Metaverse will attract trolls, iPod creator warns

The designer of Apple’s iPod has cautioned that the so-called metaverse risks breeding more trolls and harming human contact.

According to Tony Fadell, the virtual reality-based metaverse eliminates the capacity to “see into the other person’s face.”

“If you put technology between that human connection that’s when the toxicity happens,” he said.

The metaverse is a virtual reality domain in which people are expected to design avatars of themselves in order to connect with others in online realms.

It will be utilized for gaming, but also for business and music performances, and will be accessed via a virtual reality headset.

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, and CEO of Facebook is investing billions of dollars and employing thousands of people to build a metaverse.

Last year, Facebook, which also owns Instagram, Whatsapp, and Oculus, changed the name of its parent company to Meta.

While Mr. Fadell said the technology behind the metaverse has merit: “When you’re trying to make social interaction and social connection when you can’t look into the other person’s face, you can’t see their eyes you don’t have real humanistic ways of connecting.

“It become disintermediated and you have the ability at that point to create more trolls, people who hide behind things and then use that to their advantage to get attention.”

He added: “We need to regain control of that human connection, we don’t need more technology between us.”

Microsoft and Epic Games, the creators of the computer game Fornite, are both significantly invested in the metaverse.

Microsoft is integrating 3D virtual avatars and surroundings into its Teams chat system, which is set to go live later this year.

According to Mr. Zuckerberg, the metaverse is “an embodied internet where, instead of merely watching material, you are in it.”

He told The Verge that people should not live their lives through “tiny, luminous rectangles” like their phones.

Mr. Fadell was speaking after Apple announced the discontinuation of the iPod Touch.

The portable music device, which has launched 21 years ago, revolutionized the way that people listen to and store songs. Mr. Fadell also co-created Apple’s iPhone.

Commenting on the end of the iPod, Mr. Fadell said: “I’ve been in the technology business long enough to know the drumbeat of technology and the march of technology never ends and so, that was an amazing period of time for the iPod but unfortunately that’s the business we’re in so I’ve got used to that situation.”

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