How Virtual Worlds Shape our Real Identities with Richard Bartle & David Birch #1

Welcome to The Future of You, a podcast where we’ll explore the various ways in which emerging technologies will affect our identity.

Kicking off our journey into the future of the digital self, we’ll hear from two of the brightest minds in virtual worlds and digital financial technology. 

Richard Bartle is the Co-Creator of MUD, the oldest virtual world in existence, and is a legend in the video game research space, while David Birch’s expertise in FinTech is demonstrated through contributions to Forbes, as well as his spot as one of WIRED’s Top 15 sources of business information globally.

This tour de force of an episode takes us through the concepts of experimentation with identity, self-tokenization, interplay between virtual & physical worlds, and the fine line between credentials and biometric identification.

This episode of The Future of You covers:

  • How our characters in virtual/game worlds can differ from - and influence - our real world identity
  • The gamification of our personalities on different platforms
  • Tokenization of the self
  • The interplay between the digital and physical worlds and our ‘economic avatars’
  • How biometrics could play into credentials & identification, and the difference between the two

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Links and references at: https://www.traceyfollows.com/


Om Podcasten

Hello, welcome to the Future of You podcast. 

Here we’re going to investigate and analyse all the ways emerging technologies are going to affect our identity. We used to argue about whether personal identity was in the mind or in the body; but now that psychology of the self and the biology of self has been joined by a third dimension - the technology of the self. 

In a digital, data-driven world, Facebook gets a say in verifying who we are, medical science can alter our genetic make-up, and AI will help us create our digital twin - just how many identities do we need in the multiverse? How is 21st Century technology changing who we are? 

I set out to research exactly that, when I wrote my book The Future of You. That turned out to be only the start of my journey into our changing identity in a digital world. And I thought rather than continue to research this on my own, I could invite you along too. 

I’m Tracey Follows, I’m a futurist and founder of Futuremade, the futures consultancy, and I’ve helped brands and businesses like Virgin, Google, Diageo and Farfetch spot trends, develop strategic foresight and fully prepare for what comes next.

 I believe identity is the defining issue of our generation. So every fortnight I’ll be releasing new episodes, featuring panels of experts as we delve into topics such as how we use media to express our selves, the emergence of the extreme self, transhumanism and the augmented self; anonymity, genetics, biometrics, mind clones, and the digital afterlife - these are just some of the innovations, and controversies, we’ll cover. 

Join the community, buy the book at thefutureofyou.co.uk or connect with me on twitter at @traceyfutures. Please come with me on this journey to explore identity in the digital world, as we investigate the future of me, and the future of you.