Join host Marco Ciappelli and guest Roberto Capodieci as they take a nostalgic trip from the dawn of the internet era to the cutting-edge world of the metaverse and artificial intelligence.
Guest: ✨ Roberto Capodieci, CTO at SimFly [@simflyapp]
On LinkedIn | https://linkedin.com/in/rc10
On Twitter | https://x.com/capodieci
On Mastodon | https://mastodon.social/@rcx
On Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/mr.rcx
On TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@rcapodieci
On Instagramn| https://www.instagram.com/capodieci/
On YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@interchainme
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
In this episode of the Redefining Society podcast, Marco Ciappelli converses with technology, blockchain, metaverse, and artificial intelligence expert, Roberto Capodieci. The key focus of the discussion is on the evolution of the internet, how our interactions with technology have changed over the years, and what the future may hold with advancements such as the metaverse and artificial intelligence.
The podcast begins with a nostalgic journey back to the early days of the internet, with mentions of dial-up modems, and explores how ease of access and use have turned the internet into a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Roberto reminisces about the uniqueness of the early digital era when the internet was largely decentralized, a stark contrast to the current, centralized control we see today, which consists of a few powerful corporations monopolizing digital spaces.
The conversation further expands to the topic of identity and its significance in our journey from the early internet days to our impending leap into the metaverse. With identity in the metaverse expected to be safeguarded by cryptographic guarantees, this reveals the importance of individuality and authenticity in the digital age, even as we interact across different platforms.
In reflecting upon the formative stages of the internet, Roberto also discuss how transformations in technology could overhaul education systems. He advocates for an emphasis on learning how to learn, given the abundance of information available today, as opposed to the traditional method of rote-learning.
The crux of the discussion orbits around the idea of how far we have come from the inception of the internet, dial-up modems, and early email, to the brink of an era where AI, blockchain, and the metaverse might become our new reality. This podcast episode offers a thoughtful reflection on our journey through the digital age and speculates how innovations could continue to redefine society.
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Resources
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What happened to the Metaverse? Join us on this walk on memory lane where we look back to move forward into our Digital Evolution | A conversation with Roberto Capodieci | Redefining Society with Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Hello, everybody. This is Marco Ciappelli. Welcome to another episode of Redefining Society podcast, where we talk about society and technology. And lately, we talk a lot about artificial intelligence. I made the joke that it's a drinking game. Every time you say generative AI, you have to drink something.
Of course, if you're, if you are in a bar, maybe in a In the UK or somewhere around the world. If it's early in the morning, please don't do that. Don't drink and drive. But jokes apart, there is one thing that I was wondering lately because we were talking a lot about the metaverse until about a year and a half ago.
Every conversation was about the metaverse and lately. Um, I haven't really heard much about it. I know there is a company named Meta that, uh, that changed the name, but I don't know how much it has to do with the metaverse anymore. So when I got, uh, the idea of, uh, this conversation with Roberto Capodiestri, which for a moment we were thinking, maybe we should do the Podcast in Italian because he's a, he's a fellow Italian, although he doesn't live in Italy anymore, just like me.
Uh, we were like, um, no, we'll do it in English because we think we're going to have a bigger audience for that. And so you, you guys are lucky. My audience, listening listeners, we are going in English. We're going to talk about the metaverse and here's Roberto. Roberto, welcome to the show.
[00:02:02] Roberto Capodieci: Hello. Hey, thank you for having me in this show.
[00:02:06] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, you're welcome. And, uh, again, I am excited, actually, because I, I have really ignore the metaverse for a few months now. So I will ask you if it's even still a thing, right?
[00:02:20] Roberto Capodieci: Yeah, that's It seems that in the past few years, we had all these wave of trends, the bubble up, and it appears that we had, you know, blockchain and blockchain is gone, but it's not gone.
And then we had the metaverse, which is gone, but it's not gone, augmented reality, artificial intelligence was the 2023, 2024 is going to be robotics, I think, but, uh, Yes, it's so, and, and, you know, like as you were saying, Facebook became meta in really looking at the metaverse. People believed in that so much.
And then now, you know, people forgot about it, but there are a lot of projects that keep moving. I actually did. You were talking about having a podcast in Italian. I did an experimental podcast. We did only two. 26 episodes, I think, uh, with the environmental psychologist and an architect talking about metaverse.
Metaverse under the technological aspect, which was me, architectural aspect, because you know, there are no laws of physics in the metaverse, and the relationship with the, with the place where you are, uh, with this psychologist, which was a very interesting thing. And, uh, we, uh, we Analyze the many of the projects that were on interesting understanding what was actually working and what was not working, what was more cool to see and try for the minute and then abandon and what was actually more something to go back in there.
So I got my culture of the metaverse. And I have to say that I do believe humanity is not ready for such an immersive Yeah. virtual world yet, but, uh, is a good means to get to augmented reality, which is actually something that I think is gonna, uh, stick way more than the idea of metaverse because it's way more useful and mixed with artificial intelligence.
Now, a lot of things that were nice, but not practical. Are going to become very practical. So, you know, the combination of those technologies probably are going to bring some advancement on how we use technology in a daily basis, right?
[00:04:30] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, and I agree because especially when I when you look at things that you say from a.
So it's not just about how cool the technology is. It has to be easy to use. So there's going to be those the early adopter that are going to jump into it. And I know we're going to talk about your past a little bit in my past. I'm going to start going there. I remember the time of. When even to set up a modem, a dial up modem, you needed like a degree in computer science or engineering.
And so only a few were just having fun with, with that back in the days. And then it become. Easy, you become more accessible. Now the Internet is on our phone. So even if you don't know how to use a computer, it's so it's kind of like converging technologies and usability in a way.
[00:05:21] Roberto Capodieci: Yeah, absolutely. And there is, there are some very funny facts.
I was talking to a guy, you know, checking the internet connectivity, and this guy was chatting on Facebook, and I told him, oh, you have internet then? He says, no, I don't have internet, this is Facebook, you know? I was like, well, the moment that you're using something like that, behind that there is internet, and the guy had no even idea.
So, and this is beautiful in a certain way because that's how it should be, right? People should use the service without being concerned about what there is behind. But, yeah, in the same way, it's true. There was this funny idea that email will never stick because sending a fax is much easier. In a fax, you take a piece of paper, write what you want, you put it inside the machine, dial the number, and it's arriving on with the email you need to write, and then start the computer, turn it on, then put with the keyboard the things in, connect with the modem, and you remember, we always call people to say, Hey, I sent you an email, did you listen to it on the phone, which was very silly because at that point,
[00:06:26] Marco Ciappelli: there is still people that do that.
I get a text that says, I sent you an email. I'm like,
[00:06:30] Roberto Capodieci: but now it's for the opposite reason. I receive after filter about 450 emails per day. If people don't tell me search for my email, most probably I'm going to miss it. But at the time it was something that people didn't look at because it was such a novelty.
So I believe that if we bring this analogy to today. Uh, you know, state of technology. This may apply also for virtual reality, augmented reality. I wouldn't say for digital intelligence because these are stuck immediately in people's life, you know. I don't know somebody that works that doesn't use CHAT GPT as of today, which is, uh Uh, beautiful and incredible.
It's a revolution on its own. But, uh, decentralization, which I am a big supporter of, and, uh, blockchain, all those technology are there. They had their own spotlight moment, which was bad, I think, but now they're going to be used for actual use case, which is the good things at the end of the day, right?
Yeah, and they all connect.
[00:07:32] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, let's do that. Let's do this for the people that don't know who you are I'm sure there's a lot of people that do in the industry, but my podcast there's people that are just curious about technology So give me you know a quick version because I know your your bio is actually very long I couldn't make it to it on your website but you know a short version of How you started I kind of made a joke there about the dial up modem because we were chatting before starting to record of how you got started into The hacking community and coding and all of that.
So give us a short version of who is Roberto
[00:08:08] Roberto Capodieci: In less than one hour. Okay Now I
[00:08:12] Marco Ciappelli: have to say we can do multiple episodes if you want
[00:08:16] Roberto Capodieci: Life of Roberto part three out of 25 Now just simply I I have an age. I'm gonna be 50 years old next year. I know I look 25, but not and I was born in the right moment to serve the wave of, uh, you know, home computing and technology, you know, that was available to the masses.
And so, I found myself, uh, in the right place in the right moment in many occasions, right? Um, starting as a kid when I learned coding. Then I saw the first video game when I was 10 years old only. Which was a big satisfaction also to see money coming in for my work, work, my hobby. Then I started the company with the authorization of the court for minors, because I was underage when I started my first company.
And from there I've been an entrepreneur, more or less, you know, hands on. Coder, but as well manager, uh, starting, you know, when I was 19, were more than 50 people working with me. So it was, uh, already quite, uh, a challenge without any school, because that was my university, you know, like a real life experience, say managing companies.
And that's been my life. I was fascinated with telecommunications since I was a little kid. I love, uh, you will remember in Italy, phone booth use a particular token. It was shaped in a particular way to make phone calls, so that you cannot use normal coins. And, uh, I would love to buy one of these, which was 100 liras worth, before it become 200 liras worth, overnight.
And, uh, dial a number in Japan. Just to hear somebody pick up the phone, and then the phone line will drop, because it would last just a few seconds. But the idea that a little kid from Venice, Italy Would have somebody in Japan get up from their bed, because probably it was night over there when I was making the call to go answer the phone.
It was a powerful thing, right? I had the power to affect something on the other side of the planet. And this was the fascination. So telecommunication has been one of the key elements in my growth in the IT world. And if you think about the evolution of information technology, we start digitizing analog material.
Like, uh, videos and disk and music radio. We came from analog al disks to compact disk digital. Then we start transmitting this digital data over the network. Then we start using these services and, you know, like everything transformed to digital, right? And, and this now is the phase two become decentralized.
So. Telecommunication and decentralization were interesting, particularly when BitTorrent came out. BitTorrent is a protocol to share data in a peer to peer network. It was a paradigm compared to the previous way of sharing. Naps their orders were centralized server. I was fascinated with the fact that the regulator had to change law.
Before, it was illegal to distribute. Then it was illegal to use or download the data because in a peer to peer network, there is no way to identify one single responsible person. And this was, and you cannot even kill it because so many Nodes, support, it is like an animal that lives its own life, right?
And, and that to me was the base of the future and that when I start studying Peer to peer network protocols, I tried to hack the BitTorrent protocol to make a decentralized file system and this brought me to blockchain and you know where I am now. In a long process that has a lot of other details that, as you say, too long to share.
[00:11:59] Marco Ciappelli: Well, it's fascinating because you can tell a story for each single part of what you just described. But there is one thing that really kind of stuck in my head, actually two. So one, the story of you using a gettone, that's what it's called in Italy, to make that call. I had the fascination and I still have it for radio.
And that's probably why I end up doing podcasts. So for me, it was the idea to pick up the radio, even when I was a kid, FM or AM, or even if you take the short wave and be able to maybe pick something. I don't know, in Italy, myself also, maybe in France, maybe in Switzerland. And that. Being connected, I really relate with the story of you waking up someone in
[00:12:48] Roberto Capodieci: Japan.
I had a CB, a citizen man's machine, like, uh, and, uh, that was part of it. Then we have radios. We did the packet, the data transmitting through VHF radios. So it was also something that worked with me. I never took the license for VHF. Yeah. But I was paying my Uh, taxation to have an antenna for my CD and, uh, and, and the radio communication, because it's part of communication, telecommunication and communication.
[00:13:20] Marco Ciappelli: It is, and you describe it very well, the evolution of starting with that, then the internet, the nodes. And, you know, if people are familiar with how the internet was born, the first communication between universities in the United States. But now we are to. You know, let's fast forward and we are where everything is already connected.
People are connected, as you said, on their phone. They don't even think it's the Internet. But yeah, sorry. It is the Internet and and the metaverse. It's kind of to go back there. It's for me was it's the next level of being present virtually somewhere. And as I always say, you know, we leave it in hybrid life, right?
We live a life nowadays that is Online, social media and the things that we do online, maybe the virtual reality, the metaverse, video gaming, uh, online video games, and then we also live in the real world, but I don't think that one is less real than the other. At least that's my, my theory, you know, we, we do live there.
So the metaverse for me was kind of like this next step of really having a place. That is virtual.
[00:14:38] Roberto Capodieci: I have to say that is, uh, in fact, uh, there are very interesting aspect beside the technical part, which is the one that interests me most, but psychological aspect on the being something else. Right. So people that, uh, are unsecure about their presence, uh, their avatar is representing, or I remember even, uh, going back many, many, many years, like almost 30 years ago, when, uh, the first chat, uh, IRC, Internet Relay Chat was the first thing that came out there.
And, uh, people were not judged by their appearance because, uh, they were behind the wall of text that they were writing. And so strangely. Uh, loves were born between two people that they didn't even know about each other. We were saying there are no women in, at the time the internet. There are only guys that pretend to be woman.
And I even remember in a Chatham forum for developers, uh, developers that pretend to be a woman just to have all the other, to offer help in coding, you know, and getting work done for free. Uh, it, it is, it is interesting how our brain get easily tricked when we don't know. This is one reason why I'm also doing a podcast series to prevent people falling for scams, online scam, romance scam, or refund scams, and other things like that, because mostly people that is less Strong impersonality, or not very, uh, let's say they can think, you know, more and more simple people.
They just tend to believe easily what it is on the other side, idealizing what it is on the other side of a computer. And the metaverse increases even more this risk, because we can even actually see something that is not actually what it is, right? And when you start a business and people don't know anything about your business, the business card and the secretary answering the phone are the only two meter of evaluation of how good is your business.
Have a beautiful business card, a very pleasant voice and polite person answering the phone. And they think your business is amazing. Maybe you have the worst product inside that the vice versa. You can have the best product, but you have a. Ugly business card and a very rude person answering the phone.
They think your product is not good because mentally we tend to associate. Things is our instinct, you know, that make us survive, that bring us to this. But now we are tricked. And if you think with artificial intelligence today, sorry if I bring this in the table, but it's going to be linked to the metaverse as well.
Nowadays, you cannot believe anything. People is watching this podcast, see me talking. It could be fake. You know, there is no measure to say that I've been saying this thing. The voice is mine, but may have never said this thing. Uh, my face is moving. I'm going to put the finger on my nose now. Maybe I never did it.
Right. It's all created by computer. And, uh, so this level of possibility to trick the brain of somebody. Consuming this material, visual, audio, and who knows tomorrow, even sensory of other kind, can really play crazy tricks on our brain. So in a certain way, we need to have the time to educate. People to live this kind of, uh, level of technology, but technology goes so fast that we don't have anymore.
There are already people going in recovery, uh, for dependency on CHAT GPT. You know, my, my wife sometimes when she has a business and she's doing amazing because she can write fabulous things in English without knowing English very well. And I ask, what are you doing? I'm chatting with CHAT GPT for work.
It becomes really It's something that we start depending on. And while before it was person to person. So you need another human being on the other side. Now, you can be in a room with 100 people that they have a perfect conversation with you that look perfectly normal, and they're all generated by computer, which multiply the danger of falling for something that is not to the, you know, end level.
[00:18:55] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, it's funny because going back to memory lane again. When you talked about the, the chats, the original like AOL chat back in the, in the 90s, you make me think about what you, what you say, there was a famous joke that it was a, a, one of those funny drawing on the New York Times, which became famous because there's two dogs.
That are on the computer and one said to the other in the Internet. Nobody knows that you are a dog and it's kind of like symbolize that at the time. And so imagine now in the new days where you can really not just because people cannot see you, but you can really pretend to be. Someone else, right? It's pretty scary.
And I'm wondering how that applies on to to the metaverse like now that we generative AI, do you see a different metaverse than the one maybe you were discussing with with your with the three of you guys when
[00:20:00] Roberto Capodieci: It's incredible how one year of difference makes everything. Yeah, we did, we did that in 2022, I think, 21, 22.
So, uh, it's really was before CHAT GPT. It is an epoch. I think many things, it's funny, like, uh, when I watch some movie or TV shows, then people is wearing a mask. I already know when I was born. It's been shot because it was during the pandemic, right? So, CHAT GPT, I think, it created an epoch as well. So, what it was before, I had a friend that published a book before CHAT GPT and I congratulated him.
He says, because you're one of the last authors that there is no doubt that you wrote the book and not CHAT GPT wrote the book for you. Because there was not CHAT GPT. Nowadays, who knows?
[00:20:41] Marco Ciappelli: We're going to have a new calendar before CHAT GPT and after CHAT GPT.
[00:20:45] Roberto Capodieci: Correct. But, you know, no, seriously, uh, think about the implication of one things in the other.
I'd like to talk about one second about how those technologies comes together. First of all, there are bad and good in everything. So as, as everything, like medicine, you can use it for good, you can use it for bad. So let's just try to talk about the good side of those technologies. So For what concerns blockchain and decentralization, Blockchain brought the biggest miracle, because everybody talks about cryptocurrency, which is the last thing that interests me, but probably if it wasn't about money, nobody would know blockchain today, right?
So, uh, probably that was the good entry door, but the things they can do are many more than just cryptocurrencies, right? The biggest miracle is that in the digital moment of this, uh, era, the information era they were living, the digital moment. You can finally have something unique. Before, if I have an MP3, I make 10 copies.
You don't even know which is the original copy out of the 10. And, uh, you know, you distribute them. Everybody is like the same thing. I think I can not make a copy of my Bitcoin because if I make a copy of my Bitcoin, I give it to you the copy and it's still good, then Bitcoin will be worth zero today, right?
So the idea that in the digital world, you can have something that is unique. That's the huge. Uh, revolution that blockchain brings to the table. And this applies, for example, in a digital properties. So yeah, a lot of big talk about NFT, silly monkey sold for millions, which is something I don't want to even comment about because, uh, there are.
You know, there are no reason to pay this money for some monkeys, in my opinion. But you can have the title of your car that is like an NFT. And so when you sell the car, you pass the NFT to somebody else. And this gives the digital capacity to be something that is unique, right? And, uh, in, in, in, in the application of these, uh, in the metaverse, like is happening in the gaming world.
Once you buy a gun for a game as an accessory to pay money, like my daughter use, uh, I don't make names not to advertise, but, uh, some place where there are virtual games with kids and her avatar. It must be worth 2, 000 at least because she has the wings, the jacket, or such. There are some brands that are selling also digital assets for those avatars.
And, uh, the fact that, uh, a decentralized system, that is above the parts of, uh, one vendor of a game or another, allow me to take, uh, my hat. That I bought it in a game and then use it in another game. They're completely detached from the first. Just because there is a compatibility protocol dictated by something external like a blockchain.
Then start giving people the possibility to accumulate value in a virtual world. Okay, which is something that is very interesting to understand because There is people that can find a job in the virtual world and I think people that have mobility issues because they are stuck at home because they have a medical issue.
They need to be next to a certain machinery or they cannot move around because they have disabilities. The possibility to live and interact through a virtual world and also make a life, making money. That's something that is possible just thanks to. These latest technologies put together, right? The only risk, in my opinion, but that's my opinion only, is that everything goes in the hands of a single company.
They change their name, for example, for this. Because we started everything in a decentralized way. When the email started to be used, every company had their own mail server. In office, installed in a computer. So you had the thousands, hundreds of thousands of mail server around the world. And when you distribute mail, mail is distributed to the mail server of each company.
Today, there are four or five companies that manage all the mail of the world. So they centralize something that was supposed to be decentralized. And this is for every social media is fully centralized. There are just a few companies that hold all the information that we give them. And this need to shift back to be decentralized.
We need to re decentralize. Actually, With the technology we have today, we can do it even better, you know, so changing the paradigm in how Information is managed.
[00:25:24] Marco Ciappelli: I thought you were reading a passage from Ready Player One about the Oasis.
[00:25:33] Roberto Capodieci: I don't know that, but probably somebody that thinks like me.
[00:25:36] Marco Ciappelli: Oh yeah, Ready Player One.
It's, you know, one of the follower of, the famous Snow Crash and, and, and many others. And, uh, it's, it's, it's a company that it's a book. It's a company that pretty much give access to kind of like a post, uh, not atomic, but kind of like a way in the future where people work. Yeah, pretty much where people work and study online, they put their goggles, the virtual goggles, and they go to work, they go to school and on.
And then there is an adventure there. Anyway, I thought you, you knew about it. It's actually a really good book. But what fascinates me about So the way you presented it and I already had an opinion about that is again, forget the money and the fake and the NFTs and all of that. But the fact that you can trace everything, you can use it as a contract and you can even now trace that if a food product comes really from where they say it comes.
So, I mean, That, for me, gives, it gives the trust that maybe we need for technology.
[00:26:46] Roberto Capodieci: Yeah, it removes the need of trusting, which is the beautiful thing, right? Right. That's true.
[00:26:51] Marco Ciappelli: That's true. Philosophically speaking, then you don't even need the trust because you know it is or is not.
[00:26:58] Roberto Capodieci: But I lecture at the university, even though my school ends at the kindergarten, I lecture at the university about consensus mechanics for the centralized peer to peer system.
And I explain blockchain not with cryptocurrency, but like a tic tac toe or a chess game where people can post transactions that are moves. And the rules of the game are in the protocol, you know, the nodes. So if the move is, you know, legit, then it passes as transaction. If not, there is bounce as transaction, which is the basic concept, right?
It's like having. Uh, a network, like a phone network. They only let go through phone calls that are polite and not rude, for example. Or, you know, yeah, it's correct. But the beautiful thing is this, like, it can reduce to the minimum common denominator what are the rules underneath and allow people to build on top.
But guarantees of the party that what goes through respect those basic rules. And this seems little, but this is a huge revolution in the communication, telecommunication Data transfer, if you want, methods, right? Um, and I, and I think, uh, it's not being yet understood, but eventually will be. And it's going to be really something that, uh, think a metaverse in the case of augmented reality, where the information that you are using are validated.
You know, that the person is not a fake, uh, or, uh, you know, created by a division of intelligence rather is somebody true. You can guarantee that because one things we don't know that what you. Meet is always the same person. In a metaverse, everybody can impersonate everybody, right? Even more than you can do it with the deepfake.
[00:28:52] Marco Ciappelli: You don't know who logged in with that.
[00:28:54] Roberto Capodieci: Right. But with cryptography, you can. So with a sort of a cryptographical handshake, you can guarantee that even if he looks like a dog. That's the refrigerator of your house and not the dog.
[00:29:07] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. And there is that thing that that now it allows to bring, as you say, in the video games, what you own, you can bring somewhere else.
And one of the issues I had when I was having this conversation about the metaverse was that they call it the metaverse. Like there is one, right? Like you're just one metaverse. But the truth was that was like going from one planet to another. And it's not that you carry, or at least not at the time, you wasn't, you weren't carrying your, um, digital Gucci bag that maybe you pay 350, maybe, maybe even more, I don't know, or your weapons or your sword or your wings from one.
Metaverse to another. It's almost like, oh no, it's just another garden wall.
[00:29:56] Roberto Capodieci: There is, right, there is a fantastic analogy for this that many people can relate to. When internet was born, you connect to a website, right? Mostly with an IP address at the beginning because the name service was, uh, still experimental.
Mm-Hmm. . I remember when I was living in Florida. If you go to HTTP, capo dieci, you go to my computer. There was no dot com or dot whatever. You can really register whatever you want in the name service. Anyways, the idea was that you have a page with text. And when hyperlinks got invented, HTML, right, got invented, The fact was that, uh, if I'm writing an article about the trees and there is a particular name of a tree and somebody else at the website talking about those tree, I can link the word to their website.
So when you read my article, you click the word and you, something that seems so obvious and normal today wasn't always at the time, right? The real idea of metaverse, which doesn't exist today, because there are many virtual worlds for a game or for another, but there is not yet. It's like there were many websites, but you need to go in each one, right?
The difference was when you can link from one to the other. Now, with the metaverse, the only difference is that, uh, while the web was just passive, meaning that, uh, you're reading this page, doesn't matter who you are. In the metaverse, who you are matters. And you should be always the same. You cannot have one account in a metaverse.
Metaverse. In a virtual world, like, I And in another one, in another, with a different avatar, you should be always the same person that travel through different servers, or different virtual world, however they are managed. And the guarantee to be always the same person, so if you cut my arm in this world, I should be without my arm in the next one that I go to, is given by something that has to be above those servers.
And, and they hear what a peer to peer network, like blockchain based or not, but still a decentralized, uh, distributed system can record the identities with whatever happened to those identities, right? So you give me a present in a world, I should have the present with me wherever I go, which I can use or not, that's a different thing.
So the first experiment for this thing have been done with games now. Many games are multi user, immersive. You know, there could be in effect a little piece of what is going to be a metaverse, right? I don't know you're playing a shooting game And clean yourself from the blood enter in the office start working And then you know go out and kill another few people then go to school Probably better kill them out there in the school for real like happens often.
But you know, so the idea is that I believe that, uh, you know, even, even in school, like studying, the, the, something that really puzzled me, like, okay, we know the conspiracy, the school is there just to create the low class or middle class workers. But in the past, when I was a kid, uh, probably you're younger than me, maybe, I don't know, but if you're older than me, okay, so you know better than me, when, when we were kids, Either you have an encyclopedia at home.
Or you have an uncle or a parent that knows very well, or it's a teacher telling you things. There is no other way for you to gain knowledge. Today, knowledge is so available, there is just a need to learn how to collect the knowledge, you know, how to access it. And school, they shouldn't teach you subjects.
They should teach you how to learn, because
[00:33:48] Marco Ciappelli: that's what education is, teaching you how to learn.
[00:33:50] Roberto Capodieci: Absolutely, because I don't, I don't need a teacher. They sit in front of 20, 30 kids. I need to teach all 30 kids the same thing, going to the speed of the slowest kid or average. So if it's average, then the slowest feel left behind and the top one feel bored, you know?
So you need to really, while an artificial intelligence, I don't know if you watch the movie Her, it's a chick flick, but you know, it gives a lot of insight. I
[00:34:21] Marco Ciappelli: enjoyed it.
[00:34:23] Roberto Capodieci: The, the, the single artificial intelligence can teach individually. For every single kid, a customized lesson, uh, colored with whatever the kid likes.
He likes dance, he likes soccer, he likes whatever, so I can teach you math through soccer, I can teach you math through dance, I can teach you, so the power of teaching and the need for learning. Are there, the method that we are using is completely wrong, right? But the technology we have today can change completely the paradigm and, and this is an important aspect on the application.
So the Metaverse is fantastic with the, the three people that we're doing this podcast about the Metaverse. As I was saying, there is me technical and architect. Uh, for the, you know, uh, architects of, uh, of, uh, Metaverse, and a psychologist that studied the relationship between human and the space that they are.
They made studies for which human needs to stay in contact with nature. If you stay away from nature, you really get sick. So staying next to nature is important, but doesn't have to be real nature. You can have a painting of a jungle in the wall of your house. It works very well. You can put an helmet, the same nature, through virtual reality and it works fantastic because the brain is stimulated in the same way.
And, uh, the mentors may have this, uh, effect of helping me. To meditate and bring me on top of the mountain, uh, to feel cozy, stay next to the fire in the snow, rather than having this moment of wildness in the jungle while I'm still at home. So, it has a lot of positive effects and I can share this with friends.
And in terms of education, this can be. Millions of times I can live inside the Roman Empire. I can see a building, the pyramids rather than, you know, so, uh, I think that, uh, we need to embrace this new technology, uh, giving them a real. use case, not just because they're free.
[00:36:31] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, and teaching how we can go to the example of CHAT GPT and how many teacher wants to ban it from school.
That's a mistake. It's going to get into school anyway. You better you take the opportunity to teach kids how to use it. Let me ask you one last question and then I have a feeling you can come back anytime and we keep going with this conversation on another episode. But I've always been curious about The idea of the metaverse that for someone has to be a virtual reality.
For others, say, well, an augmented reality. It is already a metaverse, and there was some people that were like, well, even if you're playing a video game in 2D or in 3D, but on the screen and you are into the character, you're already in a metaverse. So what is your opinion on that? Does it require a certain thing?
[00:37:26] Roberto Capodieci: Absolutely. I wrote a long article about this, right? So to me is just the aspect of putting together many words, right? So the paradigm is this. I need to be me everywhere I go, okay? And not different accounts, so the identity has to be the same. And I can be in, uh, even in a text, uh, uh, base game, right?
Where, you know, go north, go left, go right, or whatever. Because, uh, I need to be able to have a protocol that brings me inside different words. That's why I'm saying metaverse doesn't exist today yet. There are some experiments, but when there is, uh, Uh, a protocol, uh, that, uh, put all this together. Then you can jump from a video game to the classroom, to the workspace, uh, you know, that would be the meta, right?
Correct. But it doesn't have to be helmet, uh, and, uh, it can be absolutely even, uh, You know, like, uh, it doesn't matter. It's just a different interface, but the, the, the juice of it is that, right? Is, uh, Yeah.
[00:38:34] Marco Ciappelli: Cause for a lot of people that I've spoke to, um, people that maybe don't understand the technology or don't want to look at the philosophy of that technology and how you, you know, you can live the experience, certain things in a different world, as long as you, you really experience it, you have emotions, you're kind of, you're there, but there is this idea.
And I think. Again, meta maybe didn't give the, you know, didn't help into changing people perspective on it is that you need to put your goggles on provided to you by meta and then going to the meta metaverse and not understanding that is actually a togetherness. And again, the The example you brought about like the original internet became some sort of the metaverse itself I think is very clear to understand even for people that do not
[00:39:28] Roberto Capodieci: The only difference is that I need to keep my identity with me, you know surfing the web.
Normally you are perceived They don't know who you are. You just go to many websites, but they're linked to each other do the same thing But keep your identity there And then you are in the metaverse, I think. Even if it's just text, what you see doesn't matter.
[00:39:49] Marco Ciappelli: And of course, blockchain is at the core of this.
[00:39:53] Roberto Capodieci: And I think that, yeah, peer to peer decentralized systems that manage identities. Because once you can guarantee the identity of the same, it doesn't really matter who is the person behind the identity. If that's always the identity, that's already guaranteed, right? I spoke with you yesterday, you can prove me today that you are the same person.
Doesn't matter if you are the refrigerator, the dog or, or your mailer. Mailer or whatever. Exactly. Correct. But I know that you are dead, so if you, if I line you money, it is you the hold me back money . You know, like at the same time, if, uh, we had a nice chat, I can continue with that chat because I'm guaranteed that you are the same person.
This is the key aspect, you know, uh, and, and these attach value, meaning I can sell you items, I can buy, I can ask you to work for me, or I can do work for you, and, you know, can enable millions of, uh, uh, possibilities, uh, and that's, that's the metaverse that, uh, You know, is, uh, is powerful in terms of, uh, possibilities.
Then if it's VR and 3D, well, even better. Yep. Go see Neuralink with Elon Musk, what they're gonna do, you know, they're gonna Oh, God.
[00:41:04] Marco Ciappelli: The thought police is here.
[00:41:06] Roberto Capodieci: You must, you must have seen a black mirror. The series in Netflix, which gives a beautiful future view on, uh, you know, backing up your soul, if you want, into a computer.
[00:41:19] Marco Ciappelli: And kind of scary too. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's a long, it's a long way from, uh, from a floppy disk, the pentaverse, but it all started even before that, right?
[00:41:33] Roberto Capodieci: With the icon of saving.
[00:41:35] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, Roberto, I'm, I'm gonna kill the conversation here, although I want to keep having it because, you know, we're 40 minutes in, but I will be very happy to have you back on the on the show and keep the conversation going.
And for all the people that are listening, I hope that you enjoy and that made you think maybe if you're our age, you can kind of I have a little bit of a, of a memory lane, you know, a little bit of nostalgia, nostalgia, Like we can do it in two languages here and, and if you're younger, you know, go check out like, uh, what, what the internet was before it was on the phone.
It was a little bit, I think it was more fun, but again, now I sound old. You know,
[00:42:26] Roberto Capodieci: uh, every, every age is some new rounds. I think I was talking to my little girl and see. You were born and you don't even know what you got now and what I didn't have.
[00:42:38] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Roberto, thank you very much. I hope to chat with you very, very soon again.
Great connection. And for everybody listening, uh, subscribe to Redefine Society podcast and connect with Roberto. There will be links to his website and the things that he does in the notes for this podcast. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you next time.