In early October, Hack Seasons Convention was held in Singapore, a global gathering of technologists, traders, and innovators to debate the way forward for blockchain and Web3. A spotlight of the occasion was a hearth chat titled “Media 3.0 Presentation: Storytelling on Chain with Joe Rubin and Neal Stephenson.”
Moderated by Rebecca Barkin, co-founder and CEO of Lamina1, the session featured Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder and CEO of ConsenSys, and Neal Stephenson, writer and co-founder of Lamina1. The dialogue targeted on how blockchain expertise is remodeling media, artistic expression, and the narratives that form trendy tradition.
The dialogue started with an summary of current developments at Lamina1, an interactive media platform owned by each storytellers and followers. Lamina1 just lately introduced a partnership with ConsenSys' Linea blockchain and can launch a brand new mental property (IP) challenge “Artefact” on the Linea community.
As IP more and more spans a number of codecs and is accelerated by AI, questions round possession, management, and validation are taking heart stage. Neil Stephenson has researched the social and cultural impression of rising applied sciences through the years and highlighted present tendencies in AI because it pertains to content material creation. He identified that the AI business is very centralized and dominated by a small variety of firms with the assets to coach fashions at scale. This centralization creates dependence on opaque techniques and limits transparency and accessibility. Within the context of content material creation, some AI advocates have proposed decreasing the affect and compensation of creators, however the authors emphasised the potential for AI for use to learn creators relatively than to their detriment.
Joe Lubin echoed his issues concerning the centralization of huge expertise and framed the event of the Web3 ecosystem as a response to those buildings. He defined that for hundreds of years, societies have operated beneath top-down command and management, with authorities and intermediaries managing property rights and privileges. Though such buildings are efficient in constructing civilizations, they are often detrimental to the vast majority of contributors. Within the realm of user-generated content material, current fashions could be described as authority-generated. Joe Rubin emphasised that the arrival of decentralized belief, first operationalized by means of blockchain by Satoshi Nakamoto, laid the inspiration for a brand new mannequin of decentralized, user-driven civilization. This method shouldn’t be supposed to interrupt up current firms, however relatively to allow a extra decentralized and community-oriented system. Lamina1's integration with networks like Linea goals to empower customers and foster a golden age of user-generated, community-valued content material.
Joe Rubin additionally expressed a deep dedication to supporting the humanities, music, and the broader creator financial system by means of decentralization. He emphasised the significance of mental property in enabling artists to turn into unbiased and self-reliant. Conventional techniques usually favor organizations with authorized assets over creators themselves. Leveraging expertise could make IP configuration extra granular, configurable, and quick, particularly from a copyright and licensing perspective. This shift strikes past a scarcity-driven mannequin to an period of abundance facilitated by automation, AI, and robotics. In such a system, creators can focus extra on creativity and content material era, and group mechanisms can reward participation and contributions.
The dialogue then strikes on to the origins of the time period “metaverse”, usually courting again to Neal Stevenson's novel “Metaverse”.snow crash“,'' he mentioned, providing his ideas on how digital developments have unfolded since publication. The writer defined that the ebook was written within the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties. On the time, the Web existed, but it surely was largely unknown to most of the people. When the novel was printed, two main technological occasions occurred in the identical yr. World Huge Internet creation and sport launch.doom” Each occasions performed a transformative function in making pc graphics extensively accessible. Though the net supplied a platform for exchanging pictures,Doom” Demand for extra highly effective computer systems has elevated and entry to immersive digital experiences has expanded.
Neal Stephenson has identified that within the early days of the Web there was a “hippie grad” part characterised by an idealistic imaginative and prescient of common entry to info. This era was ultimately adopted by centralization and consolidation, typified by the Web2 platform. In his novel, components of the Metaverse are managed by centralized firms, whereas different components stay open and freely accessible. One of the crucial necessary however unanticipated results has been the rise of social media algorithms that monitor person habits and manipulate content material to maximise engagement, with far-reaching social penalties that even Neal Stephenson didn’t foresee within the Nineteen Nineties.
Joe Rubin mentioned that the dystopian parts depicted within the novel had been by no means the principle focus for individuals growing new expertise or searching for enterprise capital. What stood out as a substitute was the writer's vivid depiction of our on-line world, which supplied a compelling imaginative and prescient of the capabilities of computing expertise that was starting to mature.
Audio system shared their views on the potential of rising applied sciences. They emphasised the significance of leveraging the most effective facets of those instruments to learn humanity and create a constructive impression on society as digital innovation continues to advance.
Lamina1 unveils “Artefact” on Linea, combining storytelling and fan participation
The dialog turned to Lamina1's future plans because it prepares to publish its first unique IP “Artefact” straight on the Linea blockchain. The challenge combines a narrative world with a system designed to encourage fan participation and engagement.
Neil Stephenson shared that the brand new IP advanced based mostly on concepts he beforehand explored throughout a chat in New Zealand. He pointed to the bizarre state of affairs during which many individuals are growing AI, whereas others are warning of its potential risks. In nature, evolution happens by means of competitors, and no entity enjoys particular privileges with out going through challenges. Neil Stephenson instructed {that a} comparable aggressive framework might be utilized to AI, permitting techniques to evolve by testing their capabilities towards one another. He additional thought of a situation in which there’s a centralized, impersonal AI, versus an AI that’s deployed in a decentralized method by human communities. AI makes use of expertise to learn itself and its group. This idea served as the premise for Lamina1, a collaborative world-building challenge that allowed artists and sport designers to begin constructing their sport universes.
The panel dialogue ended by giving attendees a preview of the brand new IP, giving them an early glimpse into the story world and its interactive options.
