[ad_1]
In this week’s podcast, “Web 3: The Next Generation of the Internet” (August 4, 2022), Walter Bradley Center Director Robert J. Mark interviewed graduate students Adam Goode and Austin Egbert, both of whom are studying computer engineering at Baylor University. Internet decentralization. With developments like the ones you discuss coming, Big Tech may be seeing waistline trimming. This is part one of the first of three discussions.
A partial transcript and additional resources follow.
Dr. Mark discusses all the services you can get from Google, confessing that you haven’t needed to go to the library for over two decades. But…
Robert J. Marks: Now, is it good that Google gives me all these services? Are they just a bunch of really rich, rude people thinking of all the ways they can make my life better? Google is a business and its purpose of business is to make money and its main source of revenue is mining data from your web usage. This information is sold to help others sell you…
A few decades ago, the top companies in the world included companies such as Sears and Roebuck and General Motors and US Steel. Kind of gone. Today, the major companies include Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Amazon.com, and Facebook. So the question here is, what will happen to the world’s top companies in a few decades?
In the book Life after Google, Futurist George Gilder predicts that web decentralization will be the future of the Internet. This includes blockchain and something called edge computing, where much of the computing is done on your local device, as opposed to some big company’s cloud. Data will become more personal and companies like Google will have to find some way to adjust.
Robert J. Marks: Our guest today is Adam Goad. He is a doctoral candidate in electrical and computer engineering at Baylor University. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Austin Egbert as editor and director. Mental issues news Podcasts. Dr. Egebert is also with Bayer University.
What makes Web3 different?
Adam God: Web1 is generally considered to have started in the early 90s, when the Internet was a place for people to consume information. The entire internet was basically a giant Wikipedia. You go to a page, you read it, it might link you to another page. But that’s all she does.
Then, around 2004, Web2 started. We’ve got companies like Facebook, YouTube, all the companies we know today as Big Tech, providing you with goods and services that interact with you. As you mentioned in the introduction, however, in exchange, You become the product.
Web3 is focused on decentralized and distributed systems… If you have a decentralized system, it is almost impossible for any party to control or manipulate it.
Robert J. Marks: Critics of W3 include former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey. He dismissed Web 3 as — let’s see, I have a quote here — a “venture capitalist game,” whatever that is. And Elon Musk is not impressed. But if you take this data away from the central servers to your personal cell phone or computer and control it, I think that’s very disruptive to places like Google and Amazon. do you think?
Adam God: Yes, definitely. One big thing you can get from Web3 is more privacy. Being anonymous using Web3 is currently much easier than Web2. So companies like Amazon, Twitter, Google who have invested in getting as much personal information from you as possible will resist such technologies.
Robert J. Marks: yes. I don’t know that one of the criticisms of decentralization is that it’s going to be very difficult to prevent online harassment, hate speech, and distribution of, say, kiddie porn and stuff like that. However, on the other hand, the libertarian part of me, this is what I don’t like about Twitter and YouTube today, they discriminate and censor certain content from anywhere…
The question is how do you control it? But if you fix it, you’ll get away from this idea of privacy and people trying to impose their politics and ideology on you. It’s disappointing.
One thing about decentralized and distributed systems is blockchain… what is going on there?
Adam God: Blockchain, at least as it applies to Web3, is a decentralized ledger. For example, if you have Bitcoin – the most popular blockchain – all Bitcoins are a large ledger of all. [Bitcoin] A transaction like never before… You can go to your computer right now and download a complete copy of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Robert J. Marks: I just looked it up Adam, and the current Bitcoin blockchain is over 400 gigabytes and I don’t have 400 gigabytes on my computer. One of the criticisms… limits the number of people who can do it.
Adam God: I know the Ethereum blockchain is now around 600 gigabytes…
Ethereum introduced a technology known as smart contracts that allows people to put code on the blockchain itself. And this revolutionized things. So all you can do with Bitcoin is send and receive Bitcoin.
You can publish an Ethereum smart contract and there are many things you can do with this smart contract. You can start your own cryptocurrency. Most of the ones you hear now are smaller, that is. There are two layers of tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. You can sell NFT using smart contract. You can fake a deal using a smart contract. The only limitations are what you can code.
Robert J. Marks: Well, let’s get down to a specific example… smart contracts. I’m selling you my house and usually they have to do a title search and just make sure everything is on the up and up. I think you’re saying that certain situations like title searches and things could be put on the blockchain and we could have contracts and it would be easier than the way things are done now. Do you think I have an idea here?
Adam God: yes. So now there are many places that have started selling land called Metaverse.
Robert J. Marks: Let’s talk about the account. This is a Mark Zuckerberg thing, right? So describe the metaverse and tell me what the land in the metaverse is.
Adam God: Yes, Mark Zuckerberg turned Facebook’s parent company into a meta. He believes that the future of the Internet is in the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a virtual place where you go and buy land. You can build a house, you can decorate this house. You can have friends, you can meet them at the local virtual cafe, you can buy virtual drinks at the virtual cafe, and you can go and buy virtual clothes to wear on your virtual avatar. It’s this whole virtual universe that people can go and explore.
Robert J. Marks: That is truly terrifying. I can see that clothes and different styles can be found in the metaverse, but I just don’t get enough exercise. I think if I just sit in an easy chair and live in the metaverse and buy all my stuff and do everything in the metaverse, oh my, I’m going to be a balloon and probably not get much exercise. What was that movie? Wall-EI think that’s where he went ahead and all these people were just driving around in little cars because robots would do everything for them. The Metaverse, it seems to me, would be even worse, because you wouldn’t even need these little cars.
Adam God: A more accurate comparison would be Ready Player One.
Next: Part 2: Will the future of our daily lives be virtual?
You may also want to read: Control your tech before the metavas hit. Andrew MacDiarmid: Soon you’ll be pulled in all directions by the many fantasy worlds. They look and feel very real and very cool. SOS: If technology makes you forget everyone’s phone number, cut it off. If it messes with your sleep, sell it. If it prevents you from interacting with others, drop it.
Additional resources
Download the podcast transcript
[ad_2]
Source link
