Creepy Artificial Intelligence (AI) Predicts in Pictures what a ‘Metaverse Future’ Looks Like

Craiyon AI was asked “What does a metaverse future look like?” and “What happens if humans live in the metaverse?” It produced several horrifying images of sickly-looking humans with virtual reality (VR) headsets seemingly inserted into their skulls. Some of the human-like figures just had VR headsets for heads and other distorted body parts. Meanwhile, Facebook/ Meta found Mark Zuckerberg is invested in a lot of people will eventually be immersed in his virtual world within the next 10 to 15 years, where they will start spending money and living their everyday lives.

ARTIFICIAL intelligence has created images of “what happens if humans live in the metaverse” – and the results are seriously creepy.

The popular Craiyon AI, formerly DALL-E mini AI image generator, created several images that look like humans have merged with VR headsets to become one mutant being.

A metaverse future isn’t totally beyond the realms of possibility as tech companies like Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta are spending billions on creating virtual worlds.

Zuckerberg thinks a lot of people will eventually be immersed in his virtual world within the next 10 to 15 years, where they will start spending money and living their everyday lives.

The Facebook founder has big plans for the metaverse and wants it to be so good you won’t want to leave.

Zuckerberg previously told tech podcaster Lex Fridman: “A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time.”

When asked to create concept images of this metaverse future, Craiyon AI didn’t imagine things quite like Zuckerberg.

The AI trawls throw unfiltered data from the internet to inform its masterpieces.

This is how it comes up with an image based on keyword prompts.

Craiyon AI was asked “What does a metaverse future look like?” and “What happens if humans live in the metaverse?”

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What is Military Metaverse and How is it Different from Commercial Metaverse

The Metaverse is a simulation and the military aims to make 3D models, simulations, people and real equipment into a high-fidelity digital twin of the real world. If the US Army Synthetic Training Environment (STE) is successful, they will be the first to clearly demonstrate that the metaverse is not purely science fiction or marketing from big tech. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on building US Army STE prototypes already, and they are still several years from a production contract.

Innovations on Military Side is a Microcosm for What Could Become of the Metaverse, feels Pete Morrison, CCO at BISim

For years, different military programs have worked to combine, “models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world.” The US Army has established the STE Cross-Functional Team to develop a “common synthetic environment” for simulations and training.

Pete Morrison, CCO at BISim, believes this military innovation is a microcosm for what could become of the metaverse. “A military metaverse will focus on training, experimentation, and mission rehearsal. The fundamental difference to other commercial metaverses will be that it aims to deliver a high-fidelity digital twin of the real world,” he says.

BISim, or Bohemia Interactive Simulations, has been focused on the ‘under the hood’ of developing the military metaverse, helping different technologies on separate terrain data interact more seamlessly. The company is involved with both the US Army STE and UK MOD SSE, converting its military simulations to run on new scalability architectures. It also provides its flagship products, VBS4 and VBS Blue IG, for trainee interaction within the military metaverses. 

Further, BISim’s Mantle Enterprise Terrain Management platform allows developers to import, manage, combine, procedurally enhance and stream high fidelity, geo-specific terrain into military or enterprise metaverses. This new terrain technology is already commercially available and will address some of the roadblocks to the military metaverse by helping move procedural generation onto the cloud.

We caught up with Morrison about how traditionally the military has been using the modelling and simulations as a representation of real life, what is military metaverse and how different it is from a commercial metaverse.

Military programs have for some time now combined models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world, for training purposes. Please tell us more about it.

The military uses many different types of simulations, covering land, sea, air and space. Flight simulators, tank simulators, forward air control simulators and many others have been built over the years to provide training in a safe and repeatable manner. It has been possible to integrate these simulators for combined arms training for decades. For example, we may connect a flight simulator with a forward air control simulator so that the ground and air operators can practice working together. While these types of integrations have become commonplace, they have major limitations. For example, it is difficult to represent a dense urban environment in a simulation. Representing more than a few thousand people and vehicle entities is expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, each simulation uses its own format for terrain data, making it challenging to build perfectly correlated terrain. While an integrated federation can certainly work, the military metaverse will deliver greater scale with greater efficiency. This is why the U.S. Army is investing so heavily in programs like STE.

Simulations in STE will run as scalable services on cloud architecture, and they will automatically use all available resources to support the simulation of millions of entities. A central terrain server will host a 1:1 digital twin of Earth, which will stream terrain data to connected simulations as needed. The user interface for building training content will be web-based and use web-native rendering engines like Cesium. STE will replace all legacy U.S. Army simulation programs, meaning that in the future, any U.S. Army simulation will be able to connect to this military metaverse for combined arms or joint training.

You say military innovation is a microcosm for what could become of the metaverse. Could you elaborate? 

Ultimately, the military needs a digital twin of the Earth with real-world fidelity and real-world density. Many of the same technologies that apply to commercial metaverses apply to the military metaverse, such as cloud scalability or VR/XR/AR. Military programs like the US Army STE and UK MOD SSE are driving innovation in this area, with a well-defined goal—to better train the service personnel who are charged with protecting us. While we don’t know the timeline for commercial metaverses, the US Army has a clear schedule for STE and is actively funding prototypes to achieve its vision. If the US Army STE is successful, they will be the first to clearly demonstrate that the metaverse is not purely science fiction or marketing from big tech. It will be a real, shared experience delivering tangible benefits.

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Transhumanists Met in Spain to Plan Global Transformation

Transhumanism is similar to a religion and has the goal of merging man with machine. If it seems far-fetched, consider the advances in bionics, robotics, neuroprosthetics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering. Reliance on smartphones is an early phase of our symbiosis with machines. In our age of all-pervasive technology, entire societies are revolutionized before anyone can grasp the change. Singularity is when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. One critic warned that the global health crises are being used as an excuse for greater authoritarianism. Another critic added that the Covid injections could end up as a Trojan Horse for some kind of social credit-style monitoring system and more.

Transhumanism is a futuristic religion that exalts technology as the highest power. The movement’s goal is to merge man with machine. Their wildest prophecies seem ridiculous at first, until you consider the dizzying advances in bionics, robotics, neuroprosthetics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering.

Prominent figures gathered at the TransVision 2021 conference in Madrid over the weekend. Listening to the proceedings online, I heard a broad range of totalizing schemes. There were no Luddites or Amish onstage, but of course, Spain is a long haul for a horse-and-buggy. Besides, no unvaccinated person can legally cross the Spanish border.

Transhumanists hold that the human condition of ignorance, loneliness, sadness, disease, old age, and death can be transcended through improved gadgetry. Many believe tribalism will also be eliminated — perhaps through brain implants — but this elite clique tends to be so convicted, legacy humans will have no say in the matter.

Their radical ideas are hardly marginal. Transhuman values have been implicitly embraced by the world’s wealthiest technologists. Consider Bill Gates pushing universal jabs, Jeff Bezos’s quest for “life extension,” Elon Musk’s proposed brain implants, Mark Zuckerberg’s forays into the Metaverse, and Eric Schmidt’s plans for an American technocracy racing against China.

If Big Tech is the established church, transhumanists are Desert Fathers in the wilderness.

The Cult of the Singularity

Naturally, the dominant tone at TransVision was set by hardcore transhumanists: Max and Natasha More, José Cordeiro, David Wood, Jerome Glenn, Phillipe van Nedervelde, Ben Goertzel, Aubrey de Grey, Bill Faloon, and even in his absence, Ray Kurzweil, a top R&D director at Google and founder of Singularity University. Each proponent has a unique angle, but they converge on a shared mythos.

Allowing for variation, transhumanists confess there is no God but the future Computer God. They believe neuroprosthetics will allow communion with this artificial deity. They believe robot companions should be normalized. They believe longevity tech will confer approximate immortality. They believe virtual reality provides a life worth living. Above all, they believe the Singularity is near.

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What is Metaverse – and why is Facebook Investing a Billion Dollars to Develop it?

Facebook is moving toward transitioning from social media to metaverse, which is a shared virtual 3D world, or worlds, that are interactive, immersive, and collaborative. Many other companies are raising capital to invest in metaverse. Metaverse is envisioned as a place where entertainment and media will converge and social media and online discussion groups will participate. Online gaming will interface with offline life. Indie developer Rami Ismail sums it up this way: “The idea of creating an alternative world in which everyone has to use your currency, play by your rules and everyone wants to promote their brands is really appealing to rich people. I mean, I guess we are talking about Fortnite after all.” Proponents of the metaverse aim to provide a fulfilling mental life inside of a game linked to reality that replaces real-world in-person experiences. -GEG

The word ‘metaverse’ is becoming almost inescapable, especially for those who peruse technology and games-related headlines.

Most recently, Facebook has been making big noises about transitioning from a social media company to a metaverse one. Meanwhile other companies have raised significant capital — such as Epic Games securing $1 billion — towards similar ambitions (Epic even stated in court earlier this year that Fortnite is not a game, it’s a metaverse).

Jon Radoff, CEO of Beamable and formerly mobile developer Disruptor Beam, has attempted to map out the companies that have either expressed an interest in the metaverse, or at least could be argued are connected to it, which is extensive to say the least.

With the term already in danger of overuse after these opening paragraphs alone, it’s time to question why so many major companies across multiple industries are investing so heavily in a concept some might write off as science fiction.

“The metaverse is to virtual worlds as a website is to the internet”

Herman Narula, Improbable

Indie developer Rami Ismail sums it up to us rather nicely: “The idea of creating an alternative world in which everyone has to use your currency, play by your rules and everyone wants to promote their brands is really appealing to rich people. I mean, I guess we are talking about Fortnite after all.”

But this feature would be too short if we just accepted the “Because money” rationale behind the rise of the metaverse. So let’s take a deeper dive into what it is these companies are actually trying to achieve, and why games developers see themselves at the forefront of these efforts.

Novaquark, the developer behind user-generated MMO Dual Universe, is so dedicated to the concept that it even refers to itself as a metaverse company. General manager Sébastien Bisch describes the metaverse in much the same way most people envisage it: a single, persistent virtual environment shared by everyone on the planet. The go-to pop culture references are The Matrix or Ready Player One’s Oasis if you want a shorthand for what that might look like.

“We believe that the metaverse will be the place where all forms of entertainment and media eventually converge, a gateway where they can be consumed,” Bisch explains. “We also believe that the metaverse will be an inherently social place where social media and online discussion groups might eventually migrate as well.”

Earlier this year, US-based HiDef raised $9 million for its own metaverse project. Founder and chief creative officer Jace Hall paints a picture of the metaverse of something virtual that interacts with reality, rather than replaces it — a platform that eliminates the distinction between online and offline.

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