The Rise of Smart Open Metaverse—what I call the crossroads of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and virtual reality—is set to lead to an explosive growth in cultural activity over the next several decades.
That’s to say, one of the current AI bright spots in the field is Midjourney, whose technology offers some of the most stunning text-to-image capabilities available right now.
However, the Midjourney team is also starting to consider VR and real-time world simulation, that is, generating lifelike digital spaces.
These kinds of generative environments have a lot of potential use cases and can serve as a foundation for the large-scale smart open metaverse.
In terms of AI text-to-image models, the current big three giants are DALL·E 3, Stability Diffusion, and Midjourney.
I’ve been continuously modifying and experimenting with these three (frankly incredible) tools, and among the Midjourney giants, one of my favorite followers is Nick St. Pierre, a creative director and AI savant, who is an important resource for Midjourney in terms of skills, updates, and more.
That being said, one of Nick’s recent tweets has definitely piqued my interest. In it, he quotes a segment from their most recent office hours meeting, emphasizing the plans that the Midjourney team is soon to roll out:
“We are indeed working on world simulation. We are building 3D Midjourney, video Midjourney, and real-time Midjourney, where things move very, very fast.
Put them together, and you have a world simulation. Our goal is to build these three things separately and then integrate them together…
…It will be more like a sandbox. People will make video games in it, people will shoot movies in it, the goal is to build an open-world sandbox.”
This is significant news because it allows us a glimpse into the future where complex virtual experiences will be generated based on simple prompts. This “no-code” user experience shift will open up and radically alter the production and experience of many virtual spaces, leading to an explosive growth in new virtual work and entertainment possibilities.
Text-to-image AI models are the first major unlock here. The next steps are text-to-video and image-to-video work, such as OpenAI’s Sora and Midjourney Video. Real-time world simulation is the Holy Grail that follows. So the big question is, can Midjourney succeed?
I think so. Midjourney’s public testing started just 20 months ago (i.e. July 2022), but the team has already generated over $200 million in revenue and amassed over 16 million users. Early funding and traction have given Midjourney immense insights and ongoing innovation power.
Additionally, Midjourney founder David Holz has rich experience in the VR and augmented reality space. He co-founded Leap Motion with others, a VR hardware game that appeared before Oculus headsets. This reality, coupled with Midjourney’s world simulation plans, suggests that Midjourney may eventually release its own head-mounted display (HMD) device.
So while world simulation may be the natural guide for all current text-to-image AI work, I believe no one is better suited to dive in and go wide in this field than Midjourney. If anyone can do it, it’s Midjourney—and I think they will, possibly faster than most expect.
That being said, this capability is still a few years away from realization. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t start dreaming of the possibilities of the immersive virtual world to come.
For example, I think world simulation will fit perfectly with autonomous worlds, i.e. games that entirely track their logic and state on-chain. This architecture supports client-agnostic design so anyone can boot up an owner’s interface. So, imagine an interface builder clicking into Midjourney so you can provide images and then create custom worlds to game in with real-time visual effects on-chain.
This is just one example use case, but the future possibilities will be primarily limited by our imagination. Consider using your favorite NFT to create an art gallery, or creating immersive experiences around real estate in metaverse projects.
Movies, education, gaming, virtual events, and more—all can be expanded in new ways through simulation, which is why I think Midjourney is positioned to be a pillar of smart open virtual universes. World simulation will make it easier to enrich these spaces with incredible real-time visual effects.
So, as the AI x Cryptocurrency x VR crossroads continues to intertwine, the smart open metaverse becomes further in focus, be sure to keep an eye on Midjourney. Their work stands to bring the barrier to creating large-scale immersive virtual spaces down to near zero. This is huge for creators across industries, and entertainment will also undergo a corresponding revolution. NFTers, take note now, and get ready!
