Thread by @Tocelot

👇 Thread: As we spend more time in virtual worlds, the way we socialize will also evolve

We'll see:
- new forms of social engagement 🍻
- new types of friendships 🧑‍🤝‍🧑
- more spontaneity 🎢
- enabled by new content models 🎦🎮

We break it down here!
bit.ly/2VZ2sdC

1/ In the Metaverse - with worlds at our fingertips, socializing will shift from the purposeful "what" to the people-centric "who"
From 🏈 -> 🧑‍🦱

2/ Today the majority of digital entertainment, from TV to music to games, is made by professionals and is largely single-player, i.e. your @netflix show doesn't change when you watch it with friends 📺

3/ Games have done the most in multiplayer entertainment, millions use @Fortnitegame @Warcraft as social hangouts. Yet even these worlds are constrained by the supply of content a professional studio can create 🎬

4/ To build the Metaverse, our content production model first needs to evolve. And as we adopt new ways of creating content, we also unlock new social experiences

5/ We've seen user-generated content explode on platforms like @Youtube @TikTok_us

UGC can cost-effectively scale content production. Youtube creators upload 500+ hours of video every min - a feat not possible with professionally produced video [source: blog.youtube/press]

6/ Yet UGC has its own challenges:
- raising the quality bar can be challenging
- only a small # of people have the skills to be a creator today. Ex. Unity only has 1.5M monthly creators, a fraction of the 2.5B+ gamer population [source: Unity S-1]

7/ AI-assisted human creation will be the next major evolution of content creation. Everyone can be a creator with the help of AI tools that translate instructions into assets, doing the heavy lifting of coding, writing, composing, etc

8/ Early glimpses here are intriguing. @LifeScoreMusic is an AI maestro that dynamically composes music on the fly. @rctstudio is creating an engine that uses deep learning to render text into animated 3D objects

Demo 👇 of "there is a man walking"

9/ As AI takes on a greater role in content creation, both the quantity and quality of UGC will improve. Eventually our virtual worlds will reach Metaverse-level scale 🌐

10/ I believe the Metaverse will be "YouTube for social experiences" - a place where users can meet and discover new experiences spontaneously. Just as you don't plan your agenda on YouTube or Tiktok, so the Metaverse will encourage spontaneous exploration 🎢

11/ New social experiences will emerge that are both spontaneous and interactive - @Facebook @Genvidtech recently revealed @RivalPeak - a reality TV show featuring AI-powered virtual contestants where the audience votes to determine their actions in real-time

12/ Our friends themselves will evolve in the Metaverse as well 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

With advances in natural language processing and cloud-connected data, AI friendships become a real possibility in a world where folks feel increasingly lonely

13/ Sound farfetched? @ReplikaAI has already created an emotionally intelligent AI bot that 7M+ people engage with today. @pandorabots is live in several commercial apps. @studio_fable is building Lucy, an animated AI character you can video chat with on Zoom

Wrap/ In the same way the digital social experiences of today have become first-nature, so too, will new forms of engagement and friendships in the Metaverse

For more thoughts on the future of social, check out the rest of our social strikes back series!
a16z.com/social-strikes…