TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast
TezTalks Radio - Tezos Ecosystem Podcast
79: MetaPals
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Max Giammario, CEO and co-founder of MetaPals, discusses the concept of digital companions and the role of blockchain in creating meaningful connections in the digital age. He discusses how MetaPals aims to create a diverse and inclusive community centered around the shared love for digital companions.
Exploring Emotional AI Companions on Blockchain
Speaker 1Welcome to Tez Talks Radio . I'm Marissa True , and today I am joined by Max Giamario , the CEO and co-founder of MetaPals , one of the latest projects on Tezos , offering users a digital companion that promises to solve the disconnect in the digital age and craft meaningful digital experiences . So , hi Max , how are you today ?
Speaker 2Hey , marissa , I'm not doing too bad , so just keeping busy and just came back from Dubai , so it was a good kind of token week , besides a lot of the weather and things that were happening . But otherwise , yeah , just moving forward with things .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's good to hear that you came back safely after all of the weather drama that took place over token in Dubai .
Speaker 2Yeah , a lot of flights that were cancelled .
Speaker 1I think you were definitely one of the luckier ones in that respect , yes , for sure , and it's also you're actually the probably the first guest , or the first guest in a very long time , that I've actually had that's based in precisely the same time zone or actually based in singapore as well .
Speaker 2So congratulations on taking that first pole yeah , I think that the uh , the teslalos team is definitely pushing for more gaming projects and art projects to be in Southeast Asian region as well , especially this year , so it's great to see that they're putting their words to action , and so MetaPals is one of those projects .
Speaker 1So , to take things back a bit , I'd love to have a better understanding of your own personal journey into Web3 and sort of what brought you here today .
Speaker 2Yeah , I've been in the Web3 space for about eight years now , so during my university days , I volunteered for a finance club , and then I just got introduced to Bitcoin because I had to market for this event that was talking about this obscure currency called Bitcoin , and then at that event , there was a speaker who ended up later being my boss at a marketing or sorry , it was a cryptocurrency brokerage called Caleb and Brown , which is one of the largest ones now in Australia , and so I ended up working there doing their marketing in some brokerage back in the early days when it was actually quite difficult to purchase cryptocurrency , and so part of that role was really educating people about blockchain and Bitcoin and the potential it had when it comes to both investment and also the future of , I guess , like currency and technology .
Speaker 2And then started a bunch of businesses consulting firms , investment funds and I did that for about five to six years , and then I moved to Singapore to do my master's in actually it was in AI , but I recognized the intersection I had with blockchain and how we can utilize both of those technologies in a more artistic way to express some of the needs that we have within a growing society , and so that's where MetaPals was born out of .
Speaker 1So what was that initial intersection between AI and blockchain that initially caught your attention ? And then , how has that sort of evolved over time ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so I saw that , ultimately , the way that AI evolves is through our interaction with it , and so , you see , every single day I see new AI agents coming out right . There's an AI agent now for product management , there's one for marketing , there's one to handle your daily tasks , there's things all the time that you are building upon and getting better and better with , and so we're coming to a point in which this Cambrian explosion of different AI agents will eventually converge into one to two singular agents that you speak to on a daily basis . Think of , like a Siri or Amazon Alexa . We tend to gravitate towards what's familiar , and so the easiest way in which we can actually interact with AI is through our words and through an agent one singular agent , rather than going to like a hundred different ones for a hundred different purposes . And so if you think of that in the next five to 10 years , and ultimately we are converging into that one to two agent , then I recognize that , rather than it being something that's purely functional , in order for AI to be something that's a seamless component of our lives , right , something that I actually want to have by my side , whether it's on my mobile , on AR and VR with Apple Vision , or on our laptops .
Speaker 2It's better to have something that's familiar to us , and so that's why we started with pets . It's one of the easiest ways we can intuitively understand something that we want by our side . There's rarely things that we want always by our side , even a partner or family members . Having them 24- , 24 , seven around you is is rare to to want , but with pets it's something different . It actually helps you to mental health .
Speaker 2It's something that you want to have , and even even most of the time it's it's it's this nonverbal action that you have with those pets , just that sense of presence . And so we started with virtual pets . And now this year is really evolving into other characters , whether it's your childhood year is really evolving into other characters , whether it's your childhood right nostalgic elements , so Teletubbies or Hello Kitty , to even things like anime or k-pop . Ultimately , we're masking the way in which we interact with AI in a more familiar way , so that it becomes something they actually want to enjoy and have in your day-to-day life , rather than being something like Hal 9000 from 2001 , the space odyssey . It's just like this pure robotic , cold voice that just functionally does everything you do or ask it to do , and so I feel like this was the way forward in the next five to 10 years .
Speaker 1It's really interesting because I think we've got a lot of history in terms of owning digital pets . I think of Digimon , I think of even Neopets to a degree , and then we've also , I would say , in the last decade , have grown in our familiarity when it comes to virtual assistants . So what we're looking at is this interesting convergence of the two , but then it ponders the question of how does the blockchain element play into all of this ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so the blockchain ended up being this . So what I focused on was the emotional connection you can form with AI and with digital agents , right , and so the basis of that emotional connection is formed by a number of different pillars , right ? So the first one we can say is something like a sense of digital life , something that's living and breathing with or without you , and so that's why we chose for our first iteration as a browser extension . It's not an application you have to click on to install and open up , right . It's not something you have to wait to load up , right , and so that's an important signal to the user , because it's signaling that , hey , this is not a game , right ? This is something that is actually living and breathing with or without you . And the second part is that idea that these are unique personalities , and so those unique personalities are written on the blockchain , and so they actually change over time based on the interactions you have with it . But all of this , ultimately , is feeding towards this idea of how we actually form those deeper bonds with a companion , and so the reason we use blockchain is because we have this strange sensation in humans where we tend to attribute some emotional connection to some of the objects we have , so sentimental objects or companions . And so if I gave you something like just a pen , right , actually , sorry , you own a pen , right ? And then I throw it away and I give you the exact same pen , right , you wouldn't care , right , because it's the same pen , so it away . And I give you the exact same pen , you wouldn't care because it's the same pen , so it doesn't matter to you . However , if I took away your childhood plushie and threw it in the bin , I gave you the exact same plushie . That's different because you have that sentimental attachment to it . If I cloned your pet and then got rid of your old pet and gave you the exact same one , exactly the same , it's still not the same in terms of your connection with it . And so when we're talking about AI companions , these objects in the sense , this code that you're meant to form these deeper bonds with , it becomes very important that you are able to express that in a one-of-one , verified manner , where you truly understand that this is the only one that exists within , I guess , the digital space
Virtual Companionship and Mental Health
Speaker 2.
Speaker 2And then the second part of blockchain is interoperability . And so , to flow on that idea that we aren't at all replicating that companion you have . Let's say , our upcoming launch is with Teletubbies . If you have a Teletubby companion , when you move from , the Teletubby moves from your laptop to your mobile to eventually to a metaverse like Sandbox . We're not duplicating the Teletubby from one device or metaverse to the other . What we're doing is we're extracting the smart contract and representing it in different devices or different metaverses . That's a key distinction , because it means that we again are not cloning your companion , which hinders the ability to form those bonds . Instead , it's the same actual DNA , the same NFT contract , but then just represented in different spaces .
Speaker 1So then , to talk more broadly about the MetaPals mission , and we spoke earlier about you know this digital companionship and the level of relationship I guess you can build within a digital space , but talk to me a bit more about the disconnect that this relationship is supposed to essentially paste over . You know , like why are virtual companions the answer to this disconnect ?
Speaker 2Yeah . So this is going back to this angle I'm quite close to in terms of mental health , and so what I studied was virtual pets and the impact they had , especially during the early 2000s , late 90s , with things like Tamagotchi and Neopets . So one fun fact I always like to talk about is the idea that with Tamagotchi it was very much orientated towards marketing to young children , especially girls , between the ages of 6 to 12 , right , I had five Tamagotchis on my lanyard in primary school , but it was very much for kids . But the most loyal user base of Tamagotchi was middle-aged working-class Japanese men . Right Because they saw that need . They wanted to have this sense of caretaking , this husbandry , and especially with growing isolation , especially in Japanese high-rise buildings , this was just the perfect tool for that . And so I looked into that and I kind of understood that phenomenon of virtual pets and how we can actually replicate the same sense of companionship that a real pet can do in a virtual sense and if we're able to achieve even some sense of that companionship , what we've done is taken the benefits of looking after something like a pet , which has been shown to reduce stress dramatically improve mental health .
Speaker 2I spoke to a number of case studies in which people didn't commit suicide because of their pet right , Because they had that attachment to that pet and had to look after it . And so to replicate that in the virtual sense in any way essentially means you've created a scalable solution to provide people with that companionship , to improve mental health across the board . And so a lot of people that can't have pets in high-rise buildings , especially in Singapore . People are allergic , they can't do it because the space is too small , all of these different reasons . It applies now to the ability to have a virtual one as well , but not just pets , but also just companions in general . So , talking about Hello Kitty , or it could be your favorite gaming character , it could be from your childhood TV show , anything like that Ultimately , what is familiar with you but provides you with that same level of companionship ?
Speaker 1So I think it's very interesting , because the notion of making emotional connections within the digital realm is sort of this topic that's very much up to debate . So you're citing essentially the research that demonstrates that there is an improvement to mental health here , but it's also something where there's there's a line on the other side about , like , the degree to which it's healthier to the point at which it turns unhealthy . So how is that sort of if at all , factored into the design of the way people interact with their metapiles ? I mean , more broadly , I guess the general question is what can people actually do with their metapiles once they've got them ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I guess the first part of that . I love sci-fi . If anyone's familiar with Black Mirror , that's one of my favorite TV shows .
Building Bonds With Virtual Companions
Speaker 2I'm always cautious about this idea that we build these bonds with AI and virtual companions to a degree in which we replace our actual relationships with people , our family and friends , and especially in our relationships . So , metapals , we tend to get grouped into AI companionship to a degree which , you see , if you look up AI companionship , a lot of people or a lot of projects are related to replacing your girlfriend or your boyfriend , but we take a different angle here . It's mostly about forming a friend that ends up being this what I like to call a sidekick . A sidekick , because a sidekick is not purely functional , right , it helps you in battle , it helps you with these kind of elements , because you're like Batman and you have a Robin , but at the same time , you're still friends with the robin . You actually want to hang out with robin at the same time , and so these sidekicks are meant to form that , that part of your life where you are the hero and we create those sidekicks that assist you in your journey , and so that all translates into what the product is right now . So everything again is hinging upon the idea that we are trying to form those bonds with your companion .
Speaker 2So we started with a browser extension . We had to build our own game engine just to support the kind of visuals that we want to achieve . So you can actually download it right now it's on Chrome Store . That browser extension essentially allows your companion to be visualized on your screen as soon as you open up your laptop . That companion then is able to detect things .
Speaker 2You look after it , you play minig games with it all of the kind of traditional gamification caretaking activities you might see in a virtual pack game .
Speaker 2But in addition to that you have that whole wealth of , I guess , ai assistant tools it's able to detect . Let's say , on YouTube , right , you're watching your favorite influencer and he talks about this new Teletubbies merchandise line . Your Teletubbies can jump on screen and bring that merchandise online and say , hey , because you have the companion , here's 20% off and you can click straight to that merchandise shop . It can give you insights , it can give you notifications whether you have a Google Calendar meeting . These are all different things that tie in not with a purely functional agent , but rather with your companion that you actually want to see on your screen all the time , and that goes and extends to our mobile version releasing at the end of the year right , which is again going to be an overlay so it exists on top of your app screen and so it achieves almost the same level of that functionality , plus all the things that you can do with mobile .
Speaker 2And eventually getting to AR and VR , where well , hopefully , when Apple Vision gets to a point where they're getting to a mass consumer model right , where a lot of people are able to use Apple Vision in real life . Right now it's obviously for the early adopters and a very small percentage , but in the three or four years when we have that model that's available to consumers , we'll be there in AR and VR as well to be able to have that companion wherever you go .
Speaker 1So it's a very good snapshot of , I guess , the development roadmap that underlies MetaPals and , like the goals that you have for the near and the distant horizon , I want to take it one step back slightly again and just to focus on the target audience a little bit more . And we spoke about accessibility being a bit of an issue when it comes to , you know , real life companions , and I think there's many questions within , particularly within the Web3 space , about affordability of some of these digital assets . So how is MetaPAL sort of ensuring that this digital companion is going to remain as accessible as possible to users who might benefit from such a thing ?
Speaker 2users who might benefit from such a thing . Yeah , so I mean , beyond just the purely functional aspect of it , which applies to most people , I think our angle really is the IP that we've acquired and are continuing to acquire . What my overall vision is is that everybody has the right to choose what character they want to have as their sidekick . So for you it could be Hello Kitty , For me it could be Scooby-Doo , right , but I have the liberty to choose that , rather than being something fake or something like an enigma like Siri , like Siri or Amazon XR you can't really describe what it is . It doesn't have a visual entity there , but with our characters , some from our childhood , that is something that we want to have in our lives . And so , uh , it's kind of weird because our first launch is with Teletubbies and that hits a certain demographic of people . Then in future launches it could be completely different . It could be , um , people from one piece , or demon slayer , like anime . It could be K-pop idols , Um , and eventually I can't release too much of the launch schedule we have this year .
Speaker 2We want to try and hit as many broad demographics and geographical regions as possible , and so we're moving more of a , let's say , Chinese market . So we have BDAC as one of the IP , so BDAC is a really popular IP in China , or Dorama , right . If you switch over to the Western side , you have things like Wallace and Gromit , Paddington Bear , right . These are all different characters , but also , expanding from that , there's some , I guess , like cooler IP as well that we want to get installed and being able to be played as a sidekick as well , and so hopefully we get to a point by the end of the year which we've hit as many demographics as possible where nobody feels like , oh okay , this is too much of a childish thing or too much of a cool like for like teenagers or whatever ends up being . There's something for everyone .
Speaker 1And what about how that corresponds to things like price point within ? Because I mean , none of us are naive to the fact there's a lot of speculative trading , speculative investments that happen within this space . So how does MetaPAL sort of approach that financial dynamic or that financial environment ?
Speaker 2Yeah , that one's an ongoing problem . It's a really , really tough one . I spent a long time looking at how we do pricing and how we essentially tug the line between Web2 and Web3 . So what I'm finding is that targeting the Web3 audience is very different to targeting the Web2 audience . The Web3 audience a mint price or the NFT of 300 , 400 USD is actually quite reasonable . It's like on the lower end Versus .
Speaker 2If you pitch that to a Web2 person , they'd be like are you crazy ? That's hella expensive for this kind of thing . And it's like those two different demographics . And if you target one like Web3 , then you end up just being fully in the Web3 space like native , and so you alienate the 94% of the Web2 market that would maybe be interested in it but now is not , because it's like oh , that's just NFT speculation , like the investment stuff . And then vice versa , if you go to the Web2 space , then suddenly you've just completely alienated the Web3 space , which ends up being a really important monetization or revenue source , and so with the Web2 space you can lower your prices .
Speaker 2It's hitting a much larger demographic of people but again you're seeing as a Web2 thing and not a Web3 thing , and even though a lot of your technology is Web3 , then Web2 gets scared away as well , and so that pricing is always going to be something that we're kind of adjusting over time . Our first launch with TallyTubbies ranges around 100 to 200 USD in terms of each NFT . It's difficult to explain that to Web2 , because these are assets that eventually you can sell for potentially more , but to a Web2 person , they just see that as an outright cost of 100 USD , which is , to a jury , is unreasonable if you just spent $100 USD as an expense , and so that messaging is always going to be something we're trying to tweak . Yeah .
Speaker 1I think that's a really interesting conundrum to have , just on the basis that a lot of Web3 builders sort of covet the Web2 user in terms of having such a seamless user experience that it could easily , as you said , toggle between Web3 and Web2 without anyone particularly noticing . But I think price point is that sticky thing , because systems of value just don't translate the same way . So as much as people might be willing to spend , say , $100 , $200 a year on a subscription service in Web2 over the cost of an actual digital asset is a completely different proposition altogether . So it's interesting to see that that's still quite a sticky point and it makes you wonder what it will take to actually bridge that gap , say five years down the line , or if it will at all , or if we're always going to have very different systems of value running , I guess , concurrently at the same time .
Speaker 2yeah , so so , touching upon that , like we always get that , you get stuck in the middle right , where you end up alienating both audiences and which is definitely a a concern , right , there's always a massive upside , because you end up getting both web 3 and web 3 , web 2 or downside , which is you get alienated by both .
Speaker 2And so there's a number of ways in which we approach that from our token model , which separates our governance and utility token .
Speaker 2So that means that ultimately , web 2 people , they can purely have , in a sense , a web 2 experience where you buy a premium currency , as you would with vbox and fortnite , like with gp or apple pay , and you're just within that bubble , right , you're perfectly fine .
Speaker 2However , those people that are more interested in things like play to earn , game fire , social fire , then there's another part that gets , in a sense , unlocked if you want it to , and that provides , well , it has a little bit more friction because you have to KYC , you have to do those things that you have to normally do with investments , but people are willing to go through that friction if they're interested in that kind of play-to-earn mechanic . So that's one way we look at adjusting our token model to try and cater towards both , and that goes with a lot of the different services that we have . So with TallyTubbies and all of our mints , there's two ways to purchase . There's crypto and then there's fiat , and so either way , essentially the onboarding flow is perfectly good for Web2 . And then if you want Web3 , then you go down a different pathway , and so that's how we look into kind of hitting those two camps .
Speaker 1And so when we speak of , I guess , the IP you guys have acquired already , the most notable being Teletubbies and Hello Kitty , how does that correspond to , I guess , the community of MetaPals users that you're building so far Like ? What does that community actually look like and how do these particular characters sort of resonate in that realm ? Because I would have never really pieced together Hello Kitty and Web3 just based on you know , some of the interactions that I've had within this space that I don't think . I don't think that brand would have been top of mind , but it's very interesting because obviously it's internationally renowned , one of the biggest brands on this earth , so globally recognizable . So how does that sort of translate into the community that's being built ?
Speaker 2Yeah , that's a great question With Sanrio . It was definitely not an easy task . It took over 10 months of speaking with the japanese team , the singapore team , uh to to kind of , I guess , convince them that to try blockchain and nfts again . To give you some context , sanrio tried nfts four or five years ago . Didn't work out well , um , and so they pretty much vowed to not not touch blockchain nfts for a long time , uh , and then I came along and I kind of just put my foot in the door and I was like , let me just talk to you guys about what we have planned and how we use blockchain and NFTs in a way that doesn't involve too much speculation . It's not about that investment or scaring away your community . And so , luckily , they were willing to talk . And so , luckily , they were willing to talk , and so for the last 10 months had just been really educating them on on how we use blockchain in a way that isn't like most of the crypto space , and that's how we've gotten that kind of IP , as well as Teletubbies and Axie Infinity . So Axie Infinity is obviously more of a web 3 type one . Even Neopets as well . So all of of these different IPs , it's one to convince them to be able to trust us in being able to create these characters . That ends up not being a lot like the crypto space , where it's just a pump and dump type of scheme .
Speaker 2And then the second part is our community , which , as you noted on , is going to be a weird one , right , we spend a lot of time building the infrastructure for our community , especially because we're getting camps of people that are either not gamers at all , and so introducing them to something like Discord is quite weird , because they would think , oh , okay , discord is a gaming thing . Then you have people that are in the Web3 space that , okay , discord makes so much sense . But then we have all of these users from the web 2 space that have no idea about nfts and blockchain , and so this community is is , in a sense , is like , as I'm from australia , as multicultural , as like australia is in terms of a mismatch of so many different nationalities and demographics in drug out like people from all over the world , right , um , and so I look at it that that way in which we are creating this multicultural community . That being said , there's always going to be multiple challenges along the way as we introduce a new IP that might be even completely different to what we have right now in terms of our lineup , getting those people into this community .
Speaker 2We're going to have to separate chats , but we also have to have a cohesive environment where people can talk freely and share those values of having a companion . And so , ultimately , the solution to all of this is actually through your companions once again , and so I look at and give you the example of something like a dog park , right ? So when you go to a dog park , you don't just randomly walk up to people and start talking to them . It's your dogs or your pets that start playing and intermingling with each other , and then you happen to have a conversation with them . And so , instead of having a community that's completely segregated into different demographics and geographical regions because of the IP , instead we have a companion that ends up being that icebreaker . Everybody has a companion here . That's a guaranteed thing . And so being able to share mini games , leaderboards , expressing different things that they've done with their companion on their screens , that is where that shared value or bond we hope will tie the community together .
Speaker 1So I guess in a way it's a community that's sort of united in shared differences , in that there's the common element of , you know , we were all here because we wanted a digital companion and we like the way that they interact . But that can be where the similarities and they don't necessarily need to be bound by a common mission or common purpose . I guess , in a way which I think is is often assumed , but I guess , you know , communities have been built on far less , so it's very interesting to see that like a different dynamic play out
Technology and Blockchain Growth MetaPals
Speaker 1a little bit . Um , looking more to the technological front and also , just like I guess , the business growth front . We touched on your roadmap earlier and how you're essentially eventually going to branch into mobile and then potentially AR and VR down the line . How will the blockchain component evolve ? Or is that sort of just the infrastructure or the foundation layer and everything else will be built on top , or are there other ways in which blockchain infrastructure are going to feed into MetaPals ?
Speaker 2Yeah . So I think , with the MetaPals team , our ethos internally is always to push the boundaries of what's possible With the browser extension . If we had used what was available , then the visuals and the capabilities of your companion on your screen would be nowhere near what is expressed right now and what will be expressed over the course of the year . We had to build our own game engine for that . We're also building an entirely new innovation for the mobile version as well , and so , if we look at every single aspect of MetaPals , we again try to innovate in where we go , and so that's why , with blockchain even tying on , why we chose Tezos . So Tezos is one of those few blockchains that we've seen to be very much versatile , adaptable and upgradable , which is something that you don't necessarily see with a lot of other blockchains that tend to be top-down . Here's the newest update take it or leave it , right , let's just go with that . With tesla , it's , it's extremely adaptable , and that's exactly what we're looking for when it comes to metapals . Um , everything needs to be evolving , right , and we saw that tesla's the rate of that . That evolution is exactly what we were looking for .
Speaker 2So , with the blockchain tying that back with ai , right now they're almost somewhat separate .
Speaker 2So , with the metadata of each smart contract , yes , you have individual personality traits that change over time , and that is based on AI , but to tie them together more is looking into how we can localize the datasets that the AI is extracting from and hosting that on the actual smart contract .
Speaker 2So to translate that , essentially what it means is , as you interact with your companion , you build a relationship with it . It has a memory , right , and it has all of these experiences you share with it , and so it learns things about you that needs to be stored somewhere , and ultimately , we don't want to store that ourselves . That should be decentralized in the companion itself , just like in a real pet or real companion . Their memories are stored within themselves , and so to do that on a smart contract would be how we're looking into pushing the boundaries of the technological frontier of blockchain and AI , and so that's one element , and there's a lot of other elements we're looking into to make things more on-chain , more efficient and ultimately , hinging upon this idea that everything needs to relate back to how do we form that deeper bond with a companion if we're achieving that and chipping away at that , essentially that model in which we form those relationships through blockchain and ai , then we'll we'll run the right track and uh .
Speaker 1And speaking of tesla specifically , I know you guys were also the recipient of some grant funding from the tesla foundation , so big congratulations for that . That is not an easy thing to accomplish , so I think it's a major validation of what you are actually working on and the growth potential that I guess the community sees . I do know that there was perhaps a little bit of skepticism initially upon receiving the grant , initially went upon receiving the grant . So I'd like to ask if not too sensitive , you know , how did you navigate that sort of that level of doubt or , like the , I guess , the social commentary that took place sort of beyond your control .
Speaker 2Yeah , that was definitely an interesting time . So some contacts was .
Navigating Community Relations in Tezos
Speaker 2Ultimately , there was a bit of bad timing . Teslos Foundation posted about how they were , I guess , like being more strict when it comes to the grant process , but then the next day launched that we were receiving the grant , even though it happened maybe six months ago . It was just a case of bad timing , and so a lot of we got caught in the crossfire when it comes to like essentially the Tezos community kind of being upset with Tezos Foundation and then in the process we're kind of stuck in the middle of that , and so we got a lot of that kind of hate .
Speaker 2But ultimately , everything you need to understand or better positioned as an opportunity rather than something that is like you can just either defend yourself or just be like , oh , these are whatever people just like , forget about them , right . And so what I saw was an opportunity to be a spokesperson for the community , right , and so with , especially , the art community in Tezos , they were feeling neglected , they were feeling like they weren't heard , right , and the Tezos Foundation and Tezos were just kind of going on their own path and just ignoring this core demographic or core base of users that genuinely cared about Tezos and building up the art community there but were in , I guess , like left in the dark or feeling like they were a shadow within the Tezos ecosystem . And so , hearing that , instead of , I guess , like being defensive and be like , oh , metapowers is this and it's like we deserve this and we should do that , all that kind of stuff , instead , I just shifted all the narrative away and I just focused on okay , what can we do to actually connect Tezos Foundation , the Tezos art people , with a stronger community of being listened to . And so right now , I speak to the new head of art at Tezos , alexandra , as well as the Tezos art community , which I mentioned . I was in London a couple of weeks ago sorry for the Tezos art team , right , that works at Tezos and then also speaking with Object , which is one of the main NFT Tezos , and then also speaking with Object , which is one of the main NFT marketplaces , and then right now we have a big group chat with all the Tezos art community to arrange some collabs I can do within my game , but also with all of the ecosystem projects and just being more connected there . And so I think from our angle , it was just about okay , what can we do to actually fix this space , rather than being defensive and I'm going to continue to try and do that schedule AMAs with the Tezos art community and the Tezos team right , so we can improve that section of it . Even though , in a sense , it doesn't relate to me personally , with our gaming sector or AI sector , it is important to us to be represented within the Tezos community and hear what I guess , because of my closeness to the Tezos team , I have an ear to be able to speak to , and so I can relay those thoughts from the art community , and I felt like that was a great opportunity to do so .
Speaker 2But I Sorry to go off a little bit of a tangent . This is I think that it's quite normal to go into a community that is very niche , right , and when you introduce a new product to them , most of the time they're ladas , most of the time they are against change , and so we actually saw this way back a couple of years ago when we started launching this , and then we went to the Tamagotchi communities and my master's was based on Tamagotchi . I absolutely adored Tamagotchi my entire life and I felt like this virtual pet was that next evolution in which we could build upon the Tamagotchi and take it further . I went to the Tesla community there's a website called Tamatalk and some other smaller communities on Reddit and I was like , hey , I'm building this thing that hopefully we can revitalize the community , and I just got so much backlash .
Speaker 2I was like , oh , this is another blockchain thing . You're just taking our money . You should just leave Tamagotchi the way it is , all of these kinds of things and I was just stunned . I was like this is also kind of my community here . I'm trying to build it further , and I saw a lot of parallels between that experience and this one here . But the difference was in the previous one . When I spoke to the Tamagotchi community , I tried really hard to sell MetaPals , to be defensive , rather than actually listen to what their concerns were and then try to address them without having to pitch or sell MetaPals itself . And so I took those learnings and I applied that into that Tezos fiasco and I like to think that hopefully I'm making the right or the correct strides here to improve the situation .
Speaker 1I mean , I think it's very admirable to essentially go from to a degree being collateral damage or being caught in the crosshairs , as you said , to pivoting to a position of almost becoming a diplomat within the ecosystem and just relaying or being being the middleman even though that's a bit of a dirty word in this space , but like the liaison perhaps is a better term between these different communities and making sure that the conversations are happening on every level .
Speaker 1I do agree with you that sometimes , when you have intimate communities , like we do within the blockchain space , an outside voice coming in feels like a bit of a an intrusive scenario , until people sort of size up your intent and what you're essentially trying to do there . Because I mean , as we all know , with crypto , there are a lot of uh , bad actors within this realm . So it's natural to take on this very defensive position , I think , and just make sure you're not about to get scammed or , you know , bulldozed or what have you . So I think it's a it's a very , very delicate dance to play . It sounds like you've handled it very well and I I hope it continues to go smoothly .
Future of AI With MetaPals
Speaker 1Um , but then you know if , for those that are still sort of coming to get to know yourself , coming to get to know MetaPals . What's sort of the thing that you really want them to take away ? What's the key thing you need them to understand about you , if nothing else .
Speaker 2I think it goes back to what I studied and what MetaPals is built on , which is trying to imagine how we interact with AI in the next 10 years .
Speaker 2Right , if you actually deeply think about that , there's only really one possible solution here , and as we gravitate towards that , like I said in the start , convergence towards one or two different AI agents , we have to make a choice about whether we end up having to have these characters or these sorry , these AI agents as something like Wall-E , right , that has emotion , that have care , empathy , things that we actually provide joy in our daily lives .
Speaker 2Or something like HAL 9000 , which is this cold , robotic , functional tool , right , which is perfectly fine . I mean , if you look at AI as a purely functional tool , that's okay , but ultimately , our relationship will evolve into something that becomes more friendly towards us , something that's more convenient to us . And you see , with the rise of Amazon , alexa and Siri just talking about moving away from chat box to speech , right , just being able to have a dialogue with that AI agent that's one evolution in which we are becoming closer to that idea that we are tying in something that is familiar to us , and so , if you look at it that way , to me , the most familiar is pets , the most familiar is our nostalgic characters and expressed through this AI agent , and so if you understand that , then I think that Metapals is exactly what we're kind of like , building upon that ethos .
Speaker 1Well , it sounds like MetaPals is on a very interesting and exciting track , and are there any places that people can sort of stay up to date or follow MetaPals I guess you know in this journey ?
Speaker 2If you want to read more about what we're building and what we have in store for this next two to three years , check out our white paper so it's whitepapermetapalsai , but otherwise you can join our community on Discord and that all is through our website , metapalsai . And also just check out the Teletubbies website . We put a lot of effort into it . It's actually quite a fun one . We got the original narrator from 1997 on the first episode of Teletubbies website . We put a lot of effort into it . It's actually quite a fun one . We got the original narrator from 1997 on the first episode of Teletubbies to come back right and actually do the narration for our YouTube video for the launch trailer . So we're putting a lot of effort into really adhering to the Teletubbies and bringing them back to life , and we try to do that with every single ip launch this year . Um , so yeah , just check out the website , and the white paper is the most important thing .
Speaker 1I think that if people read the white paper , you'll get and understand the deeper level of what we're trying to build and if there's something this industry absolutely adores , it's a white paper , because we we love just getting an understanding of the motivations or the plan that's currently at stake , rather than just encountering a new digital phenomenon platform product , whatever it is , and having no sense of how it's going to or the plan that's currently at stake , rather than just encountering a new digital phenomenon platform product , whatever it is , and having no sense of how it's going to map out into the future . So a white paper is almost like our collective industry safety blanket in a way .
Speaker 2Yes , and I've made sure to put a lot of images and visuals of , like , actually the product in place , talking about what we're doing . So , instead of rather just like speaking on , like , all the things we're gonna do , um , these are things that we either have launched or are very much closing to release as a feature , um within our white paper , and so , like , we chose the very non-web three thing to do , which is to launch our product first , and then our white paper , and and start marketing um , the actual product itself , the , the extension , is live right now , and so I commend people to really just try it out and just see what we're talking about here .
Speaker 1Yeah , I actually did . In researching for this interview , I did actually check out your white paper and the illustrations did help . It was a very different experience to reading almost academic or making it a bit of a literature review situation rather than actually just sort of reading the mission statement , well illustrated and digestible . So well done on that front . Thank you , um max . This was a great conversation and thank you so much to for taking the time to actually share a lot more about metapals and I think there's a lot of exciting things in the works . But are there any final words you'd like to leave on ?
Speaker 2before we part ways here . I think it's been a great time , marisa , and I hope that people will one day have companions everywhere that I go and I'll be able to see them . And if anyone can join the community , I'd love to hear what characters they would want to have as their sidekick . That's one of my favorite questions to ask , and I'll ask it to you , marissa , as well . If you had any character at all that you would want to have as your sidekick , what would it be ?
Speaker 1That's a fantastic question . It's definitely caught me off guard . My personal love when I was growing up were Neopets . I adored .
Speaker 2Neopets .
Speaker 1So my personal love when I was growing up were Neopets . I adored Neopets , so it's probably within that realm , okay .
Speaker 2Well , we are working with Neopets , so that is going to be a launch this year . So hopefully very soon you'll have your wish .
Speaker 1That's awesome , max , thanks again , and I'm sure it won't be too long before we chat again .
Speaker 2Fantastic . Thank you , Marissa .
