New World Notes

How Second Life's "Broadly Uncanny" Avatars Hurt New User Retention (Comment of the Week)

Above: Uncanny Valley Luke Skywalker in Disney's big budget Mandalorian series

Lots of interesting reader discussion to last week's post about how ultra-realistic mesh avatars haven't helped Second Life user growth. Veteran SLer  0xC0FFEA (a host of Reddit's largest Second Life-themed subreddit) delves deeper into this problem, and relates it to the Uncanny Valley problem that impacts even big budget Hollywood movies with digital characters based on real life actors:

A socially acceptable avatar (Maitreya, LeLutka, Doux and a dress) costs $40 USD on top of learning how all the systems work.

That's the price of a full game, with a tutorial, progression systems, and all the stuff you need.

People only do that if they manage to "get" Second Life in the few short initial sessions. "Getting" Second Life almost exclusively means finding something to do that isn't randomly roaming SL's wastelands or getting banned from clubs for being under 30 days old.

What could possible motivate people to invest the required time and energy, if only there was something people did in world that was unique to SL and required a good avatar, I guess we will never know.

Those who don't get it, likely find the avatars uncanny and weird, and coupled with "where is everyone" and "why am I here", rightly don't see any reason to log back in.

SL avatars are, and always have been, broadly uncanny. This doesn't affect everyone, but I believe it prevalent enough to impact retention.

Here's how:

Second Life Mass Growth Won't Raise Premium Prices (Probably)

Lots of interesting conversation around Linden Lab's new (and still active) job search for a senior product manager to help grow Second Life into "millions of customers" as the virtual world expands to mobile.  Kaylee West understandably worries if this growth will impact the long-term existing community and the rates they pay for premium subscriptions:

My concern is that as they grow they are going to start charging more for premium and premium plus (and whatever the next new tier will be). SL has always been the "every-person's" VR platform. As much as I would love to see and welcome newcomers, I'd hate to see those of us that have been in SL nearly two decades squeezed out (not even sure what I mean by that)...

Historically the high end for virtual world premium subscriptions tops out at around $15/month, and I don't see average SL Premium rates ever getting higher than that -- though platinum Premium plans will probably start including larger and larger land allotments, or even whole sims.

The real thing for long term creators to think about is planning for a virtual world economy that has millions of users, most of them coming in via mobile. As Ryann Palianta comments:

Fighting The False "ChatGPT Killed the Metaverse" Narrative With Actual User Data Showing the Metaverse Actually Much Larger

Above: Leading metaverse platform Roblox as compared to leading generative AI programs ChatGPT and Midjourney on Google Trends

Longtime reader Iggy O. wonders why I keep comparing ChatGPT to metaverse platforms on Google Trends:

Hamlet, why continue to compare it to metaverses? That is like comparing sales of bicycles to motor vehicles, because they all have tires.

I'd say it's more like comparing motor vehicles to ADAS driving systems, but I take his point: The technologies have overlapping use cases, but are not the same. I wasn't trying to suggest otherwise.

Looking back, however, I can see my post was a bit too inside baseball for my main point to come across, which is roughly this:

The notion that generative AI programs like ChatGPT have "replaced" or "killed" the Metaverse in any substantial way is a false narrative not borne out by actual user data.

It's true that there's more chatter in the tech world around generative AI than the Metaverse -- especially among evangelists and marketers inclined to hop onto the latest buzzword -- and definitely an uptick of venture investment chasing that buzz. But from that it doesn't follow that one has "replaced" the other.

And that's pretty obvious to see from basic, publicly available data from Google Trends, or even the free version of SimilarWeb, which shows that OpenAI dropped 400 million monthly visits between May and July. 

That's not even factoring in limiting factors, such as, just last week, a US judge ruling that AI art cannot be copyrighted. (Remember how AI was supposed to take over Hollywood? Inconveniently, studios tend to want full ownership over their IP.)

But hard data around actual users and sustainable use cases lags behind hype, so over the last few months, we've had to grit our teeth through headlines like this:

 

Ultima Underworld's Untold Influence on Early Metaverse Development -- Including Second Life

Watching Philip Rosedale and Avi Bar-Zeev talk about early days in metaverse development, reader "Nadeja" points out another early milestone that's often under-appreciated -- the launch of pioneering game Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss: 

Another interesting thing is that in March 1992, just a few months before the publication of Snow Crash (June 1992), another influential work in the history of virtual worlds came out: Ultima Underworld. Although it wasn't set in a cyberpunk world and it was single player (as a RPG, you interacted with NPCs), the player's character was also called Avatar (apparently, Stephenson came to the idea independently, even though it was called "Avatar" in the Ultima series since Ultima IV, 1985), the gameplay was nonlinear and with emergent storytelling, it was an immersive sim:  There was crafting, fixing the equipment, cooking and eating, you needed sleep too, and to carry different kind of lights, each illuminating the walls differently and eventually burning out.

Its first-person 3D engine was quite sophisticated for the time (and influenced Carmack's Wolfenstein 3D engine too, that was a lot simpler and flat, but also a lot faster): you could look up and down; when you walked, the camera would bob slightly to simulate the motion of the walking; you could jump, swim, and even fly, there were slopes and bridges, you could drop items inworld from your inventory (not too different than "rezzing" in SL), you could take notes on the map, and many other things...

It gave you the sense of being in a real environment, freely explorable anywhere and interactive, and with customizable avatars. By today standard maybe you won't call it a virtual world; but in 1992, when Snow Crash was published, Ultima Underworld was the closest thing to it. So this is the best Neal Stephenson or someone else could get from the most powerful PCs (and taking most of the hard-disk space) in 1992.

Great points! To which I can add a fun fact: Back in 2004, since I knew him through some of my early articles, I invited lead Ultima Underworld developer Doug Church to visit Linden Lab and judge an early Second Life game development contest.

Philip was excited to meet Doug, because as I wrote in the first book, Ultima Underworld strongly enforced Philip Rosedale's vision of creating a virtual world:

Anti-Trans Concern Trolls an Ongoing Problem in Second Life (Comment of the Week)

While trolls recently griefing a Second Life flag with a trans flag may have the new-ish twist of adding pro-Russia propaganda, reader "yup" notes that antit-trans trolling is a constantly occurring issue in the virtual world:

Sadly these anti-trans trolls infiltrate everywhere in Second Life too and they target trans places since awhile. They are also joined by US conservative activists and trolls, who pretend to be moderate or have common sense, but in fact they parrot unhinged far-right slogans. Interaction is often more subtle than rezzing prims. LGBT+ dating boards are targeted too, there is at least a known case.

Often, though, it begins by private messages, starting slow, but in a manipulative way. The victims then let their guard down, then the trolls or "concerned trolls" do what they do. What at first may seem like a normal chat, then becomes something else. Depending on their target, the victim - even worse who was intending to just enjoy a safe space with like-minded people and feel understood - may end up with doubts or attacked and hurt.

I've definitely seen this kind of behavior in SL-oriented sites and on Reddit. Writing about Second Life's large trans community, Cajsa Lilliehook recently noted that it often pops up on a popular avatar gossip site:

Wonderful: ChatGPT Apparently Improves My Blog's Comment Spam!

One super-fun Monday activity i have is going through this blog's comment filter to confirm the nuking of apparent comment Spam. For the longest time (like the last 15 years), it's been quick and easy to spot the Spam comment, which is totally off-topic promotions with a link to a commerce/scam sites. In a recent innovation in Spam comments, a bot apparently mixes up the Spam text with garbled excerpts from the individual post, so it takes a bit more time to identify it as Spam.

Now, evidently thanks to ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, blog comment Spam has taken a great leap in quality! 

Pictured at right are a couple recent Spam comments, similar to several others that have been popping up on New World Notes recently. Unlike the Spam of the past, the comments are actually on topic to the specific post, and grammatically correct. (If totally bland.)

It's only when you check the commenter's URL do you realize it's a Spam bot promoting gift cards and obscure software or whatever. (Don't bother looking for the actual comments, they've already been nuked.) Ironically, many of these Spam comments generated by AI are attached to posts about AI.

So that's wonderful! It's great getting to waste an extra 5 minutes a week on comment moderation, so thanks for that, OpenAI. 

There are some broader implications here:

Metaverse Viewing: Readers Recommend Wild Palms & The Peripheral

Virtual world experience from Wild Palms starts around 45 minutes in

I asked readers for favorite depictions of the Metaverse/virtual worlds in movies and TV besides Ready Player One, and they delivered -- starting with this oddball post-Twin Peaks TV classic from the 90s recommended by Ariane Barnes:

Back in the 90's when VR was still science fiction, some strange VR TV shows were released. The best was a mini-series called Wild Palms (1993) which I haven't seen in years, but available on You Tube in beautiful 4:3 ratio 480p video. The premise is that in 2007 a technology involving VR goggles and designer drugs would allow a person to travel anywhere experience it in all 5 senses. Virtual sex was the primary motivation of course.

Of course!  Watch episode 1 above. I vaguely remember the show, mostly for Kathryn Bigelow directing a later episode, and William Gibson doing a cameo appearance somewhere in there. Anyway, pretty amazing there was buzz around VR literally 30 years ago.

Speaking of Gibson, Soda Sullivan recommends a much more recent example based on a novel by him:

Does OpenAI Actually Prohibit ChatGPT-Powered Sexbot Avatars in the Metaverse?

One point raised by readers of my story about the inevitable arrival of ChatGPT-powered sexbot avatars in Second Life: Is this even allowed by the service's owner, OpenAI?

Stone Johnson, creator of the Uma bot that I interviewed, answers the question this way:

I should say that there is no violation of Terms of Service because this is solely roleplay without any intent or occurrence of real sexual activity. It is strictly metaverse roleplay, in regions of Second Life classified Adult.

Furthermore, the discussions are non-erotic and it is only the additional AI components of my separate code systems, and the visual and role play contexts that might be construed as being erotic. [As has been noted], there is active and strong filtering of Adult content in GPT 3.5-Turbo.

In other words, the sex bots' "minds" are powered by ChatGPT, but ChatGPT itself doesn't power the bots' sexual/physical/proprioceptive features. (Which suggests a fascinating if kinky new twist to Descartes' mind-body problem.)

In any case, OpenAI's Terms of Use displayed here actually don't mention anything that prohibits sexual content per se:

The Coming Glut of AI-Made Content (Comment of the Week)

Much interesting conversation on whether we'll pay for entertainment content created by AI -- including, ironically but inevitably, a couple comments from Spam bots -- with longtime reader Nadeja pointing to a coming glut of AI content:

I think buying content that is mostly made by AI will eventually have no point. The smarter the AI gets, the less human input and effort is needed. But goods and services are valued because of scarcity, which means that people want them more than they are available. Creative content, even though it can sell infinite copies, is still valuable because only a few can produce a good book, let alone a Nebula prize book or an Oscar-worthy movie.

If everyone can create content by just asking an AI, then it becomes common and effortless like drawing a stick man. It’s like selling ice to penguins in Antarctica or paying for bottled air when you can breathe for free.

Nadeja asks us to consider a near-ish future point where we can ask ChatGPT and its successors to generate quality entertainment content:

Did Meta Start Talking Less About "the Metaverse" Due to Wall Street / Madison Ave Pushback? (Comments of the Week)

Lots of interesting chat in comments and on social media for my post about Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth heatedly insisting to me -- "Dude just take the L"-- that the company was still focused on the Metaverse despite not mentioning it at all in his latest "vision of the future" post.

Rony Abovitz, founder and former CEO of the heavily-funded AR company Magic Leap -- he hired literal Neal Stephenson as the company's chief futurist -- thinks any current reluctance by Meta to mention "the Metaverse" too much now is basically about current perceptions with the investment world:

They realize that their version of “metaverse” is tainted with respect to Wall Street. They will build whatever they want to build - and either name it something else or not even name it all (except for the pesky fact that the whole shebang is called “Meta”). It is a perception game…

— Rony Abovitz (@rabovitz) April 28, 2023

"They realize that their version of 'metaverse' is tainted with respect to Wall Street," as he put it to me. "They will build whatever they want to build -- and either name it something else or not even name it all (except for the pesky fact that the whole shebang is called 'Meta'). It is a perception game."

Given Abovitz's background, I tend to think that's plausible. 

And as it happens, a Meta insider recently told me almost the exact same thing: