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“Nem ✕ Nat Sakimura – Identity in the Age of AI and the Metaverse”

On February 27, at a side event of Digital Space Conference 2025 , following last year’s “The 10 Brightest VTubers of the Year 【MoguLive VTuber Award 2024】”, where Juufuutei Raden was selected for a tied 4 place alongside Virtual Girl Nem, I will hold an emergency dialogue with Nem. The title is “Nem ✕ Nat Sakimura – Identity in the Age of AI and the Metaverse.”

Where will the IDs and identities of a new humanity head on an internet being transformed dramatically by the development of AI and the metaverse!? You won’t want to miss it.

You can watch it at the Digital Space Conference 2025 venue, and it will also be livestreamed on YouTube Live. Please join us.

Date and Time

February 27, 2025 (Thursday), 11:15–11:45

Venue

Held in a hybrid in-person and online format!

【In-Person Venue】
Digital Space Conference 2025 lecture venue (Tokyo Midtown Hall, Hall A)

Watch this video on YouTube.
Playing the video connects to YouTube.

Speakers:

■ Virtual Girl Nem (VTuber/Author)

A “metaverse native” who lives in the dawn of virtual worlds and works as a “metaverse culture evangelist” conveying their culture. A self-proclaimed oldest independent VTuber in the world, she has been active as a beautiful-girl idol since 2017 under the theme “become who you want to be virtually.” Despite openly stating that she uses a voice changer, she made her singing debut with the original song “Kokoro Cosplay.” Her book “Metaverse Evolution” (Gijutsu-Hyoron Co., Ltd., 2022), which discusses the revolutionary nature of the metaverse, won the grand prize in the business-book category of the “IT Engineer Book Award 2023.” She also spoke at the United Nations international conference “IGF Kyoto 2023.” In recognition of her contributions to avatar culture, she received the “Avatar Award 2022 Special Achievement Award” from the VRM Consortium, becoming the second person in history after Kizuna AI to receive it.
X: https://x.com/nemchan_nel

■ Nat Sakimura (Managing Member, NAT Consulting LLC / Chairman, OpenID Foundation)

Specializing in international standardization concerning digital identity and privacy, he has authored a series of related international standards used by more than 3 billion people worldwide, as well as “Digital Identity” (Nikkei BP, 2021). He has served as Chairman of the US-based OpenID Foundation since 2011, Chairman of MyData Japan since 2019, and Digital Special Advisor to the Japan Fair Trade Commission since 2021. He chairs the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 expert committee on information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection, identity management, and privacy technologies. He is a member of the OECD Internet Technical Advisory Committee. He has also participated in numerous government-related study groups, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ “Study Group on Platforms” and the Digital Agency’s “Expert Meeting Toward Revision of the Identity Verification Guidelines.”
X: https://x.com/_nat

■ About Digital Space Conference 2025

Leading speakers in AI, Web 3, and the metaverse candidly share what happened behind their successes and the lessons learned from failure. Attendees take away insights and new discoveries from concrete examples and apply them to their own businesses to co-create the next generation. More than merely acquiring knowledge, the conference provides a place to take a step toward the future.
Official website: Digital Space Conference 2025
Press release: “Digital Space Conference 2025”: Star-Studded Speakers, Exhibition Details, and Side Events Announced! (February 13, 2025, 15:30)

■ Japan Digital Space Economy Federation

The federation invigorates economic activity in digital spaces and contributes to the sound development of Japan’s economy and the realization of prosperous lives for its people.
X: https://x.com/Dejikeiren

(References)

Summary of the Actual Session: Identity in the Age of AI and the Metaverse – Dialogue Notes

Overview

  • Event Name: Part of Digital Space Conference 2025
  • Date and Time: February 27, 2025
  • Location: Tokyo Midtown (in person) and YouTube livestream
  • Speakers:
    • Virtual Girl Nem (metaverse resident, VR content creator)
    • Nat Sakimura (Chairman, OpenID Foundation)
  • Theme: Identity in the Age of AI and the Metaverse

Key Points

1. Current State and Potential of the Metaverse

  • Description of the Metaverse Environment:
    • Immersive experiences using VR goggles, face trackers, and other equipment
    • Activities beyond physical constraints are possible (changing size, disabling gravity, etc.)
    • An environment like a real study can be created in VR, where a variety of activities are possible
    • The emergence of affordable headsets such as Meta Quest 3s has accelerated adoption
    • It is likened to “a world where magic is possible” (teleportation, generating objects, etc.)
  • Technical Advantages of VR:
    • Because the eyes are optically focused at a distance, there is less eye strain
    • Creativity unconstrained by physical limitations
    • Different forms of self-expression are possible by switching among multiple avatars
  • Japan’s VR Population:
    • Approximately doubled over the past 1 years
    • The growth rate of Japanese users is high even by global standards

2. Digital Identity and Multiple Personas (Dividuals)

  • Types of Avatars and Reasons for Choosing Them:
    • Human avatars are chosen by people seeking immersion through similarity to reality
    • Fantasy avatars are chosen by people seeking traits that cannot be expressed in reality
    • Over time, the share of human avatars has decreased while diverse avatars have become more common
  • Dual Identity:
    • Approximately 57% of users intentionally keep their virtual identities separate from their real selves
    • Reasons for separating them: avoiding prejudice and wanting to distinguish reality from the virtual world
    • Reasons for disclosing them: expanding networks and seeking connections between reality and the virtual world
  • The Concept of the “Dividual Economy”:
    • An economic structure in which one person participates through multiple personas and identities
      • Incidentally, published in 2011, ISO/IEC 24760-1 already defines “identity” and “partial identity” as synonyms on the premise that people use different identities in different contexts.
    • Currently, approximately 13% consider their identity in VR to be their primary identity, while 27% hope it will become primary in the future
    • Self-expression and psychological effects of switching identities

3. Digital Identity and Privacy Challenges

  • Role of the IdP (Identity Provider):
    • Standardization of online authentication (OpenID Connect, etc.)
    • Appropriate identity management for each context
    • The “do not mix” principle: different identities should be kept separate
  • Current Institutional Challenges:
    • Difficulty conducting economic activities under virtual identities (tax returns, financial transactions, etc.)
    • Balancing privacy protection and identity verification
    • The forced use of an omnidirectional identity is problematic
    • The ideal is “using different identities according to contextual relationships”
  • Directions for Solutions:
    • Mechanisms that minimize the information visible to each party concerned
    • A mechanism that passes service-provider-specific identifiers to the National Tax Agency, converts them into tax identities (with My Number as the identifier), and processes them
    • Potential for automated processing by personal AI

4. Japan’s Potential and Future Prospects

  • Japan’s Advantages:
    • Low barriers to creative activity (doujin culture, etc.)
    • High acceptance of VTuber culture and metaverse activities
    • High visibility of virtual beings in the media
  • Future Prospects:
    • Social implementation of mechanisms that are technically feasible
    • The need to advocate to legislative and administrative bodies—and that requires voters’ voices
    • New forms of social participation in an aging society
    • New economic development through a fundamental reassessment of ID systems

Conclusion

Multiple identities (dividuals) in the metaverse are already technically possible, but implementation and the development of legal systems are needed to connect them to economic activity and social institutions. Japan has a strong affinity for VR culture and has the potential to take a leadership role in this field. Developing an environment that enables people to “live more authentically” through the metaverse will be a challenge for the future.

Nem’s Summary on note

https://note.com/nemchan_nel/n/nbebac0953b30 contains a summary by Nem. It also includes Nem’s recommended viewing highlights and reactions on X, so please take a look.

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