Omar Suleiman – The Risks of Web3 and the Metaverse DoubleTake

			There are more questions than there are answers about this whole new world. And it seems to me like
just like you can use it for good. Clearly, there'll be so many more doors of evil, many more
hotwater shaytaan on the horizon. So, with that in mind, what would you say are the risks of this
new world of web three? For Muslim specifically? Yeah. So I mean, there's definitely several risks
and everything specifically for Muslims. I mean, one of the problems that whatever affects the non
Muslim society, that society in general is going to affect Muslims as well. Right. So this is these
are general harms. But if we just were saying, Okay, well, some things Muslims are not as prone to
		

			hopefully, there's some things which are there across the across the board. So one of the biggest
things that I think I'm very concerned about is people preferring this artificial life and this
escapism, that's, that's always been there, but it's going to be enhanced. You know, so since the
introduction of you know, novels, people were reading books that would get lost in a book, since
they had headphones introduced, people would sit there and like, be you know, listening to music all
day, and they don't want to talk to people, you I went through a phase in my own life like that,
like a storm, rather just have like background noise, listening to a song and interacting with other
		

			people. There's going to be, you know, people get stuck in video games, and even even the old like,
original Nintendo system, you know, people would get addicted to that, they wouldn't want to leave
that, you know, playing that game. Same thing with movie theaters and all that, but what's going to
happen is there's going to be a greater desire for getting stuck in that world, you won't, you won't
want to come back to reality as much when you can just remain in that virtual world. So if you're in
the metaverse, and you look so cool, and your avatars looking awesome, and you don't have to worry
about actually, you know, doing your hair or anything like that, you can, you know, talk to people
		

			getting stuck in there, I think is one of the one of the biggest concerns that we should have as
Muslims, because when we lose real life interaction, and we lose the desire of wanting to be in this
dunya that Allah has placed us in to test us, but then we want to escape and live in an alternative
reality, that's going to definitely affect our our real reality, when we do have to return back to
life. You know, so that's how does it affect us? I mean, how would it affect that real reality? One
it's going to make, so it's going to make everything seem boring. And that's, and that's part of the
problem we're already experiencing today. You know, people are, people are, you know, they're seeing
		

			like the either short clips, they're losing their attention span, you know, so like, nowadays, if
just compared to 15 years ago, it people can't sit through a 30 minute class, let alone in our
class, you know, so there, they get bored, because they're used to seeing YouTube shorts, they're
used to reading something very small, short, on Twitter, they're used to seeing a very short, tick
tock clip, and now their mind just can't focus anymore. So you speak, you know, the hotbar is like
20 minutes, it's like too long, so you know, zoning out, so what's going to happen is that that's
already there. But this is going to make it worse, it's going to exacerbate the situation even more,
		

			because when you're in immersive reality, now, the the physical effects and the psychological
effects that we're already seeing from our current technology is going to be enhanced even more. So
there's going to be that desire for not returning to reality, it's going to be that difficulty
focusing on you know, paying attention to anything, it's gonna be difficulty with social
interaction, you're used to interacting with people socially, you're used to seeing them in their
avatar, and then now you're like, oh, man, you know, I could interact with your avatar, but
interacting with like you the way that you actually look and, you know, the way in which you're
		

			behaving, that's just, it's all it's a challenge. And now it's going to be difficult for people to
really, you know, interact with each other and hold conversations or something like that. And, you
know, I think that's all of that's going to be exacerbated. So those are, you know, this is one of
the one of the hearts, you know, there's the I would I want to hear more of them, please. Because
for me, we need to know these things like and
		

			this is on the horizon, you mentioned that we're already using some of these technologies, I do have
a feeling that this is going to come much quicker than we anticipated.
		

			Yeah, for sure. You know, the other thing is gonna be privacy, privacy and security risks,
basically, you know, the more information the company or somebody knows about you, the more services
you sign up for, it's going to know everything from you know, your, your style of speaking your
voice, the type of language that you use, is going to know everything about your personal data, your
preferences, your preference of even what you look at. So now it's like there's some some data is
some level of data is not being captured, you know, so every
		

			time you, you drive somewhere if I drive to work, you know, the data is already captured that they
know I go to work at this time I stay this long. And when I search on Yelp, I, these are the type of
restaurants that I look for, but the amount of data that, you know, people are going to have on us
now, it's going to be able to predict a smallest little things, what kinds of things do you look at?
How many seconds? Do you stare at that, you know, thing in the virtual world? What kind of people do
you know, like interacting with? What kind of avatars are you, you know, interested in, you know,
are attracted to or you know, want to interact with or whatever it is. So, that data and that
		

			privacy is definitely going to be another concern that we're, you know, we're gonna have so I think
these are probably the two biggest concerns and then you got your, your typical concerns about you
know, regulating, you know, free speech, what are you allowed to say, you're gonna look like,
everything's gonna be enhanced. So you have like, cyber bullying taking place today, you know, so
someone comes in, you know, post a comment on your, on your social media and says, like, you know,
why don't you go kill yourself or you're this or you're ugly or something like that. That's, that
affects some people to a very great extent right now. Now, imagine if you have a virtual bully
		

			coming up to you and doing the same thing in a completely immersive experience. Yeah, that's
decentralized with with no rules, and yeah, I mean, it's scary. Exactly. So the enhancement is there
and then it's decentralized. You're supposed to have some rules. You're supposed to have some level
of limitation, right? It is debatable to what extent so that's, that's definitely another one of the
concerns that we have to be careful about.