Let’s Spend $10 Trillion on AI That Improves the Real World, Not Just Ads
John Hanke is founder and CEO of Niantic Spatial Inc., a geospatial AI company and has spent 25 years at the intersection of technology and maps. He led the development of products including Pokémon GO, Google Maps, Google Earth and Keyhole EarthViewer.
Four years ago, right around the time the concept of the metaverse became fashionable, I wrote a post calling it a “dystopian nightmare.” I argued that instead of diving into virtual worlds, we should all do more to connect with the real world around us.
Time will tell if the metaverse will eventually come to fruition, but with global business and leisure travel, as well as live event attendance, blowing past pre-pandemic levels in 2024 and 2025, it’s pretty clear humans weren’t meant to live inside a headset.
Fast-forward to today, when some seek to create a world where content increasingly doesn’t come from friends or even human influencers, but rather straight from an AI model, an engineered confection of pixels and waveforms optimized to capture your attention until the next ad arrives.