society and that's where when I started also to
think about okay how can we change how can I make a contribution and add value
to this change what is the next big thing the next big thing for me is
really it depends also on the timeline you are looking for with all the hurdles we have that well give us give us 2020s
2030s 2040s yeah exactly go further out yeah sure exactly so let's say 2030 2040
how can we to speak also a little bit with a world which with the words which Peter is using the amandes and also
visan is how can we create the world of a abundance for everyone of us how do we get there so how do we create a world
where we have this richness not in terms of yeah I'm rich I have money and so on
but with all the resources we have we can all live a happy life and how does it look like uh so from my point of view
we should be able in 2040 even though we have lots of hurdles and it might sound
idealistic that climate change is no problem yeah so I just draw this picture
because as you know when well you know eventually it's not a problem but in the meantime I get guess the question is how
many people have to die before we really absolutely absolutely but we see now
with a heat wave everyone is suffering as soon as people suffering and change is here right people are dying from
climate change right now one government that's doing anything about it here the government are unresponsible the UK just
launched said we're going to max out on oil and gas I mean it's crazy that's why I say experiences positive
and negative and when you feel it the you burn yourself then you you need to
do something it is it is a burden isn't it Martha because I mean I mean that's the one thing when you when you are a
futurist when you're always extrapolating and forecasting and thinking of the future you know like
that that example I just gave about the UK it's like how can we be so stupid you know like that we're doing this I just
watched Oppenheimer I don't know if you guys have seen it yet last night yeah yeah Epic movie but what worries me
about that is this is our modus operandi as humans we just go out and do this
stuff because we can and we'll worry about it later you know and here we have you know um you know atomic bombs around
the world enough to destroy the world many times over and yeah we kept burning fossil fuels because we're making ton of
money also fortunately we have seen humanity is in the sense destroying themselves so now the big question is
will AI decide for us because we are basically incapable of creating this world which I was just describing so
will AI be the better humans so all of these kind of questions have to be solved my view is not uh so my view is
though there's a big big big part playing for Humanity and if we do it right if we use AI correctly if we uh
use the ethical principles and everything we will come to a world where where everyone has access everyone has a
possibility less people die you for whatever is worse live longer in but in a way and
that's a that's a beauty but that's also the challenge how do we get that people still have this feeling of Nature and
still have this feeling of roots around them that they know where they come from that they know like the the the old
Greeks were saying K to agum so that I know where I belong to I think also AI
think question mark so all these questions we have to solve so will not be as straightforward as we might
believe but I do believe in 2040 2050 we have a completely different setup and we
should get enough people to get there if you if you look at the world leaders uh
with some questions around those who who monopolize like what scares me is people
like Sam Alman with worldcoin or Elon Musk with the satellites I mean apart
from the fact that he has killed the bird now but is there is there a war okay I Chang my satellites and you get
the internet over Ukraine that it sounds beautiful first but the power those single people have in history yeah I
mean um not always good no I really want to get um Ian bremmer on Robert you know
because he he's got a really you know with this gzero take I don't know you know if you if you're a fan of Ian I'm a
tremendous fan I'm interested I think he's a provocative thinker um I want to return to something whole Tech
technocracy issue that he raises the fact that um you know there are technology individuals it's a point
Martha just made which is that you know it seems like power is being concentrated in the hands of very few very very powerful and rich people um
and yet Martha you're optimistic about this scenario this Peter diamandis scenario of abundance now I've been
hearing about abundance from him for many years more than 10 years he's been talking about it and from everything I
can see we're not moving towards that everything I see is that for most of most people living with less they're
having less money they're having less opportunity and they're very fearful because it looks like AI might displace
some or many of them I don't know if I buy that whole scenario but I'm trying to find out what gives you hope where do
you find uh inspiration or hope that we're going to be on the path of abundance because I really am curious to understand that I think it's a bit of a
mixture of new technology but also connecting and that's what I'm trying uh to explain or trying to also myself to
to connecting to your soul yeah so how do you do this stretch of bosss and I my
my network assist of people who come from very old traditions so let's say they have a huge Shaman education there
might themselves come from this kind of origin where they draw on nature and
they have also this confidence of yes the world will be changing but we are humans and even we have all the fear we
always have fear we always have fear uh about AI about something artificial and
and stuff like that but the confidence comes only only from within and you are exactly right you have big Power Players
but when you see also the other people like Peter danders they are still there Vision they're still there and what is
exciting and the shamans also there are if you see the traction and Peter when you have him on the show by the way your
statistics he will show you from his statistic how the world became more abundant already now despite I agree
with that but you know we've also got the worst you know the like Thomas py says that the United States has the
worst inequality of any Modern Nation of at any time in history right you know um you'd have to go back to the Middle Ages
to find worse inequality now there are other countries on the genie coefficient that have higher Genie coefficient but
you know this is the most powerful economy in the world and you have more
people living in poverty in the United States than in Mexico right so you have 30 million Americans at any point could
be evicted because they may not be able to afford their next rent check you know this is and an entrenched political
class that continues legislation that favors rich people
so this change to abundance you know it's not going to be the billionaires it's not going to be it's not don't
forget you don't forget the I would say in a positive sense also the the power
of the people yeah and the power of certain people so if you if you can take
not only as many people but people who are maybe not the Microsoft the Berg the
Steve Jobs and those people but you can take a lot of other people with you this
has huge power we have seen that also in history and what we also have seen in history as you correctly mentioned there
was always before something got better it got worse yeah in history that was
always the case unfortunately I think also we have to live with the fact that some of it some of the things will in
one way or the other it doesn't mean atomic bomb it might be something different we haven't foreseen yet as we
have seen with Co s something will explode but even Co had some I would say
positive connotation in the sense that we change Behavior we change Behavior we
are more conscious of the fact when we connect with people we are more conscious of the fact that we are person that we have humanity and we are more
conscious of the fact that we are Global but we are not Global it's rubbish the globalization because data is not Global
so a lot of the things I hate Co and I really not I'm not who can be not hating
Co but a lot of the things are kind of eyeopener and that eye opening what
which I have seen before and all the actions also from G20 Financial inclusion through because of coid is not
meaningless it goes in the right direction so that's why I'm so confident
now a lot of the technologies that you were talking about in the first half um things like decentralized web web 3 uh
cryptocurrency nfts uh the notion of a metaverse or some sort of immersive World um these Concepts all depend on
Network Technology they all ride on the network and one thing we've noticed about Network Technology is that it tends to uh have increasing returns to
Market leaders in other words the first company in the space or the dominant company tends to crowd out the others
and take the Lion Share of the value we've seen that happen in a number of different fields social networking certainly a good example of that so it
would seem to me then that one of the things we need to be concerned about if we want to move to a future of abundance
is our Reliance our dependence on Network Technologies and we have to be very conscious of the fact that they
tend to create Market leaders that are so big they become planetary scale companies in other words that leads to
you know these dominant figures we were talking about a moment ago the titans of Technology this is in technosocial ISM
this is why I predicted that um Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire because I think um starlink
is going to put it over the top but um you know in 10 years time um if you he's
gonna pay for the Mars mission with Starling which brilliant idea yeah it's
not only I mean it's a whole it's a whole ecosystem he created because if you look at it I think without doubt
he's the most powerful and most dangerous man in the world right now yeah because he is exactly what you said
everything is towards him so this the other person just developing himself is Sam Alman even though he talks the right
talk but also with worldcoin worldcoin created a controversy I love the idea of
identity which you can take no matter where you go but do I want to put it into one company
obvious they deny like if it was if it was a a a collection of world
governments right if it was the G20 that said let's do uh this identity system um
you know and the passport authorities of those governments got behind it I'd have no problem right the big issue with both
ideas whether it's a private company or a government is that that's centralization and I think the digital identity people are leaning towards
decentralized identi is the blockchain sorry excuse me uh the blockchain and what it connects I
mean the the idea of the whole VB stre people saying web 2 is already the idea social capitalism and everything is gone
so why you believe in web three but we always get Second Chances so not only second lives uh from that point of view
I'm still convinced that if we got enough leaders who might not be the trillionaires of this world up for like
the futurist like you are and I'm I am and others are if we get them all up and
getting the the people with them we have a very very good chance of success and
we also as as you said at the beginning G20 we have this technology so world
going is doing it maybe G20 is not the right one who's the right one the person themselves are the right one if you can
take responsibility for your own identity without losing
your key for it which everyone will do anyway but there will be other ways
because we are now thinking in Keys we are now thinking in it just we think very linear but we have to think wider
technology always there were people who developed technology like now worldco has developed something everyone thought
not possible now they're develop it and how they develop it yeah they do it yeah
so that gives me confidence in one sense if they can do it everyone else can do
it very cool all right so so um let's let's delve a little bit more into the world of 2050 you know we've only got
five minutes left but um describe for me the
interactions digitally in the world of 2050 for an average
person money is gone as we know it there is no money um every one of us will have
like a little bit like we had in old days will contribute to to and create to
something where this SKS are uh and but we also be rewarded for it so if you
remember the very old days where you were living in your little town this is just in a different way in a digital way
because you now can subscribe to digital vus and we cannot even imagine you can
subscribe something creators everyone can create everyone can participate and hopefully we also have less problems
with health I mean I think health is one of the biggest factors and in quotes uh
in in very lemon terms we are happy with ourselves on our way to long-term
longevity and curing all of the diseases right yes that would a problem for AI
essentially why is this a problem for AI no it it's not a problem for AI it's
it's the problem that AI solves right that's problem yeah yeah if you think again I mean fiction tells us with
Johnny Deb Transcendence where his brain was separated and lived longer than than
he lived that's obviously something yeah going towards
Singularity which I would hope uh would not happen that someone again dominates
uh when when you say hope doesn't know we don't know we don't know but we have to have this very clear picture in our
mind imagine what is not imaginable right now and say this is what we want
want everyone healthy we want a a good life for everyone everyone is contributing to this in one way or the
other because everyone has a super super great skill set and how can we nurture
and how can we make benefit of this value creation of every person so it's a lot more sounds a lot
more Cooperative but in in the most recent uh Global event that we had with Co we had
um very detailed plans for cooperation and they sort of broke apart but we have
had instances of global cooperation you know in the past um the Human Genome
Project um you know is one example um but you know what's going to get us to
work together do you think it's Ai and climate change that matures Humanity to to be more of a a unit as a species I
think one unfortunately is always a crisis like you mentioned for coid
climate change burning and then what we as human being have realized over hundred and thousand of years we can
live without food we can live without water but we cannot live without community so the community aspect will
come much much more AR and you see that I think millions of people also you
mentioned the US have uh suffer from mental depression yeah guess why it's
not only because they don't have enough money but it's a whole Society so this
is what and What needs to be changed and it can be changed so you're talking about a I mean this is the argument I'm
going to make with Peter actually when he comes on the show is I don't think you can have a post scarcity abundance
world with capitalism so um what's going to be the end of
capitalism I mean I just had a conversation with my good friend you know Jeff by tonight we sitting over uh
dinner at Coffee Club here in Bangkok and we were chatting about this and uh I
was just saying to him you know I was talking about this stuff and he he's like I don't see it I don't see
capitalism coming to an end you know not for hundreds of it's hardwired in the society and
culture that's what has to happen remember also the Next Generation what are their values what are generational
shift I do believe there's there's Merit to that you know there's Merit to that and and you'll know that's that's
palpable right so you have a a much greater commitment to climate consciousness in people who are under 30
it's their collaboration all the Roblox and everything is built on collaboration
it's built on I create a game but I don't create it for me it's built on collaboration so the younger
generation name it Alpa jet whatever they know how to collaborate we just
forgot how to do my my youngest kids they definitely fit into that they don't
they don't see color they don't see race and you know they don't see uh nationality they just got friends all
around the world that they're digitally connected to I think that's going to really frame their future view of the
world the future is that the Baby Boomers have to die off and make space for J to take over and replace our
values with theirs but that's what happens right that's life you know hopefully the longevity treatments won't
kick in before the Baby Boomers are gone so the all the all the people who
don't know how to collaborate and create good Community well you know I mean in socialism I said that we've got to
change from competing against other humans to competing for Humanity that's the big shift the climate Nai has to for
50 years we've been brainwashed into believing that the market is the solution to everything the market isn't
the solution it has Sol climate change yeah the market the Market's very effective for allocation of certain
resources and it works really well but that doesn't mean it works for everything and it's a subset of society it's not the macro set of
society Society has other tools that disposal hopefully other Generations will realize that and proceed from that
perspective Martha do you have any uh long-term Vision you want to share with us something like give us something 50
years out what will happen to Europe what's the future in Europe in 50 years
is the UK back not Europe Europe oh you think it's gonna break apart the EU no
it doesn't have to do with uh break apart I think there's a global Force for good and for bad uh so there will be a
global battle as we know us China are already B battling like hell us is far behind with Tas and China good or bad so
how will this be Sol but I don't think that Europe will about to start another episode here
no yeah yeah well just look at the Shanghai announcement I sent you about blockchain
earlier I'm such a skeptic I know like no you you even SED
with Greg MBO on my Facebook page about this on dude Americans have worked up
into a about China like China's gonna take care
China you bet you bet they already taking care of your big time so and
they're heavily investing so we we we have ran out of time it's been it's been a very Dynamic conversation H can I ask
you um how do people follow your musings I I know you um have a big presence on
on social so how do people follow what you're talking about and thinking about uh the best way to follow me is on
LinkedIn uh I am also faculty member of the fast future fundamentals where we
teach future Trends and that is another way of of being part of a community
which really looks forward in all aspects so if he is there some people might know for the future of money there
are people for health for for everything but uh if you want to know more uh what
I believe is the future and what you can do now how to learn is LinkedIn great
Martha it's been a pleasure having you on the futurist this week thank you very much for joining us and Brett great to reconnect with you we keep missing each
other in our travels I'm so thrilled to see you again uh I want to give a big shout out to the folks that provoke
media particularly Kevin hershorn who is our producer and engineer and Elizabeth sance our producer and the rest of the
crew at provoke they're the people that keep us going every week thank you all for your help and thanks to our listeners your support makes such a big
difference to us I keep hearing back from people who like the show who like these conversations they're interested
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we're thrilled about that and thank you all for listening we will see you next week we will see you in the
[Music] future well that's it for the futurists this week if you like the show we sure
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future

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