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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;18;08
Pri
Guys, is the metaverse actually back?
00;00;18;11 - 00;00;22;13
Aaron
I hope so. I like the metaverse. I'll take the bear case in the metaverse.
00;00;22;16 - 00;00;25;03
Pri
The better metaverse never died.
00;00;25;06 - 00;00;37;12
Aaron
I mean, I think it kind of did. But I just close my eyes, and I just picture the future state of tech. And I just see immersive, you know, engulfing environments. And I feel like we got, like, some news related to that this week.
00;00;37;12 - 00;00;57;19
Chris
We did. We did, God, these world models, man, you know, like, they sound so fantastical that it feels, you know, like something that maybe ten years from now, but then, you know, every couple of months, some team comes out and says, like, look, we're at with our world model. And you're like, Holy shit. Like, how is this coming along so quickly?
00;00;57;21 - 00;00;59;05
Aaron
Yeah. It's wild.
00;00;59;07 - 00;01;16;05
Chris
Genie three, for our listeners out there, why don't we glue them into what we're talking about? Google DeepMind team did, a preview and a little bit of, interviews around around June 3rd. Their world model. It's like having a video game. You can prompt crazy stuff.
00;01;16;07 - 00;01;40;01
Aaron
Yeah. The way it worked, was it just like if you're prompting into another AI system and then in a couple, I think, seconds or minutes, it builds an entire world. And what's super fascinating is that the way the graphics look pretty good, it's it's not fully photorealistic, but it's much, much better than, you know, some of the pixelated like Minecraft metaverses that were there before.
00;01;40;02 - 00;02;09;16
Aaron
And two, it can maintain its state. So it can remember, like what it rendered a couple seconds ago. I think they can do that for 3 to 4 minutes, like maintain the state and the world. Again, it's generating on the fly and it's kind of some earlier versions are pretty magical in the sense that they replicate it out like an early version of doom, the like, you know, late 90s, video game where you could play doom, you could like, shoot, you know, some bad guys or bad critters.
00;02;09;16 - 00;02;21;15
Aaron
And it was maintaining this score and like incrementing the score on the fly with no additional software. This feels like next generation bananas. Talk to me like I was just like, wow. It's crazy.
00;02;21;16 - 00;02;43;18
Derek
Yeah. It's pretty. It's pretty epic. I'll just say, like, you look at some of this stuff and you're like, yeah, the feature is getting pulled up pretty quickly. It's definitely though, like, you know, we're from a maybe a product perspective. We're still like 20% of the way there, although the appearance of it is giving the impression that it's inverted, like maybe 80% of it is finished.
00;02;43;25 - 00;03;06;22
Derek
The promise of this technology is that like, there are, you know, real there's like hardware acceleration shifts that are happening at the same time. There are like edge cloud streaming potential around networking and reducing latency. There's like memory going from a couple of seconds to, you know, months, years, which, you know, require still still some, some immense structural shifts to happen.
00;03;06;22 - 00;03;37;03
Derek
And then like, there's the, the tailwinds around VR and, you know, again, tech infra and all of these things in like you blur your eyes a bit and you're like, wow, we're we're poised for like a complete shift in how people spend their time. And how products get built. And you know, how we interact like we're we're, you know, the four of us right now are very much like in a metaverse where, like, it's very flat and we're using the browser as the predominant vehicle by which to communicate.
00;03;37;06 - 00;03;55;19
Derek
I mean, these relationships that we have with each other just on this podcast can be extended in so many different directions. How the podcast is, listen to how it's streamed, how people participate with it. Is it, you know, synchronous instead of asynchronous? Is it, you know, can we have groups of people come in and out and be visualized in certain ways?
00;03;55;19 - 00;04;19;01
Derek
And it's just like, it's so cool. I feel like we're we're we're like getting back on track for, I think a lot of the pie in the sky vision stuff that we've had historically around immersive environments in the metaverse. And, that being said, like last time we've we had these conversations years ago, it's like there are still lots of, important infrastructure upgrades that need to happen around all of these disparate components.
00;04;19;01 - 00;04;26;03
Derek
But I am I'm super. Yeah, I'm overwhelmingly bullish that like, there's real transformational stuff here.
00;04;26;05 - 00;04;42;18
Aaron
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I mean, I think that that's what's exciting is like, you know, the user interface on the web or tech is changing. And this was a pretty strong indication that that a big piece of it are going to be these immersive worlds. It kind of reminded me that great project on cyber, which I know.
00;04;42;18 - 00;04;57;08
Aaron
Yeah, we were some of us here were pretty geeked on where you can imagine, you know, like popping into, like, all these little worlds that are created, exploring them. And like, that is like a primary user interaction. It's kind of like a souped up on the fly, like Minecraft or.
00;04;57;13 - 00;05;06;18
Chris
You know, it's funny, like every I don't know, 6 to 8 episodes, Derek shows up with the bucket of cold water and you never know when cold water Derek's coming.
00;05;06;18 - 00;05;14;10
Derek
Is this cold water, Derek I'm I'm I feel like this is warm. I'm. The water's warm there and I'm just feel like I'm jumping in a little bit. But you tell me.
00;05;14;12 - 00;05;14;28
Pri
Well, with these.
00;05;14;28 - 00;05;21;19
Chris
World models, I feel like the biggest thing to overcome for them is the real time video rendering. Right?
00;05;21;20 - 00;05;22;15
Derek
Like, totally.
00;05;22;15 - 00;05;43;10
Chris
That. That is what we're seeing. And yeah, so so maybe they're only 20% of the way there, but that 20% to me is the mind blower is the real time video generation. Everything else I think you have analogs for and, you know, it's just a matter of like integration and figuring out how to take current approaches and adapting it into this new thing.
00;05;43;10 - 00;05;50;18
Chris
But the real time video gen feels like the net new like the limited, the gate limiter and all of this.
00;05;50;21 - 00;06;27;14
Derek
It's true, it's true. I would say for single player experiences that you are 100% right. But I can tell you that and I think this a lot has changed. So like when I was playing massively multiplayer online RPGs back in like the early 2000, essentially to get, you know, latency to be like, acceptable when you were playing these games is like the, the, the entity had to shard or split servers across, you know, the worlds in order for and cap them like there was a max limit of participants that were kind of like, often regionally like co-located with one another to make sure that like the the performance was achievable when you started throwing
00;06;27;14 - 00;07;04;27
Derek
more and more internet connections into these spaces. And when we're talking about, we're talking about like memory being saved across, you know, these experiences when we're talking about potentially thousands of people interacting and in, in, in, you know, single environments together, you know, there are real physics limits to what we can and can't do right now that don't feel obvious when you're, like, looking at these demos, but, you know, it's like it's the hard stuff of trying to get like 5000 concurrent players playing in a single experience with all memory saved across all of them and all experiences and all computational weightlifting that they're doing on their each of their devices to kind of
00;07;04;27 - 00;07;31;08
Derek
like speak to everyone else. And I really do appreciate some of these. And that's just one, right. Like there's others in other categories like I'm just speaking ton of like the networking and latency challenges around multiplayer experiences. There are examples like that across all of the things that I would consider to be a 0 to 1 product innovation, even if you even though I think you're right, I think for single player experiences, this is about as far as I've ever seen anything like this look, which is amazing.
00;07;31;08 - 00;07;35;18
Derek
And I'm and feels like in my bones we're getting a little bit closer to the end state.
00;07;35;24 - 00;07;47;28
Chris
Here's a hot take for you. Are is finally going to have a moment once we get these world models. And because it's augmented reality and virtual reality, people aren't even going to notice.
00;07;48;00 - 00;07;48;28
Derek
I like that take.
00;07;49;05 - 00;07;56;24
Chris
A get go through the whole typing thing, right? Like you got to put stuff in this in these worlds. You got to be able to manage your information.
00;07;57;01 - 00;08;19;18
Aaron
I kind of agree with you on that. I just don't and I still struggle to kind of see the interface for it. Like what? Like what is the AR interface? Is it glasses like for me, the Vision Pro well amazing technology. I just never landed for me. Like I just can't picture a future where people are walking around with, you know, astronaut like headgear on them at all times.
00;08;19;18 - 00;08;20;25
Aaron
So I don't know that have.
00;08;20;25 - 00;08;35;16
Pri
To be hardware, I guess. I mean, like the spatial spatial computing stuff is kind of getting pretty far, like you can imagine something pretty lightweight. And if it's able, you know, whatever that Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style, like put up a, you know, screen where you can kind of interact with it.
00;08;35;22 - 00;08;37;09
Chris
For you wants the holodeck.
00;08;37;10 - 00;08;49;15
Pri
I want the holodeck, like, I like I actually think that that's probably closer to where what the interface look like. Now, I don't know if people are going to wear glasses. I like think that will be like this in between, but I don't know if that's the end point.
00;08;49;18 - 00;09;08;17
Chris
So here's here's some ways of like thinking this out sequentially. What's available today is treating it like a video game. This is just the streaming moment for video games. And as that's how they download it, right? Like they gave people a joystick and said, cruise around this world and then people doing it. We're looking on a flat screen.
00;09;08;17 - 00;09;30;24
Chris
So I think that's where it starts. XR and, you know, being able to throw on whatever version of goggles will be out there, your Oculus five, your Vision Pro two. I think that's the next level up. But then how do we do? Do we get beyond that? And then we do start? I think getting into a floating projection point and that gets really, really hazy, right?
00;09;30;26 - 00;09;50;23
Aaron
I still think it's going to be kind of web based or like app computer based. I just think we're imagine like all these kids that were playing Minecraft, they're playing Fortnite. They're mostly doing that still do like a computer or computing an interface, not like, some other form of hardware. So I feel like the first version of that of all these worlds will still hit it.
00;09;50;24 - 00;10;15;20
Aaron
Kind of. They're like, they'll just hop in and you'll just have a much more interesting, enriching, and exciting environment. Like, if you're choice, let's just picture like Amazon or something. If your choice is to basically like navigate through like some flat Amazon website or go into really like a virtualized amazing Amazon store, I feel like more people would pick the latter than the former.
00;10;15;22 - 00;10;32;02
Aaron
Or if it's like a fashion brand and you have like an avatar of yourself and it's like roughly look like you with, with your rough dimensions, and you could kind of see what it looks like, like a piece of clothes looks like on you. Like, I feel like that feels like that first phase to me. Chris, Derek Gray I don't know.
00;10;32;08 - 00;10;47;16
Pri
That phase is already happening though. Like, through, you know, different try on apps. But even, you know, Fortnite, all the virtual worlds, all the gaming worlds, like I would argue that that we're kind of like that phase, that phase has existed. You don't need like Genie for.
00;10;47;18 - 00;11;07;15
Aaron
I think that's a great point. I think it has existed, but I don't think it's existed at scale. It's not like the predominant user interface, and I feel like you're going to be able to soon be able to control this world building. Probably not this year, probably not next year, but in the next three years or so. Or you can actually define that environment, and that's what you're kind of building.
00;11;07;17 - 00;11;19;18
Aaron
Like you're not going to hire a developer or use like one of these automated AI systems to to build a website. You're going to, you know, somehow manifest like one of these worlds in a more stable way.
00;11;19;20 - 00;11;21;08
Pri
I agree with that completely.
00;11;21;11 - 00;11;35;12
Chris
You guys notice Aaron likes taking these, centrist positions. He wants robots or soft hands. He wants world models that just replace react and no further. It's like wipe, wipe out react, wipe out JavaScript. We just don't want it further than that.
00;11;35;14 - 00;11;47;15
Aaron
I literally was talking to somebody building, like a robotic dog. And I made this point to them yesterday. No opposable thumbs. It's a it's a reasonable position. Chris. It's going to become a law like you're gonna have once.
00;11;47;15 - 00;11;53;11
Derek
You put once you put the thumbs on the robots of the dogs, it's a it's a game changer, I think. I think Aaron's probably right.
00;11;53;12 - 00;11;57;05
Aaron
Right. You want like, really soft, you know, appendages on these animal.
00;11;57;06 - 00;11;58;29
Derek
Really soft hands.
00;11;59;02 - 00;12;01;00
Aaron
Soft, soft handed robots.
00;12;01;04 - 00;12;03;29
Derek
Man, I could yeah, I get it.
00;12;04;00 - 00;12;06;03
Chris
All right. They're soft handed robots.
00;12;06;05 - 00;12;11;29
Aaron
I mean, do you want a firm hand on your robot? No. Like mittens. You want, like, gloves on those things.
00;12;12;01 - 00;12;16;19
Chris
Oh. Oh. All right. Imagine, though, you got to shake hands with the robot and it gives you the dead fish.
00;12;16;21 - 00;12;19;10
Derek
It's like you can't. How can you respect to that robot?
00;12;19;13 - 00;12;23;17
Aaron
I'm right here with that. Let's. Let's leave handshakes as simple humans.
00;12;23;18 - 00;12;25;20
Chris
All right, so, Aaron, where do you shake hands of the robot?
00;12;25;27 - 00;12;33;16
Aaron
I mean, maybe I probably would do it after somebody else. Did I just take that little cautiously? It's part of my sentience, my mindset.
00;12;33;19 - 00;12;37;25
Pri
I've got a robot on the head before. Actually, at the Co-lab office. Is Derek.
00;12;38;03 - 00;12;38;29
Aaron
What?
00;12;39;01 - 00;12;41;24
Derek
You petted a robot? Oh, the little tiny one that was running around.
00;12;41;24 - 00;12;43;26
Pri
Yeah, like, cut it on its head. Like a little like.
00;12;43;26 - 00;12;53;11
Derek
That one is a that one is a little. That one's a little. That one is paddle, head paddle. I feel like though you don't really want to get in the habit of doing that to the robots because they remember that kind of stuff.
00;12;53;13 - 00;12;57;19
Pri
Yeah. No, no, it wasn't patronizing. You're just more like, oh, you're so cute.
00;12;57;22 - 00;13;19;07
Derek
Yeah, I did get how long do you think before we are shaking hands with robots? And from a position of like, it really is actually genuinely nice to meet you, robot. Like, do you guys think we're five years away from that, or do you think, you know, we're 20, 25 years away from that? I tend to think we're I think we're a little bit closer.
00;13;19;07 - 00;13;32;23
Aaron
I think the closer I think 5 to 10. Yeah. I mean, it just seems like the costs are going down, like dramatically. You know, they're kind of just like souped up iPhones with, you know, superhuman appendages to crush your skull. So that's all we need.
00;13;32;26 - 00;13;48;06
Chris
For you to look forward to shaking hands with the robot. You need to have some sort of online relationship with that. So you need to be like doing work with this bot and then being like, oh my God, I'm so happy I finally get to meet you in person. Robot like that. So weird that, yeah.
00;13;48;09 - 00;14;17;24
Derek
I think, I think that, I think we're, I think we might be five, 5 to 7 years away from that. And it might. I mean, that's like the that's the business meeting. There's like also like, you know, there there's like the, the friend on the internet that you, you meet up with. I listen, I'm not even saying that I, I think that's in the cards for me, but man, some of the stories coming out about like the one shotting that's happening around some of like these early language models around people just like forming really strong relationships with them.
00;14;17;26 - 00;14;40;02
Derek
I'm it's not surprising to me, like the human brain is really, really good at playing tricks on itself. And it is it's not not not a shock already in 2025 to see people just completely spending kind of like all waking hours. Some, I mean, not everyone, but like certain demographics of people just like investing so heavily into these language model based relationships.
00;14;40;02 - 00;14;47;19
Derek
And I think robotics is just a physical extension of some of these behaviors. We're already seeing people get pretty, pretty excited about.
00;14;47;25 - 00;15;07;23
Pri
Yeah, it's actually going to say, like, I think there are people here today that if you could create like a robot of their GPT kind of brain and have the history of it for that person, I think many people would probably not many, but a not like more people than we would think would probably shake their hand and like, give them a hug if that was available.
00;15;07;23 - 00;15;13;02
Chris
Yeah, weird, wild, wacky stuff. Do we want to talk? GPT five?
00;15;13;04 - 00;15;15;02
Pri
Oh, yeah. We should.
00;15;15;05 - 00;15;16;14
Aaron
Yeah, let's just do it.
00;15;16;16 - 00;15;25;15
Derek
Yeah. I also I also want to make sure we save some time for our block 700 because I, I'm pretty excited about what those guys did over there. But but let's do the five and then the 500.
00;15;25;17 - 00;15;51;06
Aaron
Let's do it five and 500. So for people that are maybe living under a rock, they may not have heard that OpenAI released their latest model, GPT five. It's their first significant model upgrade price since for, you know, they had other models like 0303 thinking for deep research. According to like all the AI large model grading systems, it's kind of like best in class across a lot of different vectors.
00;15;51;12 - 00;16;12;19
Aaron
I think most notably, it appears to be the best programmer at this point, kind of eclipsing some of the work that Google did with Gemini and Cloud did with, Sonnet and Opus. You know, it's pretty cheap to, to run a little bit cheaper than some of the cloud models, and it seems reasonably fast. Yeah. I mean, I've been playing around with it the past couple of days at work.
00;16;12;19 - 00;16;29;14
Aaron
My past day, Chris, I feel like you have to. It looks pretty darn good from my vantage point. It definitely feels like it. It's as good, if not better than some of the cloud models in terms of programing. I think it's exciting. I mean, I just it feels like we're just moving faster and faster. It seems a little less hallucinatory too.
00;16;29;14 - 00;16;39;23
Aaron
It's a little bit less verbose, like it's a little bit more brusque. And it's responses like more direct. Seems pretty cool. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm a pretty big fan of a lot of the open AI models like Chris.
00;16;39;23 - 00;16;39;28
Chris
What do.
00;16;39;28 - 00;16;40;19
Derek
You think?
00;16;40;22 - 00;16;59;09
Chris
I haven't had a ton of time to get my hands on it all. I've really spent. I probably spent like three four hours in cursor yesterday using GPT five as my primary and then having to flip flop. I was in the middle of like, pain in the ass bug, so I can't really objectively evaluate it, so I don't want to shit all over it.
00;16;59;09 - 00;17;17;20
Chris
I did feel like it was on par with Claude. I, I don't think it was noticeably outperforming it, but I also need to try it again. Some greenfield stuff, some and withholding judgment a little bit. It is more prone to act. It's much more proactive than oh, you. It should be the other coding model people tend to use.
00;17;17;20 - 00;17;49;04
Chris
Yeah, O3 drives me nuts because it will do all this work and then it will tell you, you know, come back with a dancer and tell you how to do it. And you're like, no, you're in cursor. The whole point you exist is to do this, do it, you know. So I do think they've gotten around that. The fact that they rolled it out so quickly, I was kind of expected thing, the whole OpenAI thing of, oh, you can have limited use of this model, but they really had gone all in at the primary, you know, between I think it was maybe like an hour or two hour gap between when they were doing the
00;17;49;04 - 00;18;09;03
Chris
announcement and they brought the cursor CEO in, and then it was sitting there in cursor. So, you know, kudos there. But the only thing I've really done with it in the world is just throwing my book at it, and it evaluated it rather consistently. It was past models. And so I don't know, I mean, look, I'm always excited for more powerful models.
00;18;09;03 - 00;18;16;15
Chris
I'll play with it more as time goes on. They certainly put on a show about it. And, you know, let's see if it actually delivers.
00;18;16;15 - 00;18;37;13
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, we played around with it a bit yesterday. You know, we attributes I had one of our designers, Greg, put together just like a new feature in Figma, and it three shot at it. So we went from, you know, thinking of a feature that we wanted to add in the morning. Took about an hour to put together, like a rough design for it.
00;18;37;15 - 00;18;56;12
Aaron
Then it was in production like an hour later. So and you know, when I mean a feature, this would be like a substantive one. It was like a year or so ago, like a 2 or 3 day project for an engineer and end to end, it took like two hours to implement. So I think that that's kind of what's coming for software developers.
00;18;56;14 - 00;19;07;24
Aaron
It just feels like every month, every quarter, we just get some significant upgrade there, whether it's from OpenAI, whether it's from cloud, whether it's from Google. And it just doesn't seem like that's stopping anytime soon.
00;19;08;01 - 00;19;30;24
Chris
That is one area. Yeah, like the front end stuff. I did build out, a new front end thing yesterday. And it it's demonstrably better from a design perspective and getting that quicker. So I'm excited about that. That's that's obviously great. When I was like nagging on it a little earlier is more multi-step, very difficult like sequence debugging.
00;19;30;27 - 00;19;36;29
Chris
And so let me just throw that out there as a caveat. Yes, the front end shit does seem like an upgrade.
00;19;37;04 - 00;19;58;24
Aaron
I just think it's just this theme right where the plumbing is just developing. Software is just changing radically. The best analogy I kind of think about, it's kind of like these models are doing to software development, what like Napster did to music. And I just think there's going to be a lot of, a lot of, painful transition for the software development industry.
00;19;58;25 - 00;20;28;25
Aaron
And I just feel like it's a huge shift. It's really, on the one hand, increasing the value software because you can just build more complicated software at the same time. It's kind of like decreasing the individual value of every software engineer. I just feel like increasingly you just see this future because I feel it where you do kind of want to have like a battery of agents that are just doing different tasks for one, one person, and they're much more like the architect or the orchestrator of all these different Advantech systems that are building stuff for you.
00;20;28;27 - 00;20;39;08
Aaron
And I think if you're not on that train now where you're kind of resisting that train, like if you go on Twitter, you see lots of devs just like complaining about it. I just think you're going to be on the wrong side of history there.
00;20;39;12 - 00;21;06;07
Pri
I don't disagree. The one thing that's kind of interesting is like, you have this figma monster IPO exceeding expectations, but I keep thinking about how software is going to change like so rapidly that the iteration could be just directly in these dev environments. Like, do we need Sigma like unless they are able to adapt? I would think that like the role of Figma is just going to be less and less like, I don't know if you have a take on that.
00;21;06;14 - 00;21;22;17
Aaron
I don't know if Figma is going to be less, unless it really goes back to almost what we were talking about with Genie before. It's if the interface is still like a web based interface, you know, like a website based interface, then I think Figma has a huge role to play in that. I think it becomes more valuable if that's the future, save the world.
00;21;22;23 - 00;21;46;21
Aaron
Because I think what you'll see is designers really being the pole position for being architects. They're like product, you know, product and product designers, you know, they'll come up with something, they'll be able to implement it. They'll be able to obsess on the pixel placement, the user interactions, the user features in a way that lots of software developers today just don't either enjoy that or that's not their skillset.
00;21;46;21 - 00;22;08;16
Aaron
And and I think that that means that Figma is more valuable. You know, designers are more valuable, product minded designers are more valuable and more important inside of a technology company. If it turns into something like Genie, where it's super immersive, like, I don't know why you need Sigma for that, or Figma is going to have to pretty much turn into something that looks more like unity, I guess.
00;22;08;19 - 00;22;24;26
Aaron
Yeah, where you're just developing a world and then you're exporting it into, you know, some production environment, but it just there's just so many jump balls in how this is all going to happen. I don't know exactly what it looks like. I will say, because I just feel it. You're just going to get much, much more complicated software.
00;22;24;28 - 00;22;41;22
Aaron
You know, somebody on our team look this up like QuickBooks is like a million lines of code that feels like you could do that in a quarter if you were really putting your foot on the gas and leaning into these systems, like you could build something that complicated, which, you know, to years to build just in a quarter now.
00;22;41;24 - 00;22;47;29
Aaron
So I just don't see how you're not going to get much, much more complicated sites, applications, etc..
00;22;48;01 - 00;22;56;29
Pri
Oh yeah, that's where the immersive worlds come in, right? It's like that. Those are very complex ways to live on the internet, as opposed to just maybe a web interface.
00;22;57;01 - 00;23;21;26
Chris
Okay, complex yet simpler, I think to so much of that code you're talking about is around the environment and the user interface layer. And there's a lot of different edge casing, like if you think about what actually is causing all that code, and then if you're swapping all that out for a physics emulator, you could actually see simpler software.
00;23;21;26 - 00;23;41;26
Chris
And in certain instances, it's hard to say. Right? I think I think it may both get bigger and simpler at the same time, and you're just trading off the burden of the code base in different directions. I happen to be a bit of a figma hater. I can't stand it. I don't like working in canvases, visibly shudder when someone says, let me show you my figma.
00;23;41;28 - 00;24;01;09
Chris
I never got it. I think it's for people who want to treat user interface design, kind of like math rock. It's it's just too much. If you really need to get that deep into the weeds, maybe you're developing something and focusing in areas that just really shouldn't require that, that level of attention. But you know, that's my own personal preference.
00;24;01;09 - 00;24;25;11
Aaron
Yeah, I think that that makes sense, Chris. Like, I, I think at the same time, it gives designers like a low cost playground to play around with stuff. Just that, that process of building a tight user interface, one that has boil downs and complicated information or complicated user interaction, something that's portable. It's still is pretty difficult to kind of do that in a like a full web based environment, but maybe not.
00;24;25;11 - 00;24;42;08
Aaron
Right? Like maybe you don't need something like Figma and you just jam on it, like almost on a dev environment or, or, you know, some deployed environment just so you could really feel it. I think the challenge that Figma has is that it's still not connected to a back end, although I think that they're trying to make that easier.
00;24;42;11 - 00;25;02;18
Aaron
So, you know, you're kind of dealing with fake data or you're not kind of mirroring, add some more like dynamic, you know, interactions or dynamic animations, right? Which are easier and easier to implement now. But I don't know, I feel like they're going to get there. In a weird way. I feel like Figma is competing with cursor. It's competing with V0, so I think they're all going to kind of converge over time.
00;25;02;21 - 00;25;29;13
Chris
You know, I see that takes like further to dig on Figma a little bit. I think part of Figma success is that it's a tool of the deep state bureaucracy of technology companies. And what I mean by that is, once you start flattening teams out, yeah. And you start running leaner, the requirements of people, the inputs in the asset designers are going to diminish further and further down.
00;25;29;13 - 00;25;55;18
Chris
Right. Like the complexity of a figma works great when you're the user interface designer for Aria or Williams-Sonoma. And your product manager has to turn around and get the input of a category manager, a mobile experience manager, you know, work your way on down the list. And that level of requirement below is something that you need a figma to facilitate, and it's probably where it excels.
00;25;55;18 - 00;26;09;07
Chris
I'm arguing that level requirement bloat is going to look antiquated in the future. Once you don't have these orgs where 20 people have to stick their hand in the pie and feel like they matter by having input on pixels.
00;26;09;13 - 00;26;28;27
Aaron
I love your, what you called that the tech deep state bureaucracy. Deep state? Yes, I think that's true. I do think there's like a piece of that, but it's just the time and expense. It's pretty magical software. You know what I think about Chris? Because I'm just such an old dog where I learned how to program really was the Macromedia.
00;26;29;01 - 00;26;50;17
Aaron
Dreamweaver was like a what you see is what you get system. And it never was perfect. Right. And I feel like we're just getting closer and closer to that end state where you just have an interface, you can like move stuff around, drag and drop like add things, change things. It feels like some of these visual editors, whether it's Adobe or Illustrator or, or Figma, and then you just hit deploy, right?
00;26;50;17 - 00;27;13;20
Aaron
And an hour later, like all the back end plumbing and piping is just built. I just feel like that's kind of getting getting towards in the long run. I don't know if Figma nails that, but I feel like somebody is going to nail that either Figma or V0, or I wouldn't be surprised if if cursors stopped trying to compete with these like a gigantic systems like replicator or OpenAI's code Codex.
00;27;13;20 - 00;27;19;19
Aaron
I think that's what it's called and moves more into, like the visual arena, because I feel like that's kind of what's missing there.
00;27;19;25 - 00;27;27;19
Pri
This is a little bit more of a drive by shooting, but to me, I don't understand why Figma is so valuable and why it's so great or magical. Like or.
00;27;27;22 - 00;27;29;16
Derek
Like you guys are going off on Figma.
00;27;29;16 - 00;27;30;00
Pri
Today. It's like.
00;27;30;01 - 00;27;31;13
Derek
Insane being like.
00;27;31;15 - 00;27;33;15
Aaron
I feel like I should be working for Figma.
00;27;33;15 - 00;27;38;06
Pri
I don't know, like, it's like it feels like DocuSign. It's like I look at that and I'm like, why is it worth that much?
00;27;38;06 - 00;27;38;15
Chris
Like, I don't.
00;27;38;15 - 00;27;58;23
Derek
Know, okay, can I throw maybe a curveball? I actually think Figma is incredibly valuable. Like it. So historically has been very valuable, like it did a lot for this idea of collaboration in a visual node based UI that was browser that was tailored for like cross departmental actions to kind of like use some of Chris's language. It was very good at that.
00;27;58;26 - 00;28;16;14
Derek
I will say the thing that you're probably feeling and like, I think probably the main motivation of this conversation is already with the advances that we've seen in AI and with Figma not making AI a first class citizen in its product, that product is already starting to feel very dated. I've had that same feeling about Sigma as a product.
00;28;16;16 - 00;28;34;08
Aaron
But they have Figma make now, right? So they've been pushing in that direction. It's like for sure for sure. Yeah, a little bit behind. But I just feel like they're so good at the product side. But that product is so smooth. Like I just have to imagine a little bit like when you, you know, so like Disney move into streaming, they just like kind of nailed it.
00;28;34;11 - 00;28;43;11
Aaron
I just feel like Sigma because they're so good on the product side and the development side. When they finalize that product, it's going to be really, really nice. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
00;28;43;18 - 00;29;04;09
Derek
Well, so I think this is like the this is the ultimate question, which is like is I like a technology like streaming or is it like a technology like electricity? And I think that the thing that I'm always asking myself is, is like this new kind of like technology upgrade or like this new kind of like product twist or this new like small innovation.
00;29;04;09 - 00;29;26;19
Derek
Is it incremental or is it meaningful enough for like to really bear out the fruit of making that into something that's usable by hundreds of millions? Do you need to build a product that takes that into account from the ground up, or is this something that you can just bolt on to an existing distribution pipe? And I think the point you're making is like the way people are using AI today.
00;29;26;25 - 00;29;46;26
Derek
Aaron, it might be just like you brought this on to the existing product. I'm not I think there's definitely a chance that that's true. And I and I'm not saying Figma is going away anytime soon, but I will also say like using this stuff, you know, like there are some things about generating AI outputs, collaborating on AI outputs.
00;29;46;26 - 00;30;02;27
Derek
The way I'm like flipping across, you know, multiple models to get the actual thing that I want or lasering in or zeroing out, you know, an output based on, you know, some other models efficiency or even just the way I use natural language instead of like point and click to be able to kind of like bear out a result that I want.
00;30;02;28 - 00;30;22;25
Derek
It gets me thinking, like, I don't know if this is something that you want to just bolt on. Like, this might be the job of like a startup or an entrepreneur or founding team who's cracked that understands exactly where this technology is going and can get to that point of a superior product faster than it takes to just like, bolt on some of these features.
00;30;23;02 - 00;30;42;27
Derek
I think that's the big question here. I don't I'm not going to say I have the answer. The crystal ball on who who wins. But that is always the thing that comes up for me when when looking at such a, I don't know, such like an innovation. Like I just it's unclear for me right now whether or not like who actually wins on the on the next iteration of a figma like product.
00;30;43;00 - 00;31;00;21
Aaron
Yeah. To me I think who wins is what team is going to lean into the tech to the highest degree. You know, maybe the team. It's like a team of four who is completely cracked on this stuff that rebuilds Figma or some Figma like system from scratch with like, I just perfectly embedded inside of it.
00;31;00;23 - 00;31;04;14
Pri
I it's basically a cursor you're describing like the cursor team a bit.
00;31;04;14 - 00;31;26;17
Aaron
Yeah. I mean I think they did that in another category. You know Visual Studio and they crushed it. Right. There's there was earlier examples as I coding like, like replicate or windsurf that were much more like issue issue based. It was like too far. And I, I do think that that's that's probably directionally right Derek I feel like it's the same thing for all of the Microsoft suite.
00;31;26;17 - 00;31;40;00
Aaron
Like one framing. I've thought about for AI is just like, this is the re-imagination of all that, like 1980s software, whether it's Excel or Word or, you know, Adobe, which is. But but Figma is like a partial reimagination, as I noticed.
00;31;40;00 - 00;31;41;02
Chris
Notes.
00;31;41;04 - 00;32;00;18
Aaron
Yeah, completely. I really do feel the need for that. Like if there was like a, like a desktop Microsoft word that really had AI embedded deeply in it, I would use it. I just don't think Google Docs has nailed it. I just don't think that team feels the AI vigor the same way that, you know, the cursor folks do when it comes to software development.
00;32;00;21 - 00;32;09;14
Aaron
But I feel like that's going to be probably the biggest company that comes out of AI is like some Microsoft Word. Plus, I like juggernaut.
00;32;09;14 - 00;32;32;28
Chris
I will say, yeah, like for the wanting that operating system for a while now, I, I take the position. We're living in a post operating system world. I can't really remember the last time the OS actually mattered to me. You know, like, you could probably throw me on, a Linux distribution that has a decent enough user interface, and I wouldn't care anymore because so much of this is just web based.
00;32;33;05 - 00;32;47;17
Aaron
Yeah, I don't care if it's web or just, you know, or like desktop, like desktop is I just I just feel like it needs to be, like, reimagined to your point there. Like all this stuff, there should be some team that just reimagines it from First principles.
00;32;47;20 - 00;32;52;15
Pri
Which is everything just turned into a website, though. Is that kind of what you were saying? Because it's like it's like, I don't, you know.
00;32;52;15 - 00;32;56;13
Chris
Everything already has is what I'm saying, and now it will turn into something else.
00;32;56;19 - 00;33;02;07
Pri
Yeah. Like I, I kind of in a way agree. Like, do you think Excel is still going to look the same word? I don't know.
00;33;02;10 - 00;33;08;28
Chris
I can't even remember the last time I've needed a spreadsheet. I honestly have not used a spreadsheet this year, which is insane. To say.
00;33;09;01 - 00;33;09;07
Pri
That's.
00;33;09;07 - 00;33;11;19
Chris
Actually this is someone used to live in them.
00;33;11;22 - 00;33;12;06
Pri
You're so.
00;33;12;06 - 00;33;15;12
Aaron
Delicious. Yeah, that's that's retired living.
00;33;15;29 - 00;33;22;29
Chris
Yes. My empire of talent is. Hey. All right. Sorry, I just I guess I'm, like, the one who's, like, the real outlier here. All of you are. Gas.
00;33;22;29 - 00;33;23;22
Derek
Well, I mean.
00;33;23;23 - 00;33;25;09
Chris
There's some privilege emanating.
00;33;25;09 - 00;33;26;28
Derek
Out of Chris right now. Dude.
00;33;27;00 - 00;33;29;26
Pri
I've. I looked at a spreadsheet all year like. That's crazy.
00;33;29;26 - 00;33;32;06
Aaron
Congratulations. Yeah. All right, we get it.
00;33;32;06 - 00;33;33;17
Derek
You made it, Chris. We get it.
00;33;33;17 - 00;33;35;27
Pri
It honestly.
00;33;35;27 - 00;33;45;14
Chris
Though. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm so sorry, guys. I I'm going to take this back now I feel bad. No, I feel bad. I just these sheets don't matter anymore.
00;33;45;17 - 00;33;50;03
Aaron
Is that the pinnacle of luxury. Just like not needing to look at Excel or something?
00;33;50;22 - 00;33;55;19
Pri
I sure a little way to open it. I'm just like, God, there are like, these boxes piss me off.
00;33;55;19 - 00;33;58;08
Aaron
Yeah. It's like when you're really free. Like, that's.
00;33;58;08 - 00;34;03;16
Pri
Something robots should do. Just excel only and then present it to me in a way that is legible.
00;34;03;22 - 00;34;05;23
Aaron
In your virtual world, which is, yeah, I.
00;34;05;23 - 00;34;10;28
Pri
Don't need to look at like an Excel spreadsheet. I just need the output of that presented to me.
00;34;11;00 - 00;34;15;17
Aaron
That's fair. So you just want some AI Excel analyst, just arrange it all time through.
00;34;15;20 - 00;34;32;20
Chris
Correct. Now let me say something because I used to literally just talk to SQL like write SQL all day and talk to databases. So there was also a point in my life where, yeah, to some degree, unless I, you know, needed to do math like spreadsheets are superfluous as well, or I had to share it with other people.
00;34;32;22 - 00;34;54;05
Chris
So I've lived on both extremes of the spreadsheet curve. But hey, we're we're getting a little deep into this episode. I know our man Derek here did want to talk about network digital objects due to dependencies of leave. We got a, a new industry called the Art in blocks 500. If, you want to you want to take the month, I'll do, we only got.
00;34;54;05 - 00;35;14;06
Derek
Like, ten minutes. I just wanted to make sure we covered it because. Because, you know, we are we are fans of the the product and the the artists, many of the artists that are included in that. But yeah, the the recap here is and this has been a moment that I think they've been circling around for a long time, which is as the tools by which to make code based work.
00;35;14;18 - 00;35;41;08
Derek
Creative work using blockchains starts to change and modify. And as you know, new innovations allow us to use blockchains in new ways. I think the question has been at our blocks, like how do we move forward in kind of an environment that's changing like this? And I think ultimately it made sense for the team to say, you know, the first five years of of code based art, which really was like an explosion on, like the medium itself of generative art, which had been kind of relegated to the background.
00;35;41;08 - 00;36;04;02
Derek
It wasn't even that. It was just digital and ephemeral and couldn't really be owned, but it was also esoteric and even more opaque in the sense that, like people were, the art was often like these algorithms that you couldn't even visualize and art blocks, you know, really kind of like created a platform for both the creation and commercialization, for this art form that has kind of been just like put off to the side for a hundred years.
00;36;04;02 - 00;36;23;29
Derek
And it had an amazing, amazing influence on on artists, on culture, on, on collectors, on how we could even own and and and and understand these art, these this type of artworks, this, this very like natively digital code based art form. But it, it came to the point where I think, you know, the question was like, well, what what's next?
00;36;23;29 - 00;36;48;01
Derek
And I think it made sense ultimately for that, for the team to say, you know, let's let's put a container around this five year period, these 500 works that have been made that really showed kind of like the absolute edges of what you could do when you were using entropy to make work and you were storing, you know, these very tightly compressed algorithms in code on the Ethereum blockchain itself.
00;36;48;01 - 00;37;11;25
Derek
Let's put that kind of a time stamp and a marker around this and start exploring the next stage, the next ways we can use innovation and technology with blockchains. And that's what they did. They announced the Art blocks 500. It says structural shift in kind of, you know, the the legacy and the the permanence and the, you know, the freezing of like, this five year moment in time, which ends in the next couple of months.
00;37;11;25 - 00;37;39;05
Derek
There's four artists left that haven't been announced. And to kind of like round out the last four in the 500. And after that it's, you know, it's I think they're moving into a much more experimental phase of their business, which is exciting. I think everyone internal over there is very excited about the next stage. I think everyone, all the artists and the collectors and the folks who have been along for the last five years are excited about kind of like the provenance and the the significance of this 500 and kind of the narrative finality.
00;37;39;05 - 00;37;59;21
Derek
I'm seeing so much enthusiasm and block talk right now. I mean, it hasn't been that active in probably three years. Yeah. It's just I think I think there are there are also really interesting kind of like effects around collecting that happen when you start, when you freeze the supply like this and the network continues to grow, which I think is, you know, I think people are getting pretty excited about.
00;37;59;21 - 00;38;02;19
Derek
So anyway, that's the recap on, the Art blocks 500.
00;38;02;23 - 00;38;21;22
Chris
Breaking this down, once we get to 500, we're never going to see another art blocks branded release. Has art blocks. The company announced what they're doing yet. Like, are they going to become more like a transient labs or are they kicking off a whole different product? Sleep. Do you know, can you share?
00;38;21;24 - 00;38;49;01
Derek
I would say the through line that they have announced is that it's a very much experimental next stage of the business. I think you can kind of get an indication with the stuff that they've been doing in the way Eric has been talking about his own interests. So I think the tram acquisition that was announced last week is a obviously, it's a very it's a shift into kind of like physical meet space where like can you start bearing out some of like the magic of, you know, with entropy and generation generation into kind of like physical spaces?
00;38;49;08 - 00;39;14;07
Derek
That's certainly going to be an effort. Eric has been tweeting about AI for the last six, six months. He's really excited about the technology. He's really excited about its intersection with blockchains. I think the team is energized and thinking about this stuff in internal, and I would say the the way you could probably frame it in your, in your head is like, there's probably there's definitely art stuff that they are going to be doing with artists and with others in the space.
00;39;14;07 - 00;39;34;01
Derek
There's kind of like this physical, generative, physical object stuff that that Eric has made a core part of his own creative practice and he's very excited about, and I think others are as well. And then there's this, like, more skunkworks experimentation that I think the team has committed to doing and has been doing for a while now around just kind of, you know, how these new technologies can inform art.
00;39;34;05 - 00;39;38;12
Derek
And I would say that's probably the piece that, they're spending a lot of time thinking about over there.
00;39;38;12 - 00;39;51;03
Chris
I'm going to put this in rock and roll terms. This is like when the Rolling Stones left England because they were disgusted over their tax bill, moved to France, got a big old house, and a couple of years later we all got exile on Main Street.
00;39;51;05 - 00;40;13;29
Derek
Listen, I think that's a pretty good analogy. I think that's a pretty good, pretty good analogy to me. Listen, like the the Art flux platform was, was I mean, you guys remember because you were there, but that was a very shitty web app with three piece with three algorithms with basically three buttons on it. Yeah. And, you know, a couple of, random collectors that were like, wow, this whatever.
00;40;13;29 - 00;40;40;04
Derek
This is the weirdest, most interesting thing I've seen in a long time. And that turned into kind of a business that's done like, you know, $2 billion in secondary GMV over the last five years. It's just totally insane. You don't it doesn't take much to change the world and change the way culture works. If you've got the right brains and the right tinkering in the right product, minds kind of all huddled up, just like experimenting with shit.
00;40;40;04 - 00;41;06;06
Derek
So to me, this is more of an it's less an evolution of art blocks and more of, going back to the roots of what made our block special to begin with. And I'm, I love I love it for two reasons. I love it because it, you know, it closes off and allows this network to grow. I mean, there's so committed internal to that team to kind of like, continue to steward the earliest code based artworks and steward the storytelling around those 500 and all of the great work that's not in the 500.
00;41;06;06 - 00;41;21;09
Derek
That's around generative art and blockchains. And they've got, you know, resources to do that. But then they've also got, you know, this amazing willingness to kind of go back to their roots and start experimenting again, which is for me, you know, a pretty exciting outlook.
00;41;21;12 - 00;41;39;20
Chris
And I'm glad Eric's got the freedom to be able to go out and do that. You know, as people who have supported the platform through through a couple of our DAOs, you know, it's great to see. I'm certainly excited for him. Derek, how many seven, 20 ones are sitting in this? 500. What are we looking at like 250,000 tokens?
00;41;39;22 - 00;42;06;18
Derek
I think it's somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000 total objects that exist on the in the art blocks, 500, and it's obviously 500 collections. And then. Yeah, a a number of artists that are that is less than that. So it's not much. Listen, like the cool thing about blockchains is that you can write in scarcity benefits to things that like, will be permanently owned for the rest of human history.
00;42;06;20 - 00;42;26;05
Derek
And if a network can continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on, not just five years in, but ten years in and 15 years in that demand supply, Delta is just going to keep getting larger and larger. And I think that's what collectors are starting to realize right now that I think this is why we're seeing more volume in that.
00;42;26;08 - 00;42;52;05
Derek
But chat volume and also actual collectors coming in than I've seen in three years, I think they're all realizing, like, hey, code based art mixing with blockchains is is like a total innovation in and of itself. There's this canonized 500 collection that now exist around this contract. Like, we should probably be collecting some of this stuff. And so I think that's, I think that's the, the point you're making, which is just like there's just not that much of it around.
00;42;52;05 - 00;42;55;05
Pri
So, Chris, are you going to start hoarding crypto blocks again?
00;42;55;12 - 00;42;57;12
Aaron
Please don't. That's a bad decision.
00;42;57;12 - 00;43;01;01
Derek
Crypto blots, crypto blots, everything on the blots.
00;43;01;01 - 00;43;05;11
Aaron
The blots need to go in one direction. And that's not into collections.
00;43;05;13 - 00;43;08;08
Chris
Stop. Stop there and stop at the blocks of. Great.
00;43;08;08 - 00;43;10;10
Aaron
They were never. They were never great.
00;43;10;13 - 00;43;36;13
Chris
No. Stop that. So there's only a decent amount of NFT action, I guess. Punks are flying today. I saw briefly there was like 75 sales floors up at 53. Bunch of a Denver's move the other day. We saw some coffee move in yesterday as well. Got a pixel chain mark, which I always like to see is, someone who holds the X logo mark on pixel chain, eats it almost 4K, and the NFT market is buzzing around.
00;43;36;13 - 00;43;37;05
Chris
You guys feeling good?
00;43;37;09 - 00;43;53;17
Pri
I like to see it. I mean, I guess part of this is just a secondary reaction to the fact that, you know, the General Eats sentiment has gone up, right? I mean, like, there's not any I mean, that's sort of the real reason we're seeing people who have been quiet come back in.
00;43;53;19 - 00;44;13;23
Aaron
You know, somebody said this to me, it kind of resonated, you know, like more of a generalized investor, like an adventure. And they're just like, you know, there really is no crypto without stuff going on on eath. And I think that that's why I think for me and, and possibly others like whatever has happened over the past two years is just felt like a little bit funny.
00;44;13;24 - 00;44;37;02
Aaron
You're just not seeing like, like a lot of excitement or innovation happening in other ecosystems to the same degree that we've seen kind of historically around it. And it just feels like that's, that's back. Right? Like you're just seeing some of the more mature DeFi protocols continue to kind of check along. You're seeing advancements on, like the core infra with a lot of ZK tech that's now maturing, and it feels pretty strong.
00;44;37;02 - 00;45;14;10
Aaron
And I also do think it is kind of the, center of the positive, positive culture of digital assets and crypto. I feel like a lot of that still in, in and around eath. And I feel like NFTs are kind of a good barometer for that. So I, I'm, I'm pretty excited about what we're seeing. I do imagine like as more and more people come back into the to the Ethereum ecosystem, which unfortunately it just price seems to pull people back in, I think we'll start to see a new wave of experiments around NFT ease, around how to use them to build online communities or reward, you know, top creators.
00;45;14;12 - 00;45;33;09
Aaron
I just feel like that vision still is pretty strong. And even those that may have forgotten about about that vision when they come back, they're going to. I wouldn't be surprised if they start kicking that back around again. I just feel like the NFT ecosystem had a lot of the good, exciting parts of what a shared state and shared community building can can bring to the internet.
00;45;33;13 - 00;45;52;19
Aaron
The text more mature. I think people have learned, you know, how to gain more distribution from stuff like meme coins and, and hopefully we can, begin to just see the next wave of, a lot of the, the great ideas that were kicking around in 2021, 2022 and 2023. So I'm excited for it.
00;45;52;23 - 00;46;02;03
Pri
Me too. It's about time people recognize true on chain artwork on Ethereum. It's been far too long. I'm finally excited it's back.
00;46;02;06 - 00;46;16;04
Aaron
Yeah, I think that I think that we'll just like plug a long tree. Like to me it's more like those experiments we saw around peer sets or like, you know, NFT based or DAOs using NFTs. Like, I just think all that stuff pretty fun. Yeah, I think people they it's.
00;46;16;04 - 00;46;40;13
Chris
The middle of the market that's missing. Aaron. Yeah, I think that's the issue is in the bear. We got the desire and stayed around and the oh my, my NFT functions as a store of value. That also gets me into these exclusive clubs and kibble. Also, I can go drink wine on on at a museum opening like that high end aspirational end of the market never really went away.
00;46;40;13 - 00;47;03;25
Chris
But that middle of the market where all the interesting experimentation was and people tried to extend, extend this stuff, you know, other than thing, you know, chunk dcgi, you know, I'm sure there's like a couple dozen others. But during the bull, that middle of the market was incredibly strong and it was pushing out so much. And that's the part I think that's missing.
00;47;03;27 - 00;47;15;01
Chris
You'll know digital culture is fully back, I think when when that side is healthy as well. Like right now we really only have the two extreme pulls that we're able to keep going during the bear.
00;47;15;03 - 00;47;43;01
Aaron
Yeah, exactly. And I that's what I'm looking for. But I do think it's that middle middle which is exciting. And you know, I think that was captured by numbers and pages and, and, you know, Bored Ape related stuff last time around. And I feel like we'll probably see some more maturation and exploration there, which is pretty cool. And, and I do think, I know we're not supposed to talk about rules and regulations, but I do think that that middle kind of got pushed out because of the lack of clarity.
00;47;43;05 - 00;48;18;22
Aaron
You know, somebody mentioned this to print on a call. They're like, look, if you're like a talented developer at this point, you could play around with this superhuman tech and AI, or you could play around with crypto. And, you know, if there's even a 1% chance that what you're doing could create some viability for you, like, why would you do that in like, the attention economy or, you know, for technology, like, you know, crypto has to be a no brainer for you to want to spend time there when you're just seeing these exponential curves around like AI or VR, like we were talking about before metaverse or all these other bits.
00;48;18;22 - 00;48;22;25
Aaron
So I do think that that's important and should bring some people back to start building again.
00;48;22;27 - 00;48;45;21
Chris
I definitely no, I, I feel that I hear it what we what we had really was people whose dream was to be such a DJ gen that they were going to run off to Bali and buy a girlfriend, or hey, I'm just buying art and my goal is to get into the Whitney, right? Like those two sides of the full one didn't give a shit about the law, and the other one was like, hey, look, I'm totally fine because all I'm doing is buying art here, right?
00;48;45;21 - 00;48;53;22
Chris
And then everyone in that middle, you know, can just look at it like enforcement enforcement actions, like stoner cats and just be like, oh my God, f this.
00;48;53;22 - 00;49;12;15
Aaron
Yeah, completely. And you know, you know, I give it to, you know, the folks that we're building right in that middle, that they, they were willing to, you know, kind of do that with some ambiguity. But I think that that's a tall ask for, for everyday folks. But I think it's coming, you know, I think we're, we're seeing we're, we're seeing that come into place.
00;49;12;16 - 00;49;28;07
Aaron
We're seeing kind of that middle start to get repopulated. And, and hopefully people have forgotten about the excesses of 2021 or they didn't get involved in like the meme coin mania, fraud, grift, whatever, whatever that is. Yeah. And and can kind of build a fresh eyes.
00;49;28;10 - 00;49;47;16
Pri
I'm looking forward to that. That's really cool. The fun stuff was I also like think about even communities like FWB and those communities in the last cycle that were like these token cherry communities or even other DAOs like fingerprints and plays are like one of those communities look like. If you could recreate them today with the new tools that exist.
00;49;47;16 - 00;50;01;19
Pri
So if you have something like if you have, you know, with the AI tools, we have these like VR environments, like what does that you know, it's not going to be just like a this like if you had to recreate FWB to it wouldn't be a discord community. It might be.
00;50;01;24 - 00;50;05;27
Chris
Hidden gated governance in discord. Yeah, maybe we are.
00;50;06;04 - 00;50;27;17
Pri
Yeah. It's just like it would be like something entirely different. Like maybe it would even be like some AI agent on Twitter that like, invites people that are all like minded. Like, you could just imagine social networks that are, like, driven by, agents or at least kickstarted and organized by AI rather than just like a people. A bunch of people like screaming in discord.
00;50;27;17 - 00;50;30;24
Pri
I don't know, just like to think about that. And, you know, it is an.
00;50;30;24 - 00;51;02;25
Chris
Interesting thing to ponder on because in reality, like the way all those communities ultimately functioned was this weird mixed mash, mixed mash of hey, we're just vibes are just a bunch of people who are all into the same thing. Isn't this awesome? And then the practical implementation of it really was like this very strict crypto economic governance and like these apps that totally killed the mood and look, it was understandable, I think, in the approach, because no one really knew what the hell they were doing.
00;51;02;27 - 00;51;25;27
Chris
And, you know, all they really had to look at was, you know, kind of DeFi and this whole quote code is law wing of the world, who were, you know, trying out these governance experiments. We need we need something and a half happy middle ground. And maybe the lessons of meme coins, really. You know, that's why meme coins took off and sold so much faith is that they asked so little, and yet they carry the same implicit benefits.
00;51;25;27 - 00;51;37;15
Chris
The numbers go up and so I think the challenge is how do you turn these knobs and these dials such in a way that being part of a vibe community also doesn't feel like taking on a second job?
00;51;37;19 - 00;51;38;14
Pri
That's true.
00;51;38;16 - 00;51;55;16
Aaron
But there I think like the AI stuff is there is is there too. And I do see like people kicking around and talking about like dial down automation a bit. And I do feel like there's like a, like an overlap between some of those conversations about building a viable community, you know, automation like the AI bits and then also the NFT stuff.
00;51;55;19 - 00;52;09;14
Aaron
So I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised if that all gets remixed. And, you know, somebody comes up with a better way to distribute like NFTs, whether, you know, something that's not auctioned is now like first come, first serve. There is like more isolation from media.
00;52;09;15 - 00;52;14;18
Pri
Like depending on your social media, you qualify for a white list based on what the AI thinks of you're.
00;52;14;21 - 00;52;15;21
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, that bit.
00;52;15;28 - 00;52;17;15
Pri
Of your Twitter profile.
00;52;17;18 - 00;52;20;14
Aaron
Are you advocating for something cool? Yeah.
00;52;20;17 - 00;52;29;26
Chris
He wants the bots to recognize her. He's been out there hustling and putting in work. Yeah, he's been starting generating discourse. You need some machines to recognize.
00;52;30;03 - 00;52;44;09
Pri
Yeah, I need I need you guys to think that I am. I'm good enough to mint some sort of sick NFT and put me on your automated wait list. Like there are, you can imagine things like that where you have, like, yeah, completely carry that community.
00;52;44;14 - 00;52;57;29
Aaron
Where you have a blue check, right? Like you have X number of, you know, network followers, you can all kind of join. I think that's actually a great idea. Should we build it to recode it with GPT five this weekend?
00;52;58;02 - 00;53;19;14
Chris
We could. Let's do it. I got my own project all weekend. You guys over tribute run. This is a skunkworks. I'm. I'm already in enough trouble for the time I'm sending it to machines. I think another thing to consider, and all of this is not creating honeypot. And people got to be really, really aware of like, look at nouns.
00;53;19;15 - 00;53;43;05
Chris
I think now and this is a quintessential honeypot that, you know, once it reached a certain that Treasury reach a certain level of value, Arbitrageurs came out of the woodwork and made it a singular focus and really dragged that whole thing down. And so it's a double edged sword, obviously. Like if you want to attract community, if you want to get that flywheel going, you know, the easiest way to do it is to create value.
00;53;43;05 - 00;54;00;06
Chris
At the same time, when you do create that value, you bring on all these other like second order effects that just completely prevent you from, you know, proliferating the meme. Like, how are you percolating a meme when half your time is spent, you know, dealing with, fighting off people who just want to raid the Treasury?
00;54;00;08 - 00;54;02;05
Pri
Now it's like the core issue.
00;54;02;07 - 00;54;20;28
Aaron
I think that your point there is a good one. Like if you do kind of qualify to join based on some other metric that isn't financial. I do think that I think that's what FWB got. They got it right. They got it right there. I think what what was challenging with that was just like the volatility of your C20 token, right.
00;54;20;28 - 00;54;42;25
Aaron
Like it just it's really hard to keep people like aligned. And that way I feel like that's the difference between like the punk community where it kind of organically grew and people, you know, obviously choose to spend a tremendous amount of ether to join that, join that community. But but they do. Right? So and that's been, I think, one of the more stable online communities, which is pretty wild.
00;54;42;27 - 00;54;44;05
Pri
I think. So, yeah.
00;54;44;07 - 00;54;44;29
Aaron
Yeah.
00;54;45;02 - 00;55;04;11
Pri
I mean, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, we have to wrap up the part, but I've been thinking a lot about French tech because I actually think directionally it was actually not a bad idea. It just got totally crippled by over financialisation. And like, if you add layers of, you know, AI for the curation of those groups, like it was, it could could potentially be different today than maybe when it launched.
00;55;04;11 - 00;55;08;07
Pri
But anyways, I think there is something there. I just don't think anyone's made it.
00;55;08;07 - 00;55;38;26
Chris
Yeah, a lot of we leave the episode right there with that big challenge floating around out there. How do you create a viable community without turning it into work, turning it into, expected of any port who rises and falls? Or if it doesn't fall, it gets raided. You know, I think that's one of those challenges. There is either the thing holds value and then people want to tear that value out or everyone goes on this, oh my God, my vibe community gives me a net worth and six figures now.
00;55;38;26 - 00;55;46;08
Chris
Holy shit. And then that crashes. And then, you know, they're all disillusioned. Like, how do you walk that line is is the gazillion dollar question.
00;55;46;12 - 00;55;52;13
Pri
Agree when we can let's workshop it. I'm going to start thinking about it. I'll put together a doc.
00;55;52;16 - 00;55;59;18
Chris
Put together a spreadsheet for me and embed the spreadsheet in Figma, and then get me on a zoom free. Oh, get me on teams.
00;55;59;20 - 00;56;02;04
Aaron
Oh, let's go, let's go.
00;56;02;06 - 00;56;02;24
Pri
Oh, we can work.
00;56;02;24 - 00;56;09;23
Chris
I want my metaverse. Team Asians to look at Figma to see your spreadsheet forecasts as well.
00;56;09;26 - 00;56;10;05
Pri
Words.
00;56;10;06 - 00;56;16;01
Aaron
Metaverse, by the way is that your what you call it the like tech the tech industries deep state.
00;56;16;01 - 00;56;32;13
Chris
So you say bureaucracy a DC bureaucracy of big tech that that's how they want to turn the metaverse into. I mean that really for a minute. You know, when Zuck rolled that version of the metaverse, I wouldn't it was matter if there was. Yeah. I mean, you could see the.
00;56;32;15 - 00;56;34;00
Pri
They would have arm.
00;56;34;02 - 00;56;36;22
Aaron
No divs. Nobody needs arms in the metaverse.
00;56;36;26 - 00;56;41;01
Pri
Because you probably liked it because you for some reason hate the thumbs, hands and arm.
00;56;41;03 - 00;56;49;03
Aaron
I don't hate thumbs, hands and arms. I just you know, there's going to be something that happens around a robot and thumbs, and you guys will think of this moment.
00;56;49;09 - 00;56;58;04
Pri
Actually, just think about the photo of Kim Kardashian having her fingers laced with the Tesla robot. It's like really creepy. I'm skeptical.
00;56;58;07 - 00;57;00;29
Aaron
There's just something else about that that it feels.
00;57;00;29 - 00;57;03;18
Pri
It feels a little subtle. Uncanny valley for sure.
00;57;03;21 - 00;57;06;18
Aaron
Completely. Okay. Should we call it.
00;57;06;21 - 00;57;07;23
Chris
Let's end with an intro.
00;57;07;29 - 00;57;45;15
Pri
Oh, yes. Welcome to Net Society. Today you have me, Aaron, Chris and Derek. We're here every week to talk internet culture, memes, digital art, AI, and more. Just as a quick reminder, these thoughts and views are our own and not of our employer. Let's get it going.