From Metaverse to NFT: The Disappointing Tech Hypes of 2022
The year 2022 is drawing to a close, and the loud noise you hear from the tech sector is the sound of the hot air coming out of products, ideas and people that have been blown out of all proportion and deflated a little to their natural dimensions.
This hype, which characterizes the technology sector, is actively cultivated by entrepreneurs and investors in the field to attract interest, money and regulatory attention. But it can also be harmful, as it creates the basis for low standards, it causes great disappointments and suppresses interest, it distracts from the important things, and really hurts users and customers.
In 2022, the amount of these was extraordinary, and it seems that every day we were required to stand on the sidelines while the technology sector deals with itself and pathologically in the future it imagines for us: the future of banks, the future of transport, the future of education, and the future of housing.
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L’Oreal’s Metaverse Event.
1. The old hype: autonomous vehicles
In recent months, headlines have announced the launch of “driverless taxis” in the US, a project by Uber with a venture called Motional. “Users will receive a notification that an autonomous vehicle is available,” they wrote in the subtitle of one of the news items,” and “will be able to confirm the trip before the vehicle heads in their direction.” The idea that this is a limited project designed to train systems and that include a human driver constantly monitoring the vehicle, or the broader context that Uber actually gave up on its autonomous vehicle ambitions long ago, does not change anything in the hype — the Robo-Taxi is finally launched.
Such is the relentless hype surrounding autonomous cars over the past 15 years. Year after year, players in the field and parts of the media shamelessly suggest that the technology already exists, works and is being deployed, and all that remains is just a small adjustment here and there.
“I would say it’s a bigger challenge than launching a rocket into orbit,” the CEO of Waymo told the Financial Times a year ago. “Making an autonomous vehicle is as technologically complex as sending a spacecraft to the moon,” was the metaphor Israeli Amnon Shashua used in an interview with the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth just a week ago.
This does not mean that there is no progress or that we are out to crush dreams. It is possible to dream, explain and report on the subject even without guaranteeing every year that an autonomous vehicle is around the corner. It’s not around the corner, it’s not here, it’s not deployed and the service doesn’t exist.
This industry, as exciting as it is, has not yet been able to solve a number of large and complex problems without which it cannot go forward: among them problems of image classification, continuous and incremental learning of the algorithms, issues of basic security such as to build explainable artificial intelligence systems, and questions about quality control and orders about responsibility in the operation of the machines.
2. The Recycled Hype: The Metaverse
Last week, the public was invited to take part in L’Oreal’s “innovative Metaverse experience”. After long minutes of wandering without depth or proportion, while the random avatar I had chosen plunged down the stairs as if it were a world without knees, stuck in the unmarked void at the edge of the small universe, passing through characters of other participants, gave I up. It was not an experience, not innovative, not Metaverse, but a sad display of poor graphics and gnawing boredom similar to Second Life – a game from the early 2000s.
Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been associated with the realization of this vision. At the end of 2021, the social network giant announced that it would divert all attention to building this virtual reality, investing tens of billions of dollars in realizing the vision and changing its name to “Meta”. The hype created a strange wave of buying “real estate” (pixels) in the Metaverse, and partnerships with gaming platforms and the Meta itself were announced. The buzz was so great that a number of entrepreneurs and venture capital investors started pushing an idea to the public that we actually “already live in the Metaverse”.
Last year the card tower collapsed. It was discovered that the virtual worlds and launches of Metaverse events attract a small number of users from around the world. Facebook itself fired 11,000 employees worldwide to deal with the extreme change in its loss-making business. “I was wrong,” Zuckerberg said while summing up people’s lives.
There is no reason to rule out the consideration that the future will include more multiple uses of augmented reality, perhaps to optimize a hybrid work style or maintain connections with distant relatives. But there is no reasonable reason to listen to billionaires, who know nothing about the lives of the masses, while considering which version of our existence we prefer.
3. The exploitative hype: Crypto NFT, P2E
Have you heard about the new products from the creator of Web3 that will save us from the predatory and exploitative world of the old Internet tycoons? Did you know that unique cryptocurrencies (NFTs) will give the power back to the creators? That game worlds on the blockchain will empower disadvantaged populations in the global south? Are you ready for the next social revolution? No? Don’t worry – Have fun staying poor.
What does one really need to be part of this world? Throw in some vision, get some servers, open a hot wallet, buy a cold wallet, understand yield farming, learn to read white papers and distinguish between types of tokens, those are the bad actors, know how to spot FUD, avoid FOMO, find a community, pay attention to suspicious movements of wallets, follow whales, maybe launch your own coin, or NFT series, change the future of the art world, build games that aim to generate profit and bam – we all get rich quick together.
This year’s enthusiasm around crypto, NFT and P2E (Play-To-Earn games) was lit like a match in the form of a pop doll: a large, quick-igniting head sitting on a small, disproportionate body that cannot support the flame.
The intense fire left great destruction, as many expected. A series of huge companies collapsed while generating billions of dollars in losses for the dreamers; NFT trading crashed after failing to generate profits for any but a few large projects; The largest NFT trading platform – OpenSea found itself at the heart of an insider trading scandal. And many other trading platforms have made it possible for buyers not to pay royalties to NFT creators on repeat sales. At the same time, the largest P2E company, an Axie Infinity, was revealed to actually be a pyramid scheme, exploiting those it claimed to help with their financial inclusion.
Who knows what will happen to the crypto market in the future? As of today, we have to concentrate on the lessons. For example, be aware of who is talking about new eras of diversity and inclusion, be careful if they all look the same – white men from the tech, marketing and financial industries. Don’t listen to those who claim that “banks are not your friends” and that “the future belongs to the brave”. Be suspicious if, instead of getting an explanation, you are scolded for “going to study”. Do not be tempted by the idea that the crypto market is decentralized, it is run by a cartel of large players, and if someone announces that they have found a new method of spreading wealth and without risk, look for the characteristics of a pyramid scheme – they are there.
4. The human hype: we cling to geniuses with all our might
When Musk offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion, everyone was surprised by the exorbitant price, but they gave the richest man in the world the benefit of the doubt. When he tried to avoid the deal in a legal battle, they explained that it was a “trick” to negotiate the price. Realizing that he was not above the law and declaring “bankruptcy” possible soon after completing the purchase at full price, they explained that it was part of the genius plan to liquidate a liberal stronghold; When he quickly introduced a new product “Twitter Blue” — a blue V for anyone who wants it for eight dollars, which led to the expected fraud, they said that the depth of his thinking is simply not clear to us; When he blocked users according to their prejudices and ideologies and banned the sharing of content from a handful of social networks, they explained that his censorship is reasonable.
In recent years, Musk has been seen as the lone genius of his generation. “The man who strives to save our planet and bring us to a new one: a clown, a genius, a champion, a visionary, an industrialist, a showman,” they wrote in Time magazine last year when they named him Man of the Year.
However, these exaggerated descriptions and Musk’s status as a savior have never been consistent with his business history. For example, when he was removed from all CEOs in the early years, Tesla under his leadership was fined for fraud and creative accounting, and neither it nor SpaceX under his leadership would have survived without billions of dollars in government subsidies. He is a serial tax evader, and a boss who pays very little attention to the safety and well-being of his employees.
But if one can point to one healthy thing created by Musk’s takeover of Twitter, it would be the demystification of the businessman who in recent weeks has embarked on a display of business delusional chaos, toxic employee management and the spread of manipulation and bad spirit. everywhere.
The crushing of Twitter’s reputation and revenue by him echoed the more prosperous company under his leadership: Tesla, whose shares crashed, falling 66% over the past six months. His behavior in the second half of the year made clear how unnecessary it is to believe in self-anointed messiahs and how destructive billionaires without fear, mercy or restraint can be.
5. The expected hype: artificial intelligence and robots
There is no escaping generative artificial intelligence, which, having impressed at first, is now looking for a winning economic model for itself. Already today, many see tools like Dall-E 2 and ChatGPT as the biggest challenge for the labor market, artists, Google, the education system, the care professions, the content, the press and more. Be prepared for a year where we will participate in the collective, irresponsible and inaccurate imagination of the capabilities of these tools. We will engage in a disproportionate conversation about smart robots coming to take our jobs, and we will indulge in false fantasies that today we are a little closer to self-aware computers.
Immediately afterwards, we will deal with the dramatic change in the management of the technology companies, which are trying to deal with the spreading economic stagnation. We will learn how instead of rapid and unrestrained growth, driven by “cheap money”, a more responsible and mature management approach of startups will come. And in no way do we want to deal with the failed and ongoing management decisions of venture capital investors who invested irresponsibly, or entrepreneurs who didn’t know how to manage. Instead, we will focus on the employees who can finally be held back by managers.
