Bill Gates predicts our work meetings will move to metaverse in 2-3 years

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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Oct 29, 2000
Messages
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This is about three weeks old at this point, but I just came across it, and I figured I'd share in case anyone else missed it.

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If this happens, I swear I'll quit.

I'd rather be unemployed and homeless, living under a bridge than ever work in this environment.

The most I want to see in my online meetings is someone else's screen share. Be it a Powerpoint, a Spreadsheet or a Word document, I don't care. I don't even want webcams. I don't need to ever see your stupid face. Lets focus on the work at hand, your screen share.

The rest of this bullshit can kindly sod off, permanently.

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Why does the world insist on just becoming dumber and dumber as time goes on?

I say it's time we burn it all down!

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LMAO I didn't hire a guy because he turned his camera on during the interview. Pretty much made my mind up immediately and then he started making weird faces when we asked him questions. Seriously folks don't turn that shit on unless you're asked/told to do so.
 
yea, gonna have to start phasing out the elders for newer younger fresh ideas soon. Meetings are usually a waste of time anyways, at least 70% of the duration is. I'd rather meetings just be online so i can keep doing actual work during it haha
 
yea, gonna have to start phasing out the elders for newer younger fresh ideas soon. Meetings are usually a waste of time anyways, at least 70% of the duration is. I'd rather meetings just be online so i can keep doing actual work during it haha

Not going to deny that a lot of people call meetings when there is no point in doing so, but that doesn't mean the concept of meeting is not important. There are many things that can be hashed out in a meeting much better than they can in a more indirect mode of communication.

If you have to have a meeting, I don't mind online meetings. I think they are great and more convenient. I don't at all get the concept of needing to see the other people you are meeting with. Cameras have no place in a remote meeting, IMHO, and 3d Avatars and headsets DEFINITELY don't.

Show me the data in your spreadsheet using a screenshare. That's the reason I am here, and the only thing I care to see.
 
If you have to have a meeting, I don't mind online meetings. I think they are great and more convenient. I don't at all get the concept of needing to see the other people you are meeting with. Cameras have no place in a remote meeting, IMHO, and 3d Avatars and headsets DEFINITELY don't.
Exactly, online meetings can be a great tool for communication, but audio-only is enough to get the job done along with screen sharing and 2D avatars.
This specific product might be more useful for doctors, patients, mental health therapy, and other visits that might need to be remote which could potentially bring a more comforting feeling to those involved depending on the nature of the online discussion.

3D avatars, virtual meeting rooms, and VR headsets are only going to be distractions and are totally inefficient for any professional workplace that takes itself seriously, though.
 
Exactly, online meetings can be a great tool for communication, but audio-only is enough to get the job done along with screen sharing and 2D avatars.
This specific product might be more useful for doctors, patients, mental health therapy, and other visits that might need to be remote which could potentially bring a more comforting feeling to those involved depending on the nature of the online discussion.

3D avatars, virtual meeting rooms, and VR headsets are only going to be distractions and are totally inefficient for any professional workplace that takes itself seriously, though.

I don't even see the need for avatars. In fact if I had to choose between avatars and pictures I'd just use a picture.

This is all anyone ever needs to see of me, and all I'd like to see of them:

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In fact, I'd rather dispense with the huge useless tiles and just have a list of the full names of everyone in the meeting in a side frame. These tiles are just a colossal waste of desktop real estate.
 
I don't even see the need for avatars. In fact if I had to choose between avatars and pictures I'd just use a picture.

This is all anyone ever needs to see of me, and all I'd like to see of them:

View attachment 428810

In fact, I'd rather dispense with the huge useless tiles and just have a list of the full names of everyone in the meeting in a side frame. These tiles are just a colossal waste of desktop real estate.
why have your own picture when you can be mostly naked avatar of Geralt of Rivia instead?
Or Zed from Zardoz, I mean there are so many options to just have fun with it.
 
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Not going to deny that a lot of people call meetings when there is no point in doing so, but that doesn't mean the concept of meeting is not important. There are many things that can be hashed out in a meeting much better than they can in a more indirect mode of communication.

If you have to have a meeting, I don't mind online meetings. I think they are great and more convenient. I don't at all get the concept of needing to see the other people you are meeting with. Cameras have no place in a remote meeting, IMHO, and 3d Avatars and headsets DEFINITELY don't.

Show me the data in your spreadsheet using a screenshare. That's the reason I am here, and the only thing I care to see.
Agreed. Having to see a face is a need to intimidate IMO. There doesn't have to be a personal connection to exchange ideas or to bring something to attention. If phone calls and emails are acceptable means of communication, then why are meetings some how treated as something different? And cameras just make it worse, you spend too much free thought time making sure you look at the camera and not just up your nose while trying to read the poorly zoomed in spreadsheet lol.
 
There doesn't have to be a personal connection to exchange ideas or to bring something to attention.

Don't ever tell a French person this. Business dealings are yet another way they are absolutely intolerable.

They refuse to get anything done until they feel you hvae somehow personally bonded. It is absolutely infuriating.
 
Honestly, text is and will probably always be the best communication platform. There is a reason we have video-phones in our pockets, that can connect to anyone in the world instantly, and we still use text messages for the most part.

I really don't want to see anyone's face. If you have something worth saying, just write it, I can read. Also, can't stand all those dudes on YouTube with their gaping mouth and wide eyes on the thumbnail. The internet has gone to shit.
 
We've been kind of developing this stuff internally for a while at my work, and I'm sure it will be put in to use some time.

Though the more stuff is the data that can be gotten through videos, engagement that ai tracks, all kinds of other things, though that's more for say customer based stuff, not necessary for team meetings. This is pretty much semi baked into a lot of the Webex/Teams stuff at the moment.

There are a TOOON of uses for vr/ar space for meetings. For the most part it's pretty much pointless for generic meetings, but there are great uses out there.
 
Though the more stuff is the data that can be gotten through videos, engagement that ai tracks, all kinds of other things, though that's more for say customer based stuff, not necessary for team meetings.

This is the type of stuff I think should be illegal.

I want my 90's world back, where data lies untapped and unutilized.

I'd support draconian regulation in this regard, that resulted in any company even remotely trying to collect and or monetize data being fined out of existence.
 
I want my 90's world back, where data lies untapped and unutilized.
I mean, in the 90s virtually everything was unencrypted and traffic could be trivially tapped along the way. Was as late as 2010-2013 when sites like Yahoo Mail and a few other major sites added HTTPS (IIRC even Facebook was among them), mostly it seems after Firesheep made cookie hijacking trivial for everyday people to try and it became a popular news issue (this was all pre-Snowden).

While thesedays with the cat very publicly out of the bag with how much data collection there is it's made people more conscious of what's happening, though that's not to say that data collection hasn't also accelerated and broadened to a great degree post Web 2.0.
 
We've been kind of developing this stuff internally for a while at my work, and I'm sure it will be put in to use some time.

Though the more stuff is the data that can be gotten through videos, engagement that ai tracks, all kinds of other things, though that's more for say customer based stuff, not necessary for team meetings. This is pretty much semi baked into a lot of the Webex/Teams stuff at the moment.

There are a TOOON of uses for vr/ar space for meetings. For the most part it's pretty much pointless for generic meetings, but there are great uses out there.
Already implemented in my org. We have a platform that monitors overall work "productivity" by running monitors and AI on keystrokes, emails/IMs, JIRA/Confluent entries, pull requests, webcam, CRM entries etc., as well as Teams and other virtual meetings. Managers get alerted if the model throws a flag for one of their reports. They've apparently used it to catch out employees who were running bots to fake activity while working remotely, and are discussing integrating into performance evaluations. Many places have this sort of platform now, it's kept hush-hush for the most part (much like the email surveillance tools of the past).

I saw this coming years back when the winning project for a hackathon I participated in was a tool that monitored if there were "signals" your attention was waning on conference calls. It incorporated a keystroke logger, camera check. Our execs wet their pants over it.

As for moving meetings to an entirely virtual space, this is the natural (sickening) evolution. Commoditization of your reality.
 
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Only application I'd want this metaverse connection for is my internet dentistry startup project.

Still doesn't solve home delivery of local anesthetics and ancillaries. And worse how to minimize people's phobias about a robotic arm sticking a needle in their gums - assuming all sensors are correctly calibrated.
 
I've worked at a lot of companies. I would say 90% of the meetings in my life were are complete waste of time.

Just a way for the people in the office with no skills to feel like they were actually doing some kind of work.
 
The general population and media enable all these billionaires and 'influencers', equate braindead, rehashed ideas like hyperloop to progress and harvest bright minds of impressionable (but otherwise very bright) students, herd them around their pump and dump schemes, promising 'careers', stock options...
It's the new bridge & moon land (regolith?) selling business.
 
This is about three weeks old at this point, but I just came across it, and I figured I'd share in case anyone else missed it.

View attachment 428766

If this happens, I swear I'll quit.

I'd rather be unemployed and homeless, living under a bridge than ever work in this environment.

The most I want to see in my online meetings is someone else's screen share. Be it a Powerpoint, a Spreadsheet or a Word document, I don't care. I don't even want webcams. I don't need to ever see your stupid face. Lets focus on the work at hand, your screen share.

The rest of this bullshit can kindly sod off, permanently.

View attachment 428768

Why does the world insist on just becoming dumber and dumber as time goes on?

I say it's time we burn it all down!

View attachment 428767

The Metaverse is happening, whether us Gen Xers like it or not. So, find a way to make money from it, instead.
 
I don't even see the need for avatars. In fact if I had to choose between avatars and pictures I'd just use a picture.

This is all anyone ever needs to see of me, and all I'd like to see of them:

View attachment 428810

In fact, I'd rather dispense with the huge useless tiles and just have a list of the full names of everyone in the meeting in a side frame. These tiles are just a colossal waste of desktop real estate.
Zed's dead, baby! :-P
 
Guy on Coast to Coast AM last night explained why FB is called Meta FB sells places victual places Metas in their Ads in order to make money and influence people. Unless you are smarter than Facebook nobody will influnce you.
 
Depends where you work I guess :p
I walk away right when the Meeting starts at Walmart. Then hide behind the Door because don't feel like being hazed by 1,200mg caffeine Energy Drinks. There are 61 year olds who drink Bang Rein and Rockstar doesn't do them any good.
 
For me, the fun never ends because here meta is slang for the steroid Metandienone and also slang for a bootlegging/smuggled tobacco products den.

Also, as a statement and a show of support for Zarathustra[H] 's stance regarding 'appearance' in business/professional contexts I changed my avatar for the first time in some years. I too am but a Z. Nothing about me starts with a Z, but we're Z buddies now.
 
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