2023-04-12 10:26:29
Controv3rse publishes the directory guide of the 800 most dynamic actors of the metaverse and Web3 and announces a new video series for YouTube: hack capitalism. Interview with Vincent Lorphelin, initiator of the European Think Tank Controv3rse.
Virtual and augmented realities, digital twins, Web3, blockchain, crypto, NFT and generative AI… A powerful wave of digital transformations is underway. Stuck between enthusiasm and distrust, technophiles and technophobes, the debates are struggling to settle. Organizing the debate is precisely the objective of Controv3rse, the first Think Tank of European metaverses. Interview with Vincent Lorphelin, entrepreneur, co-president of the Institut de l’Iconomie and founder of the European Think Tank Controv3rse who wants to shape the future of the metaverse.
Introduce us to Controv3rse…
Vincent Lorphelin: Controv3rse is a Think Thank that brings together 70 entrepreneurs, economists and metaverse experts. We want to bring entrepreneurs together with economists, but also other experts – lawyers, designers, programmers, artists, students, professors… – to animate this ecosystem. The idea is to ensure that Controv3rse, which is currently a Think Tank, becomes a movement that promotes French and European values: creating a new regenerative rather than extractive economy.
Why this directory guide, and what does it contain?
VL: It is important for an ecosystem to become aware of its existence in order to revitalize itself. To produce our directory guide, we have therefore identified the 800 most active people taking part in the public debate, whether in conferences, events, projects and publications relating to metaverses, in the broadest sense.
What are the issues ?
VL: If we look at the major periods of human progress, such as the Renaissance or the Belle Époque, we see that they are structured through several phases: technological thrust, innovation, economic progress and finally societal progress. Today, metaverse and Web3, are stuck somewhere between innovation and economic progress. Powerful ideas are theorized like thecircular economy, functional economy, cooperative economy, but they are difficult to spread. Things get stuck at the practical level. There is this desire for a regenerative economy, but the debate is poorly expressed, the concepts are poorly matured and the ideas are muddled. This results in a feeling of powerlessness, of revolt. Our objective is to gather energies by giving them a constructive dynamic.
The video series hack capitalism is therefore destined to embody this regenerative economy?
VL: When we invented modern capitalism 200 years ago, we imagined that nature was free. And we realize, 200 years later, that not only is it not free, but it is starting to charge us. And it’s not going to work out. We missed a bit of DNA of what capitalism was supposed to be at the start. To hack capitalism is to go back to the origin of the system to redirect it, repair it and reinvent it. The idea is not to be anti-capitalist, because it has improved the condition of billions of human beings, but to use technology to build not only innovations, but more broadly economic and social progress.
Why go through a fiction to do foresight?
VL: Foresight is a scientific approach that aims to develop desirable or undesirable scenarios. Dystopian visions are the most numerous but the prospective towards a desirable but realistic world is more complicated to bring out. This is what we want to highlight. The objective is to promote the words of entrepreneurs and experts to embody a vision of a “natively” sustainable economy. They will be offered to project themselves into a future world in which their entrepreneurial project will have taken on substance and will have a real influence on the new economic system.
What is a “natively” sustainable economy?
VL: The concept of sustainable economy is well known and has even been included in the UN’s sustainable development goals. To put it simply: capitalism has undesirable effects that must be regulated. The notion of “natively” sustainable economy is an entrepreneurial approach that is part of product design, in a perspective with a desirable future.. Achieving this natively sustainable economy requires innovation. Innovations which, taken end to end, make it possible to build a desirable collective vision.
What is blocking the transition to the implementation of the metaverse and Web3?
VL: Technology and innovation are always a transgression at the start. No one dreams of having medical big data. What people want is to be healthier. Technology or innovation as such is most often received negatively first because they cause fear. They don’t always find their audience instantly. It is a constant phenomenon. We are currently seeing this with artificial intelligence, which is facing massive rejection. It feeds the sellers of apocalypse and those who like catastrophism but it does not advance the public debate. For what ? Because the notion of artificial intelligence comes into opposition with that of human intelligence. Let’s remember Cédric Villani’s report “Giving meaning to artificial intelligence, for a national and European strategy” which ended in a flop. If we had organized the debates around the notion of statistical computing, as a tool at the service of collective intelligence, we would have played down the subject. The period between the emergence of a technology and its use as a new tool is a critical moment. Once the benefits are felt, we focus on the uses and forget the technologies. In this intermediate moment, it is necessary to organize the debate.
How to organize a serene public debate?
VL: By thinking about uses and the society that emerges from these uses. This is the goal of the video series hack capitalism : projecting oneself towards a desirable future and embodying a collective vision thanks to the words of entrepreneurs who, as social actors, have the role of turn technology into benefits for society.
There is a daily fight to be waged against the immobility of institutions, against the omnipotence and hubris of certain tech “gurus” or against the “morgue” of certain technophobes. Hubris and mortuary are useless. We must always put ourselves in a perspective of societal progress. Today, the collective vision regarding Web3 is broken. This is precisely what we want to contribute to with our two projects. We therefore give an appointment to entrepreneurs who wish to participate in this vision as co-builders on Thursday, May 04 for the launch party. It is also during this evening that the filming of our series will begin and that the first entrepreneurs will be interviewed. Free registration.
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