What Neal Stephenson Told Me About His Metaverse Inspiring Oculus

Image credit: Christopher Michel

While it's true that Metaverse developers typically dismiss the technology's dystopian origins, it does not therefore follow that the Metaverse's original creator, Neal Stephenson, considers the technology itself to be dystopian. That was implied in a recent Vice essay, and now more recently by The New Yorker's Kyle Chayka, who tweeted, "[W]henever some tech person says 'the metaverse' please remember that the term was coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992 to describe an exploitative, corporatized, hierarchical space that ultimately kinda sucks."

Not exactly and not necessarily, especially the "sucks" piece. Because in 2014, I asked Neal Stephenson what he thought about companies like Facebook/Oculus referencing the Metaverse as their end goal.

Here's my entire exchange with him on the topic, including my questions:

What do you think about the fact that the leaders of Oculus Rift are explicitly trying to create the Metaverse with their technology?

"Metaverse" has turned into a sort of golem, capable of wandering the earth on its own, out of the purview of its creator. So I am always surprised to see where it turns up and what it's doing. Ten years ago that wasn't the case. Anyone who wanted to use it in front of a normal audience would have had to say "Metaverse, an idea from the novel Snow Crash." Twenty years ago, they'd have had to add, "a novel by Neal Stephenson." Now apparently "Metaverse" can stand up on its own three feet and lumber about, at least in the setting of tech blogs. That is the kind of event that many writers hope will happen at least once in their career. It is gratifying. 

 

I have known Michael since his days working on the Xbox and I can't think of anyone better qualified to be the chief scientist on a project like this. [Michael Abrash is chief scientist at Oculus and referenced the Metaverse when he joined the company. -  WJA] He has a rare combination of being wishful but never engaging in wishful thinking. I don't know the other participants, but the fact that they hired him suggests they understand the nature of the challenges that are facing them.

How does it feel to be the leading inspiration for this multi-billion dollar enterprise?

I doubt that Michael and the others have busts and portraits of Neal around the place, so I don't think I'm the leading inspiration. The inspiration is a particular vision of how the virtual world might be organized, which had the good luck, 25 years ago, to be couched in a fun story about a swordfighter and a skater girl.

If [Oculus] were to ask your advice on building the Rift-based Metaverse, what would you tell them?

My advice would be less Metaverse-specific than you might be expecting and would end up being tech industry bromides that can apply just about anywhere. The attributes of the CEO seem to be the single biggest determinant of success or failure in projects like this. Since I know nothing about their chain of command I would be useless as far as that is concerned.

You can judge for yourself, but none of that strikes me as suggesting that Stephenson believes the Metaverse must necessarily be dystopian. And indeed, a few months after this conversation, Stephenson became Chief Futurist at Magic Leap... a Metaverse company.

 

To be sure, much has happened since then, and maybe his perspective has since changed. I'm reaching out to him now asking that very question, and hopefully receive a reply.  

Comments

[bavid Dailey]

Well being associated with Magic Leap is not something that is not likely to be in resumes of the future. It appears to been a major scam, and a significant embarrassment to all the illuminati who backed it.

[Adeon Writer]

Magic Leap feels like a vaporware product intended for investor bait - that worked in 2015, but quickly became irreverent as *real* XR headsets started slowly going mainstream, revealing that everything they're claiming is already being done by others, who actually have something to show for it, and you know, had something to sell.

[Writer]

Sick and tired of seeing second-life images in my search results. I have chosen not to see the artwork in my global settings, yet these images keep appearing.