TL; DR
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Ernest Cline (author of ‘Ready Player One’) develops a metaverse called The Readyverseand his first experience is a battle royale called ‘Open.’
Full story
Imagine if James Cameron started making walking/talking humanoid robots, à la The Terminator…
That would be pretty cool… right?
But what if he also equipped these robots with an AI consciousness that had the potential to wipe out humanity, just like The Terminator?
Not so cool.
☝️ There are some parallels to this hypothesis, and today’s story…
Ernest Cline’s ‘Ready Player One’ tells the story of a not-too-distant future in which:
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Society as we know it is largely fragmented
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The world has become a bit ‘Mad Max-esque’
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Most of humanity escapes this harsh reality through a VR wonderland known as ‘The Oasis’
Yeah, well – Ernest Cline is apparently working on building that VR wonderland, irl.
In this reality, Ernie’s metaverse is mentioned The Readyverseand his first experience is one Fortnite-style battle royale called ‘Open.’
On the one hand: super exciting!
Cause (minus the whole ‘collapse of society’ thing) ‘The Oasis’ metaverse described in the book sounds like a lot of fun!
On the other hand… slight ‘James-Cameron-building-an-irl-Terminator’ vibes.
Anyway, we’re going to try it out because we love new technology and are eager to have our first one ‘this is it!’ metaverse moment.
(And so far we have just abandoned).