Linden Lab

Second Life founder @PhilipRosedale joins Douglas @Rushkoff on the Team Human podcast to talk about AI, virtual worlds, and what comes next. Watch the full conversation on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=m_bF46…

I talked with @philiprosedale, founder and CEO of @LindenLab and creator of @SecondLife, about the nature of self, society, and the design of virtual worlds. We discussed the phenomenology of waking up and coalescing into a self, the polycrisis and whether to work on AI or on software that helps people get along better, Philip's role-based sense of identity, his messianic feeling during Second Life's early days versus a more Zen perspective now, humanity's place in the cosmic timeline, resistance to the techie utopian view that humans are merely a stepping stone to AI, the duty to "think local" and align at the scale of immediate community, Doug Rushkoff's "team human" concept, shared objective reality as social glue, the danger that technology has reduced the coherence of our collective worldview, Jim's "minimum viable metaphysics" and the reality assumption as operationally necessary, overapplying quantum mechanics to produce anti-realist worldviews, Philip's founding vision for Second Life as an emergent system contrasted with Old Testament god-game design, Craig Reynolds' Boids flocking rules and the tattoo encoding cohesion, separation, and alignment, emergent currency as a feature rather than a bug, the demand for beautiful avatars and identity expression as the first break from the simulation dream, why low-fidelity text platforms became massive while Second Life became big but not huge, the uncanny valley problem and its origins, AI video generation as a potential breakthrough for real-time believable face animation in virtual worlds, the whites of human eyes as a social signaling adaptation, the topology of connectivity producing different social emergence, Second Life's local topology versus Twitter's power-law scale-free network, the Game B concept of the membrane and voluntary strong-sauce agreements within small groups, Facebook groups as an early moment of rightness before the bleaching phenomenon took hold, crypto's attraction of bad actors and Vitalik Buterin's recent admission that Ethereum didn't serve humanity as intended, anonymity as generally harmful and the need for identity through group belonging, the trillion-dollar opportunity of a personal agent as a defensive membrane, the mid-nineties fork in the road on micropayments versus free, neutral infrastructure decisions having massive emergent cultural effects, what Jim learned from the Santa Fe Institute about the limits of confident long-range prediction, Karl Friston's work on consciousness and the membrane around something alive, world-model building as fundamental to selfhood, consciousness as discovering the self inside the world model, lucid dreams as a visceral analogy for the strange loop, and much more.

In this conversation with @Jim_Rutt, Linden Lab founder @PhilipRosedale reflects on the early vision behind @SecondLife, what actually emerged from it, and how those lessons apply to AI, online communities, and the future of digital spaces. Learn more: jimrutt.substack.com/p/ep-337-phili…

Welcome Jerome Despret, Linden Lab’s New Senior Vice President of Engineering! second.life/news031326

The SLua open beta is here. Take a look at the new scripting language features, tools, and documentation. second.life/technews120225 #SecondLife #SLua #Scripting #Creators #GameDev #OpenBeta

Cool statistic from wall monitor in #SecondLife HQ… 146 Million friendships to date.

Today’s guest is a legend within spatial computing/XR. We're speaking with @philiprosedale, the visionary founder of Second Life and one of our industry's most renowned pioneers. Long before the 'metaverse' and 'web3' became buzz words, Second Life was the first, commercially successful, virtual world, with a self-sustaining, digital society where millions could create, trade, and become whoever they wanted to be. Philip does a lot of podcasts, so I tried to make this one unique. Call me biased, but mission accomplished. This is easily my favorite conversation of the year. We explore the enduring magic of Second Life, what it taught him about economics, identity, and why adults—not just kids—still crave virtual connection. We dive into the deep stuff—how avatars act as mirrors of the self, why virtual identity can actually reshape real-world behavior, and how platforms like Second Life may hold the key to understanding consciousness itself. We talk about the illusion of self, the Proteus Effect, and what it means to co-create identity in a shared digital world. And then we ask: what happens when AI agents start growing up in these spaces? Could virtual worlds become safe playgrounds for emerging machine minds—and what might they teach us in return? We also get philosophical, in all the best ways. We explore: - Avatars as mirrors of the self - How virtual identity can reshape real-world behavior - What happens when AI agents start growing up in these spaces? Could virtual worlds become safe playgrounds for emerging machine minds—and what might they teach us in return? So strap in and enjoy, its wonderfully wide-ranging, it's mind bending, and it's most importantly, full of soul... With that, I bring you Philip Rosedale. Full episode below 🔗👇

On June 23rd, 2003, the Second Life virtual world was launched to the public. Thank you for being on this journey with us. Here's to many more years of virtual adventures! Come celebrate with us! second.life/sl22b #SecondLife #SecondLifeBirthday #SL22B #LindenLab

I had the honor to sit down with the legendary @philiprosedale and have a quick interview with him about #VirtualReality, #MR, #AI, and the mighty #metaverse word! skarredghost.com/2025/06/19/phi…

A New Chapter: Tilia Joins Global Payments Leader Thunes - Learn more: second.life/news060425

Your Second Life account is your gateway to the world you’ve helped build. Our expanded Trust & Safety team is stepping up protections, but your actions matter too. Here are 5 essential ways to protect your account: ✅ Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) ✅ Use a strong, unique password ❌ Never share your login info ❌ Don’t buy/sell L$ outside Linden Lab ❌ Avoid suspicious links & downloads Together, we can keep Second Life safe 🔐 Learn more: second.life/news052325

Building Worlds and Connecting Souls: A Conversation with @PhilipRosedale - Founder and CTO of @SecondLife - via @OTSMagazine - otsmagazine.com/2025/05/philip…

Second Life is live at GDC 2025! Swing by our booth to dive into new experiences, meet our fantastic team, and grab some exclusive swag! #SecondLife #LindenLab #GDC2025 #GDC @Official_GDC

Imagine an entity born in cyberspace. ft. @philiprosedale and @AR_Yngve: default.blog/p/ai-natives

Browser-Based Access to Second Life: Limited Testing Begins Today! Learn more: second.life/news010225

"This means creators in Second Life are 100 times more likely to earn over $10,000 than on Roblox. And they are 27 times more likely to become a millionaire." -- Dean Takahashi / Venture Beat

Philip Rosedale Returns as CTO to Help Build the Future of Second Life: second.life/news102924 #SecondLife #LindenLab @philiprosedale

To ensure compliance with financial regulations, we're updating the process for adding payment methods in Second Life. second.life/news092524

Effective immediately, we're opening up the all-new official Second Life Mobile Beta app to Premium members! A whole virtual world in the palm of your hand - available for iOS and Android now (and coming soon to everyone in Second Life). Check it out! secondlife.com/mobile

SL21B is Open! Celebrate 21 years of Second Life with us! 🥳 🎉 Join the party! ➡️ second.life/sl21b #SecondLife #SecondLifeBirthday #SL21B #LindenLab #metaverse