Some signs that Meta may be playing nice

Presented by Ericsson: How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

Oct 12, 2022 View in browser   By Derek Robertson Presented by Ericsson Mark Zuckerberg. | AP Meta had a big news day yesterday, showing off its new Quest Pro headset meant to push virtual reality tech forward to the center of our digital lives. Meta has also, as you might have noticed, had a big few news weeks — or months even — not all of it positive. There was the hiring freeze. And the FTC lawsuit. And the pushy memos that seemed to indicate the company is having a hard time getting even its own employees to use the virtual reality products that are supposed to be its future. A year into its wildly ambitious rebrand and push toward developing the metaverse, how far has Meta come — and what does it all mean for our (potential) virtual future? It's an article of faith in the tech world that Meta and the metaverse are not the same thing. A shared 3D internet can develop with or without Mark Zuckerberg. But the ups and downs of the company most associated with the idea are a pretty good indicator of some of the emerging tension points — and possibly a hint at where we're all heading. One big question is whether the metaverse will really just be a bunch of corporate bubbles, walled-off Zuckerbergian virtual Walt Disney Worlds built to capture ad money or subscription dollars. The fear that Meta will drive things in that direction is widespread,, but a year into its development project, it's not clear at all that's happening — or, if it is, it's not Zuckerberg pushing in that direction. Meta has enthusiastically joined groups like the Metaverse Standards Forum , meant to smooth out development kinks for VR tech across platforms and companies, and announced a couple of big collaborations with would-be competitors at yesterday's event. I spoke yesterday with Matthew Kanterman, formerly a metaverse-focused researcher for Bloomberg and now the director of research for the entrepreneur Matthew Ball's metaverse-focused ETF. "Seeing even [an organization] like Meta, which historically has built kind of walled gardens, work with partners like Microsoft or Accenture and talk about interoperability and how they can open up their platform to other developers is really encouraging," he said. On the contrary, it's fellow tech giants Google and Apple that have so far declined to join organizations like the Metaverse Standards Forum and kept their VR-focused cards close to their chest. Kanterman, a believer in the interoperable vision of the metaverse laid out in Ball's influential online "primer" and recent book , described how the lines of conflict and competition are being drawn and where they might lead. "This is the existential and almost theological debate that's going on, and I do think they need to open up," Kanterman said, invoking the relatively open platform of Roblox as a point of comparison. "If they want to make it a destination not just for people to hang out, but for creators to build stuff, they need to open up, make it open standards-based, and make the technology available to as many people as possible." If there's a more profit-minded incentive for Meta to play nice in a way not traditionally common to American business, it might be because the tech giant needs more gamers to boost its bottom line. Amid the company's current financial woes, another major announcement the company made yesterday was that it would be bringing Microsoft's game library to its VR headsets — especially notable given Microsoft's acquisition of the video game giant Activision Blizzard earlier this year. "That's a really powerful draw for a lot of people to buy the headsets and come into the ecosystem, and it was unexpected," Kanterman said. So as Meta might be leading the pack with its branding and willingness to dump billions of dollars into research for a product it's not at all certain a large number of people might actually use yet, its success might be contingent on bringing companies that could change that equation along for the ride — not totally subsuming them, like the FTC has accused them of doing with a workout app company. In this model, Meta spends its vast hoard to build the powerful technology necessary for the metaverse while other companies agree to share the components that will make people actually want to spend time there, everyone becoming very rich in the process. In that light, Meta's move to dominate the metaverse is starting to look like something very different from a prime mover seeking out a monopoly, but not altogether unheard of in American business history: A collective action project.   A message from Ericsson: Celebrate World Standards Day on October 14th. Standards are critical to technological innovation – they're why cell phone users can call each other on different handsets, why IoT devices from several manufacturers can connect across a network and more. They are at the heart of the accelerated innovation cycle in telecom, and Ericsson has played a leading role in standardization bodies like 3GPP. Learn more.   business and ai The White House's new "AI Bill of Rights" has a somewhat unexpectedly vocal critic: The Chamber of Commerce. As POLITICO's Brendan Bordelon reported first in Morning Tech today for Pro subscribers, the Chamber sent a letter to the Office of Science and Technology Policy yesterday protesting that the voluntary principles the document sets out could lead to a slew of confusing or conflicting state and local regulations — specifically that policymakers are "in danger of recreating the dreaded 'patchwork' of state privacy laws," as Brendan wrote. (They're also, somewhat more predictably, unhappy with the amount of industry feedback the White House incorporated, saying in the letter that the process "lacked the openness and transparency necessary to receive sufficient stakeholder input about these complex issues.") In Friday's edition of DFD, the AI researcher Oren Etzioni, a member of the Biden Administration's National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force, emphasized that the principles in the so-called "Bill of Rights" are "neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive" — exactly, it seems, the kind of ambiguity that's worrying the companies hoping to put AI-powered products on the market.   A message from Ericsson:   the world takes on crypto The Group of 20 meeting in Washington this week is well underway, and there's been no shortage of the promised crypto recommendations from global finance regulators. Most notably, the Financial Stability Board — set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis — thinks that the massive crypto exchanges like Binance or FTX that offer multiple types of financial products deserve a closer look from regulators, as laid out in a nearly 80-page document the board published yesterday. Along with a list of eight other recommendations that would bring the crypto market more in line with traditional finance, the FSB recommends "crypto-asset service providers that combine multiple functions and activities… [should be] subject to regulation, supervision and oversight that comprehensively address the risks associated with individual functions as well as the risks arising from the combination of functions." Which is a mouthful, but pretty much in line with the recommendations of tough-talking crypto skeptics in Washington — including the Treasury's Financial Stability Oversight Council, which made similar recommendations in a report earlier this month.   SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY.     the future in 5 links A startup is claiming it can sequence an individual's genome for just $100. The Commerce Department has exempted a key South Korean chipmaker from its recent sanctions on China-based producers. Take a day to actually work in Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse. Speaking of whom, the Meta chief promised stringent VR privacy protections in a new interview. What if the problem with AI systems is that they're just gullible? Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger (bschreckinger@politico.com); Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Steve Heuser (sheuser@politico.com); and Benton Ives (bives@politico.com). Follow us @DigitalFuture on Twitter. Ben Schreckinger covers tech, finance and politics for POLITICO; he is an investor in cryptocurrency. If you've had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up and read our mission statement at the links provided.   A message from Ericsson: On World Standards Day, celebrate an unsung aspect of innovation. Standards are an often underappreciated aspect of technology development – they are critical to the progress of innovation in telecommunications and are why the industry has gone from 2G to 5G and beyond in just a few short years. Ericsson has helped lead the development of those standards, and on World Standards Day, we reflect on why standards matter, and why a strong patent system is so critical to keeping the cycle of innovation moving forward. Learn more.     STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president's ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.       Follow us on Twitter Ben Schreckinger @SchreckReports Derek Robertson @afternoondelete Steve Heuser @sfheuser Benton Ives @BentonIves   Follow us

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