Facebook Is Now Meta. What Does the Metaverse It Wants to Send Us To Look Like?
Suddenly… a brand we all mention every day is no longer the same. Facebook is becoming Meta to draw attention to its hyper-ambitious metaverse project. But what does this future, which will merge the real and virtual worlds into one indistinguishable environment, look like? When should we expect to find ourselves in the metaverse? And what risks does such a vast project carry?
02“Within Five Years, We Will Merge the Real and the Virtual”
We are talking at the Technical University of Sofia, in a lab where the next generations of augmented and virtual reality are being built. Assoc. Prof. Agata Manolova, dean of the Faculty of Telecommunications, explains why we are not yet living in the metaverse and how close we are to a virtual reality indistinguishable from the real thing. It is a thoroughly engineering-minded conversation about the virtual and the big questions it raises.
03“Literature Can Still Save Us from the Future”
Nikolay Genov is a lecturer, a PhD in literary theory and a chief assistant professor at the Institute for Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. A young man who loves books and dreams of lighting the flame of that love in more young people. Is the end of literature approaching, what does science fiction have to tell us today, and what should Mark Zuckerberg learn from the wise Stanisław Lem while building his notorious metaverse?
04Did We Get the Future Right? (An Experiment)
It is a Digital Stories tradition that every year begins with a visit from futurologist Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova. First, though, just hours after we rang in the new year, I have an especially interesting experiment for you. Have her predictions from our conversations so far come true, and to what extent? Can we check what has happened in the meantime, and whether it confirmed or refuted the futurologist’s words? How can we do it impartially? I will pick 20 specific quotes from the interviews and find an unemotional analyst to grade them. The results are astonishingly interesting!
0515 Predictions About the Future We Can Laugh At
Trying to peer into the future is a doomed challenge, yet reading tech predictions that never came true turns out to be unexpectedly entertaining, especially when… they are your own. In more than five years, I have published just over 500 Digital Stories. I will invite an impartial observer to assess them and pull out specific passages that have not aged well at all.
06Five Jobs on Their Way Out and Five the Future Is Bringing In
Technology is drastically changing the needs of society, needs that must be met by the daily work of its individuals. Today whole professions vanish and new ones appear faster and more quietly than ever, and although forecasting in so dynamic a field is nearly impossible, we will try to sum things up: which five professions will soon disappear, which five will be most in demand in the near future, and what five professions we can only imagine might one day exist?
07Five Technologies We Expect Big Things From in 2022
Here it comes, just days away! We expect so much from 2022! Not only for it to finally rid us of the pandemic, but also to bring back normal. And we also expect some purely technological solutions from it, each of which certainly has the power to change the life of every single one of us. Still: which are the technological fields where we hope the coming 2022 will be especially hot?
08Man and Robot, Intimately
Algorithms are replacing us in more and more tasks. Meanwhile, the internet has changed human relationships forever, love and sex included. Isn't the point where the two meet drawing near? What does the future look like when artificial intelligence and robotics step in between two lovers? 42 percent of people say they would have sex with a robot today. 39 percent would have a romantic relationship with a humanoid. Would you?
09“Stories of Value Will Find Their Way”
Can journalism still change lives today? Where does the beauty of slow journalism lie? How can meaningful projects be built in our unappealing media landscape? We meet Alexander Nikolov and Dimitar Panayotov, the authors of The Last Gift of Man, to talk about the present and future of journalism.
10“I Have the Feeling the Internet Is Erasing Our Memories”
Theater lovers know her from “Nice to Meet You, Iva!”. Iva Todorova’s singular debut one-woman show became an undisputed hit, and now “Iva Is Online” at Theatre 199, a story that is, of course, digital. Is there freedom online, are our Facebook friends really friends, and what jokes will AI tell us? Iva answers in her trademark dizzying style.
11The Digital Prophet Who Came to Hate the Internet
“You are not the customer of the internet giants, you are their product.” “Social media is worse than cigarettes. Cigarettes don’t make you degrade. They kill you, but you still remain yourself.” You will hardly believe that these words belong to one of the pioneers of today’s digital world. Jaron Lanier popularized the term “virtual reality” and created the concept of avatars. His path crossed those of Richard Feynman, Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol. For a long time he was at the height of fame, on first-name terms with Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Bill Gates. In a single afternoon he personally showed his pioneering virtual reality goggles to the Dalai Lama, Leonard Bernstein and Terry Gilliam. And today he is a preacher of sorts, speaking out against the flaws of the digital world.
12A Dome You'd Want to Move Into…
Look at them: so real… and at the same time so fantastical. You feel like diving into the world of the Dome, which both resembles ours and is completely different. Better or worse?
13Facebook → Instagram → TikTok… What Comes Next?
Social networks keep evolving as technology advances, generations change and countless other forces come into play. So what comes next? What will the social networks that rule after today's giants fade look like, what kind of content will they offer, and how will they win us over? Social networks have become the greatest technological and social phenomenon of our time, and they still promise more than a few surprises…
14Anonymous or Troll: Who Is Hiding Behind the Profile?
Who are you? The person behind that supposedly authentic profile across from me? First we were anonymous by default, then it became the norm to put our real names behind the hate we spew on social media. Is anonymity freedom, or does freedom come when you always know who is on the other side, and where is the line heading next?
15“Within Five Years, AI Will Change Every Area of Our Lives”
Will AI-driven technologies really reach every area of human life within just five years, and are we already too late with ethical rules for them? Assoc. Prof. Mariana Todorova, a futurologist at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, makes predictions bolder than most science fiction. “Within just five years, technologies based on artificial intelligence will enter every field. They will be around us from our birth to our death.”
16DALL·E, Draw Me a Sheep!
This picture was created by an algorithm. “A tiger anxiously waiting for its dentist appointment,” read the instructions it was given. DALL·E certainly deserves serious attention. It may lack the waxed mustache and the eccentricity of its namesake Salvador, but it does thrilling things. With the help of artificial intelligence it turns a description into an image, and with such precision and creativity! The rest of the examples will leave you amazed…
17“Let’s Be Human. Let’s See Each Other, Talk, Dream…”
We all know Orlin Goranov as a singer, but lately he has proved himself, impressively, in a new role. At the height of the first COVID gloom he was asked to take on the hard job of hosting a TV show that would make people smile: The Last One Wins, an original quiz show that somehow provoked me into trying my luck too, with the result airing on Monday evening. On the show the host gave me a hard time with his questions; in return, I will try to provoke him with mine. How does he manage to stay away from social media? How do you keep a positive outlook in hard times? And when will technology become perfect at art?
18Alone Among Facebook Friends
We surround ourselves with “friends” on more and more social networks. And, all too often, we stay alone. When does the supposedly so social online world make us feel lonely? Are we really raising generations that will lose normal human contact? When does loneliness become a problem?
19The Internet Connects Us, the Internet Divides Us
Conceived and built as the apotheosis of the free human spirit, the internet is turning into a veritable factory of inequality—by many different measures and in completely unexpected directions. Some rifts are quietly becoming chasms capable of causing enormous problems for all of humanity. Is it too late to “turn” the machine around?
