Is humanity doomed or are we on the brink of greatness?
If you’ve read Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel Snow Crash you might be aware of the tremendous and frightening potential that a metaverse brings even before the CEO of Meta (previously called Facebook) Mark Zuckerberg’s optimistic announcement of a universe beyond to come.
John Hanke, the CEO and founder of Niantic, a company specializing in creating AR-supported games, decided to slow down the dreamers. His attitude is clear: “Technology should be used to make these core human experiences better — not to replace them.”
But are we really facing an either-or situation here? Can’t we do both? Will we truly live to see the metaverse as Zuckerberg all hyped us up to imagine it or will we end up as “gargoyles” from Stephenson’s book — deluding ourselves into living unceasingly immersed while our physical bodies slowly rot down?
The truth is, we won’t know what sort of scenario is more likely until it happens. But is this really a matter of choosing to enhance our reality or create a new and improved version of it?
The technological superposition
Niantic wants to enhance reality while Meta wants to create a new and improved one. But we would like to advocate for a more moderate view.
In quantum mechanics, there is a concept that describes all of the states of a system at once. It’s called superposition. When a system is in its superposition, it cannot be observed. It is a sum of its probable states. As soon as we start observing the system, it becomes only one of its states, making it easier to measure and more simple to comprehend.
It might sound counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you think about it: If you see a person in a room with you, you know there is only one place where they can be. When that person exits the room, you assume they are right in front of the door, and there is a 99% probability that you’re right. But you can never claim in all certainty that they are there because there is a very small chance they aren’t — you don’t know for sure because you don’t see them!
Another way to think about this concept is by looking up optical illusions like the Young Lady or Old Woman Illusion or Rubin’s Vase or the Duck-Rabbit Illusion. Can you see both images at the same time? No. But you know both are there. So when you think about these illusions, you remember them in their superpositions — which are both variants at the same time!
The same can be said for the metaverse: right now it’s so young, it is all the possibilities at once.
The bad reputation of any good invention
一 An IBM engineer, commenting on the microchip in 1968.
As humans, we generally tend to look at the dark side of things. We criticized video games for making children more violent while longitudinal studies showed there were no negative effects. In fact, some researchers even suggested violent video games can be beneficial — as they can serve to promote cooperation and the emergence of the flow state. (If you don’t know why flow should always be your goal, check out this Studcademy Lesson!)
The fear of smartphone addiction is always prevalent concerning younger generations, but few people talk of how smartphones can help youth with self-regulation, digital proficiency, or even to save a life! Furthermore, we have all become highly dependent on phones today, especially during self-isolation when they are the only window we have into the outside world. Let’s face it, as Zuckerberg mentioned, it is no longer the question of how much time we spend on our digital devices. Now, it is the question of whether that time is well-spent.
In the end, the world is really what you make of it. Technology is here to stay and it will continue to develop and make aspects of our lives easier and more difficult. And although it can be useful to debate what the drawbacks of future tech might be, it would be more productive to focus on ways to adapt to them and alleviate their effects.
Studyum — the theory in practice
Studyum is being built upon the newest technology precisely so that it can accomplish this. By incorporating emerging tech into its functioning, the platform adapts with it. The idea is not to use advancements as a prop, but rather as an integral part of the system.
Unfortunately, this is a perspective rarely seen in today’s education. And why would it be — the focus of most schools is not on the process of learning but rather on the results. In regular classrooms, students and teachers alike are prevented from enjoying learning and making it enjoyable to others. Due to controlling environments that put more importance on grades rather than the learning experience, if and when technology gets used, it is used partially, marginally, disregarding the tech’s full capacity in exchange for exerting the least amount of effort possible.
Students are not interested in learning, because they know what’s out there — today’s technology allows them to see all that. Returning daily to a stuffy, old classroom must feel like a prison sentence to them compared to everything the world has to offer.
Schools have become a remarkably oppressive environment where it is unclear who is being punished by whom. Teachers start their careers believing they will change the world only to be trampled by the system, accepting its already established norms and mores. Any interest for learning a student expresses in that sort of environment soon dies out as they are forced to rote learn or cheat to pass tests. They receive all knowledge in a highly structured testing format so that they do well in exams on which their futures largely depend.
So, let us end the debate on whether any technology is bad or good, utopian or dystopian. We should realize that it can both and that we have the power to facilitate its good sides and alleviate its bad sides by simply having it serve us rather than allowing it to lord over us.
