SxSW: What I learned from five days spent in the future

This year was the eighth time we have taken 20 lucky Jointers to South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. Five days of immersing ourselves in the future, loading up with fascinating inputs and the world’s best barbecue. What’s not to love?

Each year there ends up being an overarching theme that echoes around the 300 or so conference rooms that make up the festival. This year, after a two year Covid induced hiatus, with so much pain, anger and change experienced by so many, it felt like the hot topics had been stacking up for us: 

After a two year Covid induced hiatus, with so much pain, anger and change experienced by so many, it felt like the hot topics had been stacking up.

Blockchain; the decentralised, embodied web (Web3); Crypto; NFT; The metaverse; XR (extended reality, encompassing MR, AR and VR); the abundance of bias and appalling dearth of diversity and empathy in tech; misinformation, mental health issues and the overall negative impact of social media (all wrapped up an universal and profound loathing of Facebook). Multiple, inter-connected subjects that would end up being referenced over and over by almost every speaker.  

Above: 2022 is the first SxSW for three years.

Sound over sight in the metaverse

Day one started well. “Isn’t it fucking awesome to all be together?” Professor Scott Galloway opened the event with the words everyone was thinking. In his session, entitled Provocative Predictions, he made one juicy one which Mark Zuckerberg won’t be happy with: "Apple will win the metaverse".  

Zuck is banking on the metaverse being visual (unsurprisingly, as he spent $2 billion buying Oculus back in 2014 and needs to do something with it). But Professor Galloway maintains that a visual-only virtual reality metaverse is something that won’t win in the long run. He points to studies into VR headsets that show incidence of motion sickness after 15 minutes use being anywhere between 40% and 70%. As well as the lack of robust research into the physical changes happening to the eyes of children spending hours in front of the tiny screens stuck only an inch from their eyes. 

Zuckerberg is banking on the metaverse being visual, but Professor Galloway maintains that a visual-only virtual reality metaverse is something that won’t win in the long run.

He predicts, instead, that augmented reality will be the basis of the metaverse. People will spend more time in actual reality, but will rely on sound rather than additional visual elements to add to their experience. Hence, Apple is well placed, with their already incredibly popular AR-able, wearable Airpods, bringing in $15 billion per year for the company. Wearables, he says, will have to actively make us sexier if they are to catch on.  

And it’s hard to believe that Oculus, much like the failed Google Glass of a few years back, will make us sexier, except to perhaps a tiny minority whom you wouldn’t really want to find you sexy anyway. 

Above: Wearables will win the metaverse, thinks Professor Scott Galloway, with Apple better placed with its Airpods than tech such as Oculus.

The metaverse isn't new

Reggie Fils-Aime, gaming maven and retired president of Nintendo of America, also had a thing or two to say about the metaverse. He equates it to the cloud of five years ago, or the internet of 20 years ago. Something everyone is rushing to define, but finding that definition tricky. The metaverse, he maintains, already exists. People have been creating other selves and living other lives for a while now in platforms like Fortnight and Roblox.  

[Reggie Fils-Aime] made the very pointed remark that Facebook is actually not an innovative company. “To innovate you need to think about people first, not money".

He too believes the future of the metaverse lies in a blend of the physical and digital worlds, meaning it’s doubtful that Facebook’s idea of an all-VR metaverse will succeed. Adding to the palpable anti-Facebook sentiment bubbling around South By, he made the very pointed remark that Facebook is actually not an innovative company. “To innovate you need to think about people first, not money. To challenge yourself to do things differently. Facebook thinks about the next investment that will help their share price, not the next product or service that will help real people.” 

He also echoed a point made by others throughout the festival that diversity in tech, in this case gaming, is not moving anywhere near fast enough. There are not enough different and diverse points of view at the front end of the process. Something that needs to be addressed, and fast. 

Above: Damon Collins takes a well-earned rest between seminars.

Social media needs to do more

Tristan Harris, technology ethicist and star of The Social Dilemma, talked about the refusal of tech companies to take responsibility for the hate, lack of trust, spread of misinformation and mental health problems caused by them. Instead, they continue insisting that they ‘merely create the platforms’, and what people do with them is not their problem. 

He believes that the solution to these problems needn’t be destroying those social platforms but, instead, rethinking the way they are built and used in a way that can engender respect and trust, not hate and mistrust. Indeed, he says, we could use social media more if we understand and are conscious of the damage social media can do, and become more sensitive and humane to one another. 

[Tristan Harris] is advocating for something that seems quite radical in Silicon Valley; a way of creating technology whilst thinking about the people who will use it, not just the money it will make.

Rather shockingly, he points out that the next billion people coming online are from markets that make the tech companies the least money, so there are no economic incentives to invest in making tech less toxic for them. He says, we need technology that builds, rather than undermines, our capacity to face complex threats and, to that end, he announced an amazing free course created by the Center for Humane Technology. 

He is advocating for something that seems quite radical in Silicon Valley; a way of creating technology whilst thinking about the people who will use it, not just the money it will make. It will, he hopes, help people build products in a way that is unheard of in the tech world: Respecting human vulnerabilities, creating shared understanding, supporting fairness and justice, helping people thrive. Here’s hoping. 

Above: Social media and tech companies need to take more responsibility for the hate, lack of trust, spread of misinformation and mental health problems they can cause.

Crypto conundrums

Actor and economics graduate Ben McKenzie believes crypto is the most divisive technology for years. He makes the point that cryptocurrency, with a market cap 1.8 trillion, is currently the Wild West; unregulated, opaque governance, unlicensed cleaning houses with no rules, and totally open to market manipulation and insider trading. 

Crypto, [Ben] McKenzie says, is a bubble, based mainly on spending millions on celebrity-packed adverts challenging people to buy into this exciting new ‘thing’.

People who have lots of money can afford to gamble on crypto and are the ones evangelising about it. The people with less money will eventually lose out. Crypto, McKenzie says, is a bubble, based mainly on marketing, spending millions on celebrity-packed adverts challenging people to buy into this exciting new ‘thing’, with no need for legal disclaimers at all. 

He also pointed out the negative environmental impact due to the energy intensive nature of its creation. The global electricity usage for coin mining is that of a small country. This leaves us with one big question: whilst there’s clearly a great deal of money to be made right now by a few big players, when crypto is regulated, as it inevitably will be, will it be anywhere near as attractive or just fizzle out

Above: Actor and economics graduate Ben McKenzie believes crypto currency is open to market manipulation and insider trading.

Does Facebook's future look dark?

Data scientist Frances Haugen, the famous Facebook whistleblower, and officially one of the bravest women in the world, stood fearlessly on stage telling us all a few home truths. She made it clear that Facebook is no longer a way to connect with family and friends. Instead, it’s a newspaper, one in which the most extreme ideas get the most reach, and make the most money. That’s because the Facebook algorithm has been created to reward polarising content.  

Facebook’s AI serves up stuff that’s more controversial than that which you’ve liked. That fake news ends up being way more compelling than real news. Haugen explained that after Facebook created a feature which adds people to groups automatically, they found that 70% of people on neo-Nazi groups had joined because they were added automatically. 

Facebook is no longer a way to connect with family and friends. Instead, it’s a newspaper, one in which the most extreme ideas get the most reach.

Things got even darker when she told us that in certain poorer places in the world Facebook is the internet. If you use Facebook you can get your data for free! So, a great many people literally end up not having a choice as to what information they receive; it will only be coming through Facebook. 

She also pointed out that Facebook’s vision of the metaverse will offer up even more problems, like addiction and social isolation, due to lack of close in-person relationships, not to mention, again, the damage that those headset screens will do to people’s eyes. She explained that Mark Zuckerberg could keep us safe today but chooses not to, to make more money and that, in her opinion, only divestment of Facebook and the de-centralisation of Web3 will help the problem. 

Above: With a technology known as laser vibrometry, artificial intelligence can now recognise people by their heartbeat.

AI gets smarter

Another full-to-the-rafters session was, unsurprisingly, Amy Webb’s. For the 10th year the quantative futurist scared the bejesus out of her audience with her observations on what’s round the corner. She started with a nice little surprise for fans of AI recognition and surveillance technologies: AI doesn’t need your face to recognise you any more. 

Technology known as laser vibrometry can now recognise us by our heart beat. From 200 yards away. Through our clothing! And if we manage to find a way of stopping our hearts, those clever machines can also recognise us from our breathing. Not only that, because AI systems are constantly mining our data to learn more about us, we are getting closer to the day when they will not just be able to understand what we say, but also what we actually mean. Bad news for all those fans out there of lying. 

We are getting closer to the day when [AI] will not just be able to understand what we say, but also what we actually mean. Bad news for all those fans out there of lying. 

She casually dropped in a few thoughts around synthetic biology, the process of computers and biology becoming one, with hardware (computers ) and wetware (biology) merging. Soon we’ll be able to program biological systems like we program computers. Editing DNA and printing out new molecules. In fact, excitingly/horrifically, the world has already seen its first edited babies!

But it’s not all bad news (unless you’re in the business of serving digital ads); the multiple digital versions of ourselves that we will end up creating in the metaverse will mean the end of digital marketing as there will be no way to actually gauge which ‘self’ is the one that should be targeted.