Re: Seeking some info

Hi Adrian,

First, I wanted to thank you in advance for offering a chance to partake 
in my favorite pastime - to BS about the future. Anyway, I share a bit 
more about my thoughts below, which are reflected in the book...

 >The structure has 2 dimensions: Metaverse (one concept) and contexts 
(14 separate). Humans remain our analog selves and are impacted by 
digital elements bit-by-bit (sic) in a digital continuum you're calling 
the Metaverse. Digital credentials and other assets become table stakes 
for human participation in the metaverse across maybe all 14 contexts.

The table I presented was actually not the full model. It's just an 
attempt to simplify it into something easier for the general public to 
mentally digest, and the goal is to have it serve as infographic click 
bait to help with marketing the book. The actual model I use is a six 
archetype "scenario planning" exercise, with [fully decentralized | 
surveillance capitalism | surveillance totalitarianism] as one axis, and 
[2º vs 3º+ climate emergencies to contend with) as the second dimension. 
That provides us with 6 archetypes.

By the way, here's what I'm calling the six scenarios, and I'd love to 
hear any suggestions for better names:


/Here's the thing:/ you can think of the key scenarios are /"who wins - 
countries, corporations or people?" /This is why identity is a core 
issue in determining the likely future to emerge, because it drives the 
foundational data rights model for which future is likeliest to emerge. 
Incidentally, the goal for the reader isn't to predict the future, it's 
to predict multi-futures, and find business strategies that work in all 
of them... hence "future proofing" your business model.

For this book, let's assume that we are aiming for a fully decentralized 
future, so humanity gets its act together and scrapes by with a 2.5º 
peak climate crisis. A 2º world assumes that there will be significant 
coadunation for humanity, giving us a happy ending for the 21st century. 
Concept: television/boob tube often serves as a sort of an emotional 
anesthetic for the masses. If we see a more dystopian future, I think 
the desire for humanity to hide in digital opium applications will be 
overwhelming.

 >To your Question 1, I think DIDs have little to do with the digital 
future. In the digitized human framing, DIDs are important for remote 
authentication in the metaverse, but as a standard, they already have 
competition and I expect the diversity of digital identifier "standards" 
to expand in new dimensions. In-person biometrics are an obvious 
standardization opportunity and can be decentralized and self-sovereign. 
On-line biometrics may be more difficult to standardize in a 
decentralized way, but DIDs haven't solved that problem either.

I disagree. I think that the forthcoming DID war will be fought in 
Africa, where the median age is 19 and digital literacy is on a major 
upswing. America will be based on surveillance capitalism, so whoever 
has the largest PAC will likely win... and China will be based on 
surveillance totalitarianism, so social credit and the digital yuan will 
prevail. However, Africa needs to cross the digital divide into rural 
areas over then next 20-30 years, and I think this might be possible 
leveraging startups like Ukama. Therefore, getting these startups to 
support lightweight, human-centric DID technology will be vital. But to 
succeed in Africa, we cannot be solely focused on ZKPs and bonding 
curves... we must think about how these technologies can help people 
avoid poverty, illness and death.

FYI my understanding of Africa is weak, we need to ask Shaun Conway what 
the thinks on this topic.

By the way, in the book, I'm trying to paraphrase US Treasury secretary 
Lawrence Summers statement: “Europe is a museum, Japan is a nursing home 
and China is a jail.” But the right words to fit the Metaverse future 
evade me.

 >The W3C that I've experienced seems particularly ill-suited to work on 
the metaverse. MIT's exit does not seem surprising. As a community, CCG 
and related efforts would be much more important if they could figure 
out how to stay away from human contexts including the metaverse.

Again, I disagree. DIDs and VCs must be grounded in human contexts to 
succeed. Technically, I think a metaverse extension for DIDs is 
possible. But man, it would take a /lot/ of work to get it right. Over 
20 years ago, I wrote the Universal Avatars spec with IBM, but I learned 
that the Metaverse wasn't ready for primetime. It still isn't.

One more time, thanks for giving me a chance to blather and pontificate 
on this subject! And to everyone else, I apologize for this tangent.

Moses

PS, Adrian, one interesting question for you is how public health will 
fare in the six scenarios.




On 2/12/23 10:16 AM, Adrian Gropper wrote:
> Thanks for the challenge, Moses, and your attempt at a structure for 
> prediction and comment.
>
> The structure has 2 dimensions: Metaverse (one concept) and contexts 
> (14 separate). Humans remain our analog selves and are impacted by 
> digital elements bit-by-bit (sic) in a digital continuum you're 
> calling the Metaverse. Digital credentials and other assets become 
> table stakes for human participation in the metaverse across maybe all 
> 14 contexts.
>
> To your Question 1, I think DIDs have little to do with the digital 
> future. In the digitized human framing, DIDs are important for remote 
> authentication in the metaverse, but as a standard, they already have 
> competition and I expect the diversity of digital identifier 
> "standards" to expand in new dimensions. In-person biometrics are an 
> obvious standardization opportunity and can be decentralized and 
> self-sovereign. On-line biometrics may be more difficult to 
> standardize in a decentralized way, but DIDs haven't solved that 
> problem either.
>
> That leaves the VCs in Question 1.  The non-converging discussions on 
> holder binding and @context are showing us the boundaries of 
> standardizing the digital credentials of humans. The success of VCs 
> for things will have limited impact on the metaverse. After all, how 
> much of the cost of goods is attributable to customs and border 
> protection and then how much of that would impact the metaverse as you 
> frame it?
>
> The W3C that I've experienced seems particularly ill-suited to work on 
> the metaverse. MIT's exit does not seem surprising. As a community, 
> CCG and related efforts would be much more important if they could 
> figure out how to stay away from human contexts including the metaverse.
>
> - Adrian
>
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 2:52 PM Moses Ma 
> <moses.ma@futurelabconsulting.com> wrote:
>
>     Hi everyone,
>
>     Two things –
>
>     1) First, is there a federated tracking system that reports how
>     many DIDs and VCs have been issued? Or predictions for how many
>     will be issued in the future? This is for a book I'm writing,
>     which includes a section on decentralized identity.
>
>     2) Second, I wanted to invite you to participate in the creation
>     of a map of the technological future. A proper analysis would
>     require a four quadrant scenario planning analysis, whereas this
>     is more for mainstream consumption. If you'd like to comment or
>     add to my company's map, you can do so here:
>
>         *https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JI4546mrLn_l-mhnFzB2onwfhwYdKF6_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111816817223768827943&rtpof=true&sd=true*
>         <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JI4546mrLn_l-mhnFzB2onwfhwYdKF6_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111816817223768827943&rtpof=true&sd=true>
>
>

-- 
*Moses Ma | Managing Partner*
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Learn more at www.futurelabconsulting.com. For calendar invites, please 
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