Neal Stephenson Believes the Metaverse Still Has a Bright Future
Neal Stephenson, the author who coined the term metaverse, recently spoke at AWE USA 2023, where he continued to show a positive stance towards the concept due to the progress made in recent years.
The creator of the word metaverse, Neal Stephenson, continues to believe that a bright future is still there for such a concept, despite current sentiment and market conditions.
Neal Stephenson is the author of sci-fi novel Snow Crash, which is where he coined the increasingly-popular word. While the 1992 book considers the metaverse as a VR-only experience, Stephenson nowadays has broadened the term by describing it as “a 3D spatial shared environment.” Thus he believes that VR, AR or XR, that is, a mixture of the former two, play a crucial role in establishing the metaverse.
Speaking at AWE USA 2023, a conference for discussing XR technologies that took place in Santa Clara, California, from May 31st to June 2nd, Neal Stephenson spoke about how recent developments in previous years are helping shape up the metaverse, thus continuing to keep a positive stance on the idea, stating the following:
"Just in the last couple of years, it feels like a bunch of things have snapped into place — the prerequisites that we need to have on hand in order to really start building a metaverse."
Aside from coining the term, the novelist has been trying to bring the metaverse from fiction to reality ever since, working at various startups from the 90s and onwards. Among these are AR company Magic Leap. At present, though, he has his own blockchain company that he launched together with Peter Vessenes in an effort to keep the metaverse open rather than closed and dominated by mega corporations. This company is called Lamina1, and it’s a layer 1 blockchain that aims to give creators the tools they need “to create a better online future.” They launched an early access program earlier this year, providing creators with an SDK for creating various assets, while last year they set up a Web3 fund in order to encourage and support developers in their endeavors.
