0:00:01.206,0:00:02.476
Hello.

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My name is Herman,

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and I've always been struck[br]by how the most important, impactful,

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tsunami-like changes[br]to our culture and our society

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always come from those things

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that we least think[br]are going to have that impact.

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I mean, as a computer scientist,

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I remember when Facebook[br]was just image-sharing in dorm rooms,

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and depending upon who you ask,

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it's now involved in toppling elections.

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I remember when cryptocurrency[br]or automated trading

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were sort of ideas by a few renegades

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in the financial institutions[br]in the world for automated trading,

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or online, for cryptocurrency,

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and they're now coming to quickly shape[br]the way that we operate.

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And I think each of you[br]can recall that moment

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where one of these ideas felt[br]like some ignorable, derisive thing,

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and suddenly, oh, crap,[br]the price of Bitcoin is what it is.

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Or, oh, crap, guess who's been elected.

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The reality is that, you know,[br]from my perspective,

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I think that we're about[br]to encounter that again.

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And I think one of the biggest,

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most impactful changes[br]in the way we live our lives,

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to the ways we're educated,

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probably even to how we end up[br]making an income,

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is about to come not from AI,

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not from space travel or biotech --

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these are all very important[br]future inventions --

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but in the next five years,

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I think it's going to come[br]from video games.

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So that's a bold claim, OK.

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I see some skeptical faces[br]in the audience.

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But if we take a moment

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to try to look at what video games[br]are already becoming in our lives today,

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and what just a little bit[br]of technological advancement

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is about to create,

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it starts to become[br]more of an inevitability.

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And I think the possibilities[br]are quite electrifying.

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So let's just take a moment[br]to think about scale.

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I mean, there's already[br]2.6 billion people who play games.

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And the reality is that's a billion more[br]than five years ago.

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A billion more people in that time.

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No religion, no media,[br]nothing has spread like that.

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And there's likely to be a billion more

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when Africa and India[br]gain the infrastructure

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to sort of fully realize[br]the possibilities of gaming.

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But what I find really special is --[br]and this often shocks a lot of people --

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is that the average age of a gamer,[br]like, have a guess, think about it.

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It's not six, it's not 18, it's not 12.

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It's 34.

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[Average age of an American gamer]

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It's older than me.

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And that tells us something,

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that this isn't entertainment[br]for children anymore.

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This is already a medium[br]like literature or anything else

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that's becoming a fundamental[br]part of our lives.

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One stat I like is that people[br]who generally picked up gaming

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in the last sort of 15, 20 years

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generally don't stop.

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Something changed in the way[br]that this medium is organized.

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And more than that,[br]it's not just play anymore, right?

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You've heard some examples today,

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but people are earning[br]an income playing games.

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And not in the obvious ways.

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Yes, there's e-sports, there's prizes,

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there's the opportunity to make money[br]in a competitive way.

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But there's also people earning incomes[br]modding games, building content in them,

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doing art in them.

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I mean, there's something at a scale[br]akin to the Florentine Renaissance,

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happening on your kid's iPhone[br]in your living room.

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And it's being ignored.

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Now, what's even more exciting for me[br]is what's about to happen.

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And when you think about gaming,

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you're probably already imagining

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that it features these massive,[br]infinite worlds,

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but the truth is,

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games have been deeply limited[br]for a very long time

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in a way that kind of we in the industry

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have tried very hard to cover up[br]with as much trickery as possible.

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The metaphor I like to use,[br]if you'd let me geek out for a moment,

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is the notion of a theater.

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For the last 10 years,

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games have massively advanced[br]the visual effects,

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the physical immersion,[br]the front end of games.

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But behind the scenes,

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the actual experiential reality[br]of a game world

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has remained woefully limited.

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I'll put that in perspective for a moment.

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I could leave this theater right now,

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I could do some graffiti,[br]get in a fight, fall in love.

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I might actually do[br]all of those things after this,

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but the point is that all of that[br]would have consequence.

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It would ripple through reality --

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all of you could interact with that[br]at the same time.

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It would be persistent.

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And those are very important qualities[br]to what makes the real world real.

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Now, behind the scenes in games,

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we've had a limit for a very long time.

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And the limit is, behind the visuals,

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the actual information being exchanged[br]between players or entities

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in a single game world

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has been deeply bounded

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by the fact that games[br]mostly take place on a single server

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or a single machine.

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Even The World of Warcraft[br]is actually thousands of smaller worlds.

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When you hear about concerts in Fortnite,

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you're actually hearing[br]about thousands of small concerts.

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You know, individual,[br]as was said earlier today,

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campfires or couches.

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There isn't really this possibility[br]to bring it all together.

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Let's take a moment to just[br]really understand what that means.

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When you look at a game,[br]you might see this, beautiful visuals,

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all of these things[br]happening in front of you.

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But behind the scenes in an online game,

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this is what it looks like.

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To a computer scientist,

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all you see is just[br]a little bit of information

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being exchanged by a tiny handful[br]of meaningful entities or objects.

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You might be thinking,[br]"I've played in an infinite world."

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Well it's more that you've played[br]on a treadmill.

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As you've been walking through that world,

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we've been cleverly causing the parts[br]of it that you're not in to vanish,

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and the parts of it[br]in front of you to appear.

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A good trick, but not the basis[br]for the revolution

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that I promised you[br]in the beginning of this talk.

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But the reality is, for those of you[br]that are passionate gamers

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and might be excited about this,

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and for those of you[br]that are afraid and may not be,

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all of that is about to change.

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Because finally,[br]the technology is in place

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to go well beyond the limits[br]that we've previously seen.

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I've dedicated my career to this,

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there are many others[br]working on the problem --

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I'd hardly take credit for it myself,

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but we're at the point now[br]where we can finally

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do this impossible hard thing

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of weaving together thousands[br]of disparate machines

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into single simulations

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that are convenient enough[br]to not be one-offs,

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but to be buildable by anybody.

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And to be at the point

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where we can start to experience[br]those things that we can't yet fathom.

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Let's just take a moment[br]to visualize that.

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I'm talking about not individual[br]little simulations

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but a massive possibility[br]of huge networks of interaction.

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Massive global events[br]that can happen inside that.

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Things that even in the real world

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become challenging to produce[br]at that kind of scale.

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And I know some of you are gamers,

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so I'm going to show you[br]some footage of some things

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that I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to do,[br]from some of our partners.

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TED and me had a back-and-forth on this.

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These are a few things[br]that not many people have seen before,

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some new experiences[br]powered by this type of technology.

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I'll just [take] a moment[br]to show you some of this stuff.

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This is a single game world

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with thousands of simultaneous[br]people participating in a conflict.

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It also has its own ecosystem,

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its own sense of predator and prey.

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Every single object you see here[br]is simulated in some way.

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This is a game being built by one[br]of the biggest companies in the world,

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NetEase, a huge Chinese company.

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And they've made[br]an assistant creative simulation

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where groups of players[br]can cocreate together,

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across multiple devices,

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in a world that doesn't vanish[br]when you're done.

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It's a place to tell stories[br]and have adventures.

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Even the weather is simulated.

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And that's kind of awesome.

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And this is my personal favorite.

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This is a group of people,[br]pioneers in Berlin,

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a group called Klang Games,

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and they're completely insane,[br]and they'll love me for saying that.

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And they found a way to model,[br]basically, an entire planet.

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They're going to have a simulation[br]with millions of non-player characters

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and players engaging.

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They actually grabbed Lawrence Lessig

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to help understand[br]the political ramifications

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of the world they're creating.

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This is the sort of astounding[br]set of experiences,

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well beyond what we might have imagined,

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that are now going to be possible.

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And that's just the first step[br]in this technology.

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So if we step beyond that, what happens?

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Well, computer science[br]tends to be all exponential,

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once we crack the really hard problems.

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And I'm pretty sure that very soon,

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we're going to be in a place[br]where we can make

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this type of computational power[br]look like nothing.

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And when that happens,[br]the opportunities ...

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It's worth taking a moment to try[br]to imagine what I'm talking about here.

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Hundreds of thousands[br]or millions of people

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being able to coinhabit the same space.

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The last time any of us as a species

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had the opportunity[br]to build or do something together

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with that may people was in antiquity.

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And the circumstances[br]were less than optimal, shall we say.

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Mostly conflicts or building pyramids.

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Not necessarily the best thing for us[br]to be spending our time doing.

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But if you bring together[br]that many people,

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the kind of shared experience[br]that can create ...

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I think it exercises a social muscle in us

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that we've lost and forgotten.

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Going even beyond that,

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I want to take a moment[br]to think about what it means

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for relationships, for identity.

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If we can give each other worlds,[br]experiences at scale

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where we can spend[br]a meaningful amount of our time,

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we can change what it means[br]to be an individual.

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We can go beyond a single identity

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to a diverse set of personal identities.

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The gender, the race,[br]the personality traits you were born with

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might be something you want[br]to experiment differently with.

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You might be someone[br]that wants to be more than one person.

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We all are, inside, multiple people.

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We rarely get[br]the opportunity to flex that.

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It's also about empathy.

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I have a grandmother

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who I have literally[br]nothing in common with.

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I love her to bits,

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but every story she has begins in 1940[br]and ends sometime in 1950.

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And every story I have[br]is like 50 years later.

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But if we could coinhabit,

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co-experience things together,

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that undiminished by physical frailty[br]or by lack of context,

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create opportunities together,

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that changes things,[br]that bonds people in different ways.

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I'm struck by how social media[br]has amplified our many differences,

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and really made us more who we are[br]in the presence of other people.

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I think games could really start to create

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an opportunity for us to empathize again.

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To have shared adversity,[br]shared opportunity.

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I mean, statistically,[br]at this moment in time,

0:09:21.913,0:09:25.652
there are people who are[br]on the opposite sides of a conflict,

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who have been matchmade[br]together into a game

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and don't even know it.

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That's an incredible opportunity[br]to change the way we look at things.

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Finally, for those of you who perhaps are[br]more cynical about all of this,

0:09:36.584,0:09:39.977
who maybe don't think that virtual worlds[br]and games are your cup of tea.

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There's a reality you have to accept,

0:09:41.810,0:09:44.739
and that is that the economic impact[br]of what I'm talking about

0:09:44.763,0:09:45.921
will be profound.

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Right now, thousands of people[br]have full-time jobs in gaming.

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Soon, it will be millions of people.

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Wherever there's a mobile phone,[br]there will be a job.

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An opportunity for something[br]that is creative and rich

0:09:57.093,0:09:59.823
and gives you an income,[br]no matter what country you're in,

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no matter what skills or opportunities[br]you might think you have.

0:10:03.244,0:10:05.887
Probably the first dollar[br]most kids born today make

0:10:05.911,0:10:07.093
might be in a game.

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That will be the new paper route,

0:10:08.752,0:10:10.927
that will be the new[br]opportunity for an income

0:10:10.951,0:10:12.574
at the earliest time in your life.

0:10:12.598,0:10:16.462
So I kind of want to end[br]with almost a plea,

0:10:16.486,0:10:18.438
really, more than thoughts.

0:10:18.836,0:10:21.711
A sense of, I think, how we need[br]to face this new opportunity

0:10:21.735,0:10:24.078
a little differently[br]to some we have in the past.

0:10:24.102,0:10:26.434
It's so hypocritical[br]for yet another technologist

0:10:26.458,0:10:27.864
to stand up on stage and say,

0:10:27.888,0:10:30.281
"The future will be great,[br]technology will fix it."

0:10:30.305,0:10:32.804
And the reality is,[br]this is going to have downsides.

0:10:32.828,0:10:34.974
But those downsides will only be amplified

0:10:34.998,0:10:38.371
if we approach, once again,[br]with cynicism and derision,

0:10:38.395,0:10:40.228
the opportunities that this presents.

0:10:40.252,0:10:42.299
The worst thing that we could possibly do

0:10:42.323,0:10:44.318
is let the same four or five companies

0:10:44.342,0:10:47.339
end up dominating[br]yet another adjacent space.

0:10:47.363,0:10:49.728
(Applause)

0:10:49.752,0:10:53.918
Because they're not just going to define[br]how and who makes money from this.

0:10:53.942,0:10:57.878
The reality is, we're now talking[br]about defining how we think,

0:10:57.902,0:11:00.498
what the rules are[br]around identity and collaboration,

0:11:00.522,0:11:02.196
the rules of the world we live in.

0:11:02.220,0:11:04.156
This has got to be something we all own,

0:11:04.180,0:11:05.330
we all cocreate.

0:11:05.807,0:11:08.799
So, my final plea[br]is really to those engineers,

0:11:08.823,0:11:12.061
those scientists, those artists[br]in the audience today.

0:11:12.085,0:11:15.156
Maybe some of you dreamed[br]of working on space travel.

0:11:15.180,0:11:18.672
The reality is, there are worlds[br]you can build right here, right now,

0:11:18.696,0:11:20.672
that can transform people's lives.

0:11:20.696,0:11:23.379
There are still huge[br]technological frontiers

0:11:23.403,0:11:24.847
that need to be overcome here,

0:11:24.871,0:11:27.506
akin to those we faced[br]when building the early internet.

0:11:27.530,0:11:30.101
All the technology[br]behind virtual worlds is different.

0:11:30.125,0:11:31.737
So, my plea to you is this.

0:11:31.761,0:11:33.904
Let's engage, let's all engage,

0:11:33.928,0:11:37.754
let's actually try to make this something[br]that we shape in a positive way,

0:11:37.778,0:11:40.793
rather than once again have be done to us.

0:11:40.817,0:11:41.968
Thank you.

0:11:41.992,0:11:47.150
(Applause)