The “Unforeseeable” Matrix Future
Let’s talk about Matrix in the future.
Ever since Facebook rebranded as Meta and ambitiously announced the vision in developing Metaverse last year, we hate to say but (well, Facebook…), this paves limitless possibilities in the future. As most of us are still fighting for survival, an overwhelming craze has been around NFT (non-fungible tokens) over the past few months. Cryptocurrency, blockchain, virtual reality, digital scarcity, digital IP… All sorts of postmodernist fancy new terms overflow in news and social media every day. A dealer recently even paid $450,000 USD for a virtual land in the Metaverse. No wonder Keanu Reeves (casting Neo in the Matrix series) once said in the interview (about the game The Matrix Awakens): “You know, I feel like it’s the first time, in a long time that, that the real world is, most ahead of our science fiction. I mean, the whole idea of trying to pursue like, when can we make it photo-real, when can fool all of the deep fake fit technologies that are happening?”
Okay, you may say urgh, it seems a bit too late to talk about this now since the “fad” has already started for quite some time, but well, man, how do we make sense of this new upcoming reality-to-be, though?
Sound familiar? Yes, we checked our posts. In the past year, “unforeseeable”, “uncertain”, “unpredictable” used to be some of the words we kept citing from the book. But this time, this “unforeseeable” future is indeed “inspiring” and “hopeful”. “Inspiring” in the sense that the fad leads us to think about the synergies between all the hard chores we did last year putting things online and the essentials of face-to-face interactions; “hopeful” in the sense that we are expecting something great to come from the cutting-edge technologies, which could potentially “bring the Matrix into the workplace”, and that we no longer need to worry about the pandemic restrictions. And further, we can even visualise a virtual 3D space, connecting colleagues and friends up there, doing training, coaching work in your own virtual hub, physically anywhere, anytime in the world. But hey, what is it that excites us to “dream” about this “unforeseeable” future? Why is it so different from the past?
Like everyone said, NFT and all these are just a fad. We have no idea yet how would it go. Similar philosophies as last year – We have no idea how would the pandemic develop. But we see possibilities! In the interview, Keanu Reeves said that he was talking to three young girls, narrating the plot of his epic Matrix series. He emphasised the excellent postmodernist idea of the story, saying a guy in the story was struggling with which the virtual or the physical world is the “real-real” reality. The girls just replied, “does it matter?”
The message is clear. We don’t see the world as it is, and it is unnecessary to. Embrace it or not, the technology is evolving at an exponential rate (think about Agent Smith in the Matrix, who was a robot replicated uncontrollably on his own). Acknowledge the world is entering a new age and investigate the immense possibilities coming ahead are the things that cheer us. That was the same as we did last year. As more and more giant corporations and investors see the profits and possibilities on Metaverse, their investment will just drive this change so much faster. No matter how despicable or sceptical you feel about this new wave, there is a possibility that we have to accept it one day. The good thing is, it is still the same grand narratives in the workforce industry: We need our own compass in times of uncertainty. If we are to sail in the vast ocean, meaning, values, and purposes are the compass that guides us forward. Indeed, we cannot control the future, but we can navigate the decisions we make. We need an open and agile mindset in accepting the wildest change that the technologies lay in the future.
So what if the virtual world is more compelling than the “real” world in the future? Well, does it matter?
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In the upcoming days, let’s talk more about the possibilities in learning and development. The technology empowers the users to create, reverses the power authority between the distributors and audience, democratises the data sources… Simply thinking about it excites us.