Dr. Christina Yan Zhang with The Metaverse Institute

Dr. Christina Yan Zhang IoT

Mon, Mar 27, 2023 2:04PM • 24:17

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

metaverse, people, technology, indexed, world, industrial, christina, ai, data, kristina, avatar, ensure, talk, understand, absolutely, populated, digital, vr, simulate, industry

SPEAKERS

Scott MacKenzie

00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge Industry Focus innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work foods, and let's go.

00:22

Alright, once again, welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe. We go right past the Galaxy doctor, and we go right into the universe, and it's all backed up by data, just know that.

00:35

There you go. Right here

00:37

right now. And it is a platform dedicated to industrial professionals, and people who are into the metaverse that because you're bold, you're brave and daring greatly. you innovate. Innovate right there. The guest, you definitely collaborate and you're changing lives and you're changing the world. We are broadcasting from IoT solutions World Congress, Barcelona 2023. And if you don't have this on your calendar for next year, it is a must attend to fin. If you have any passion, whatsoever of being in this digital transformation game and you need you need the trusted people and Sherpas to help you with that journey. This is the place you find them right here right now. In the hot seat. We have Dr. Christina Yan. Yeah. John John,

01:20

like Dr. Ed Naturals. That's easier.

01:23

Come on, come on. And you're with

01:27

the metaverse Institute.

01:28

So Metaverse Institute. Yes. Let's get cracking at immersive. How long has that been around? It can't be around long time. Did you set it up? You set up the metaverse Institute? Yes. So is the URL of Metaverse institute.com? No. Oh, it's an org. metaverse. Why did you set that up? Good question. It is a good question. Because I do

01:54

because I feel very strongly that we should really looking at pragmatic use of the metaverse to make our real world better rather than just a lot of speculations and short term gains.

02:08

But you know, there's there's that whole, you know, I just jumped right into the conversation because it's all about me, and I want to know about the metaverse and what you think about it. But before we get into that, it's gonna happen listeners, just FYI. Can you give us a little background on who you are? Where do you where did you come from? Like, why are you such a great professional? Can you just sort of give us a little resume?

02:31

Absolutely. So as you can see, I was made in China, regulated in the UK. Hey, she's

02:37

here till Friday.

02:40

I'm still available for any interesting discussion about the metaverse and the social impact. Yeah. So

02:48

it's how long does this the metaverse Institute been around?

02:52

Less than one year, but actually, I've been in the space since 2006.

02:59

I didn't know what was around. The only time I heard of Metaverse is when when Facebook changed their name to meta. I know that we need to do a better job of getting that message out.

03:13

Yeah, I think so. I mean, the whole idea about the metaverse started in 1992 by Neil Stevenson in a book Snow Crash. And that's already 40 years ago, and the world's first proper Metaverse is called Second Life. It was created by Linden Lab based in San Francisco of the United States in 2003. So I was doing my master dissertation using Second Life, the world's first Metaverse to develop international strategies for universities worldwide, followed by a full scholarship to do a PhD in using digital twin in the metaverse environments to simulate and augments and optimize real word construction engineering, architectural projects.

03:58

You are by far the smartest one. She's smart. Right here. Sure about that? Oh, get out here saying, Okay, I got it. I got it. I'm sorry about meta is that an acronym for something? Or just what does matter me? Just take it back to 2003 or whatever it was? Yeah. Was it me

04:21

as a moment, it's a digital virtual world where people can socialize, they can work they can experience in a way which was never possible before on a large scale globally.

04:34

So got it. I understand the I understand the industrial application. I get it. I I see some incredible value. Yeah. And I I'm all bullish on it. And I see that meta being the sort of the top end and then you have got all of these other sorts of things. Digital Solutions that sort of break down into it because you're because you're just wanting to interact visually and interact with this, this information, I get it. Paint the picture of what it looks like in the future. How do you how do you create the guardrails and the standards around that?

05:23

Well, the metaverse is really the next generation of the internet with a whole range of different technology coming together to be more interactive, intuitive and immersive. So it's not one thing. It's many different technology converging together. So but a lot of people were probably focusing more on the VR, because at the very beginning in the novel of Snow Crash is very much centered about VR related virtual world experience. But that was 40 years ago. And what happened now is you have the whole Metaverse, like her layers, all the way from the IT infrastructure, say 5g, six g, semiconductor chips, and all this kind of GPU, etc, all the way to quantum computing, high performance, computing, edge computing, cloud, cybersecurity, and then we start to talk about different user interface. So VR AR XR, just recognition, voice recognition. And since like, haptics, and also if we want to go a little bit further, like Elon Musk, he really like neuro links to exciting.

06:43

Yeah, it's sort of, it's a little unnerving. But then it's also exciting all in one, it's sort of an odd thing, I suppose I want one,

06:51

I see a really depends, because what his focus now is really to looking at using neural links to support people with serious medical conditions. So if they are blind, and he's trying to looking at whether or not neuro links can bring science back to them, or people who cannot, like, you know, lost their mobility, so how to allow them to be able to walk again. And also he wants to address the issue about aging society, where people are suffering from Alzheimer's or all kinds of like different brain related issues. So he's tried to use neural links to support that issue, which I think can be quite fascinating.

07:30

I think that's phenomenal. It is the things that I and I'm glad you're in it, it's not. I mean, I'm not there, but there has to be the standards around that. Because you're, you're, you're moving into areas that are absolutely transformative. But then there's this I sense, I sense, you would know, that there might be people that would take advantage or, or not do things the way that would be, you know, altruistic. And I just throw that out? Because I, I can, I can appreciate what you do. Because you see it and you look, you think about it, and you understand there's some moral components to it. I love it. I see the benefits. But anyway, take us through that. I mean, how are you?

08:18

Yeah, I think I mean, it's a really exciting, like technology ecosystem coming together in the first time, which is going to be completely revolutionary, but there are tremendous risk associated as well. I think the first thing is really about data privacy, safety, because, I mean, a lot of tech company, they make huge amounts of money, because they selling very personalized data to different my friends. But imagine, one hour heartbeats, you know, our, the way we move our eyes, and our body temperature, and even, let's say, our body movements, everything is captured 24/7 While we were any kind of wearables, that's monitors. And if that can be, you know, sold, or monetize. I think there is like a really serious concern, or how much that kind of personal especially health information of individuals should be protected. Yes, it's a major, major concern that needs to be very carefully looked at to ensure we maximize the positive impact of the technology and also ensure for adults, and also as well as children, they will be well protected.

09:46

See, and this is I agree with you 100%. And I and I know that there are great people like you and others addressing that, but then there's this velocity of the technology the that exists. It's a Hey, check this out new use case, we can do it this, we can do it this way we can collect this data. And it's, there's a speed here. And then there's this effort to try to put some sort of guardrails around it to ensure that privacy or whatever it might be whatever, because it's happening so quickly. I'm glad you're glad people like you were doing it because I, I get all giddy and excited about it, because I see the benefits, and I understand it. Understand with quotes, but the reality is, is that I understand too, that this opens up a lot of other things that we just don't know about.

10:38

Yeah, I mean, I want to go a little bit deeper on that. Because I mean, there has been a lot of discussion about how to ensure the metaverse will be safe. But very few discussion actually touched upon a really important points, that if we're looking at the whole global landscape of the internet, only about 5% of them is indexed. That's what we are accessible on a daily basis. But the rest of 95% is not indexed at all. So all in our people, we can't access it. And that's called the deep web.

11:14

Okay, okay. Let me let me just make sure. So 5% is indexed. So I'm online, I can find it whatever I type in, auto, I installed this device, and lo and behold, it gives me all the options that's indexed. That's only 5%, only 5%. And there's not, that's 5%. And 95. is not

11:36

95%. Down not index at all. It's called Deep Work. On My Mind, okay, yeah, to new amongst that 95%, no index, deep web, there are about another 5%, which is called Dark Web, dark web. And it is full of criminal activities. So my arguments is, if all the online safety issue we're talking about now is only focusing on that tiny bits of 5%. That is index, and without any discussion about the 95%, which are completely out of our sights, and the 5%, which is full of criminal activities. I think we are in big problem. We need to figure it out efficient way to ensure not only the 5% is safe, what about the rest? 95%?

12:37

Yeah, I don't I don't have an answer. But I don't I don't, I don't, but I I do. So what do you do? You've got to you've got to just you got to look at it in such a way that it's like, okay, we don't need to concentrate on this. We need to sort of whittle that down. Because it's even 5% of the 95%. The Dark Web is a massive amount of stuff. Massive. Yeah. It's incomprehensible. I know. And that's given me any coming up. Come on, help me. Help me with this.

13:15

You mean how to solve

13:15

this? Yes, yes. Because you're smart.

13:18

I'm not sure if I'm smart, but like,

13:23

and she's very humble. Right. So what do you do? How do you approach it?

13:27

You mean, what's our organization? Yeah, yeah. So we are extremely privileged to have guts guys are a group of pioneers, AI, a machine learning, smart city, and all different parts of the whole digital transformations. So we got those top leaders who has decades of experience, solving real world problems easier is to help companies to really develop digital products, which can really bring commercial success, as well as achieving positive social impact. Because I think, everything we need to do, it needs to serve a

14:10

purpose. And especially absolutely spot on there.

14:13

And especially I personally feel really, really strongly that if we don't do anything now collectively, as a species, our plan is going it's not going to last long.

14:28

I I agree with you, and I agree with you and I don't want to be a Mr. doom and gloom. I just I look from the sidelines, I see what's taking place I get an opportunity to talk to many people within industry within this space. Listen to what they are doing, how they think. And I and there's a picture that's being painted and and I'm always concerned about are the right people getting the information. It's so fast. I get it. I'm having to Hard time, it's like drinking from a big Firehose to try to consume it. So real thing that sort of came out was with this chat GPT ah, and and, and I started using it when it was just a little dinky thing. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it's, it's doing things that it's eliminating, it's eliminating work. It's like, okay, I'm gonna just pop in there. Give me an article that touches this with the call to action to do this. Give me five options. Yeah.

15:34

And it's done. It's a different worlds, an entirely different worlds. Okay, go ahead.

15:39

Yeah. And everyone loves like chat GDP and anything to do with generative AI. But they didn't realize that in the future very quickly, was the technology populates a little bit more and more about what's going to happen is a large portion of the avatars in the virtual world are going to be guaranteed by AI populated,

16:00

yes. You're not helping me out, Doc?

16:04

Yes. So what that means is the interesting question, let's say if we both have created our own human based avatar, we put them in the virtual environments. And now we are interacting with other avatars, you don't even know if they are powered by another generative AI or it's like another human beings. And the worst scenario is saying, if the genesis of AI populated avatar cause harm to the human, unit powered avatar, who should be legally liable?

16:40

We just had that conversation, I said, this is just another revenue stream for for a law firm. It just is. And I don't I don't mean it as a negative. I just think that because of because of what's happening out here at this conference and listening to people talk, it's just bound. It's going, it's just going so fast. I'm excited. Yeah. You know, as as an aficionado of of the technology, and I get it. I I'm not anywhere near any of this. It's just it's exciting. Because I think that I think that there's tremendous good can happen. Yes, but just with with society as a whole, there's always going to be nefarious behavior. So just for whatever reason, that's it. But I think that there's tremendous good beyond comprehension, of of what is happening with between people like you and your organization and others, you have such a big heart to do, do what is right, see the opportunity?

17:47

Yeah, I can give you loads and loads of like exciting opportunities we can explore. And I was really impressed and touched by one of the news take place last year. So basically, there is a twin baby. And the what happens is their head is linked together. So it's very dangerous. If they don't go through like a proper procedures, they are going to not going to last long. So what happens is a group of the world's top medical surgeons, what analyzing their physical health situation and get all those data visualized in AR and VR, and practice how to separate their brain in a very meticulous way. So they develop all kinds of different scenarios I've seen, they went to several procedures, and is an international collaboration, lasting several miles and eventually, the twin baby, they both survived, the happily lived now. And that's a miracle that's using this kind of method was related technology to really bring fundamental magical in the medical field, which never happens before.

19:00

In that time, in that time period, in that effort to do that. The advancement was just massive. It's like in that short period of time. It was a major leap in that ability to be able to do that. Yeah, evaluate. Look at the data. Yeah, do it again, simulate, simulate, simulate simulate pose. And then somebody because you did it said, Okay, let's do it. Yeah, that to me, it's pretty cool. I take that decision is

19:30

like I seen that's wonderful. And if we talking about much larger scale, I mean, digital twin in the metaverse environment has been already widely applied across many different like industries, whether it's aerospace, its defense is like medical or it can be applied to advanced manufacturing, urban planning, like field environments. It's pretty much all over the place. And it has been really proved efficient in terms of mass To cost reduction of safety, safety,

20:03

absolutely. Huge safety component there. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I hate to do this, but I have to. Okay. So you've knocked my socks off. Congratulations,

20:18

I feel you.

20:20

I have no socks on now knock them off. How do people get a hold of you? Dr. What's the best way saying? Gosh, she's, she's got a lot to say. I want to know more. How did it get a hold of you?

20:33

Good question. I host a weekly tutor space talking about all kinds of interesting things about the matters

20:39

to me. What do you think you didn't bring? What does that mean? You host of what?

20:45

I host a weekly Twitter space and talking about all kinds of interesting issues about

20:53

what is it? How do they find you can find

20:55

me on LinkedIn. And my full name is Christina yen Jiang. And also they can email me at Christina at Metaverse hyphen Institute. Oh.

21:07

Yeah. Yeah, this was a bucket list that you need to put on your to do schedule. You needed to reach out to Dr. Kristina, I am honored to have you on. I feel very honored. Oh, I said it first you can set up to me is I find it amazing. All right, you're gonna have all the contact information for Dr. Christina out on industrial talk, her LinkedIn profile, her email, as well as I'm gonna find you on that Twitter thing? Yeah, I'm going to

21:39

Yeah, and actually, our last one was talking about how to use web three to achieve 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. She knows more than me, I'm not sure about that. Maybe you're too modest.

21:53

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You could just gloss over. Everyone's like, Oh, wow. I don't care. All right. We're once again broadcasting from IoT solutions World Congress 2023 Barcelona, put this on your calendar for next year. You get people that blow your socks off like doctor here. She's awesome. So reach out to her. All right. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. So stay tuned. Thank you for joining. Thank you.

22:16

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

22:22

Yeah, you you want to know more? Yes, I know. I'm looking at you out on the video. And you're saying to yourself, I need to know more. I need to know more about Dr. Cristina Yang Zhang. Yeah. There's her stat card. And yes, it is impressive. And yes, she's very active out there. I can tell by all of her stuff that's going on. And you want to know more? You want to know more about the metaverse, you want to know about digital twin you want to be a part of that. And fear not go out to industrial talk. I'll have all the contact information for Dr. Kristina. Big time. And as well as her her Twitter stuff, man. That would have been a great conversation to have. But we didn't we had it more around. metaverse. What does that mean? Where's it going? Right there. Dr. Christina, reach out to her. All right. Another thing. Mercy chefs, you've heard me talk about it, feeding body and soul. We had an opportunity to sort of work with Mercy chef at another event. And you know what they do? They go to areas that have been hit by whatever. And they bring great food. And they put smiles on the faces of the individuals that are struggling, because they realized, I think as a result of Christine, Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, that we could do a better job at helping people recover with food. Because food is important. Absolutely. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring greatly. We're gonna have more conversation when we're just working through that content stack. All the way from IoT solutions World Congress, all of the great conversations. Dr. Christina, yes, priority make it happen. Thank you very much. You're gonna change the world because you're gonna hang out with her. So stay tuned. We're going to have a lot more coming from IoT solutions World Congress, so stay tuned.