While tech giants continue to pour billions into the development of the metaverse, industry observers warn that it could take years for the concept to live up to its promise. However, they also say that the technology’s early stage allows its developers to try to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made when the Internet was created.
As the metaverse “hasn’t set in yet,” according to Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center affiliate Micaela Mantegna, and because of that, it may still be possible to reduce the toxicity, harassment, and hate that spread across the web. There is also social media.
,[W]e has already ruined an internet,” the researcher said during a panel discussion held at the recent Game Developer Conference informed of by wired.
Enforceable regulations and ethical guidelines can provide a way to deal with those issues. The metaverse is a relatively new invention, but according to Mantegna, solutions implemented in other technology areas such as video games can provide some guidance.
“Video games have always led these technologies,” she said. “I think maybe we can start a conversation here and start building solutions for this.”
The fight against online harassment extends to platforms such as Fortnite and Second Life, and the rapidly growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) among internet users is also attracting the attention of regulators around the world.
“We need to think about all the experiences we’ve already had when thinking about AI ethics,” according to the researcher.
Ryan Black, an attorney focused on the video game industry, who also appeared on the panel, observed that the Metaverse would most likely not constitute a single universe, but be designed to meet the needs of different consumers based on their financial and economic needs. There will be a set of given scope. technical competence.
“Product development is driven by the ability to monetize it to further the business objective,” he added. For this reason, the implemented solution will be based on how to maximize the financial benefits of the companies involved in the development of the Metaverse, “and not what works for our users/society.”
For now, several major tech companies such as metaFirm continues behind social media giant Facebook shed blood In regards to their virtual reality-focused efforts. Meta’s Reality Labs unit posted an operating loss of some $4.28 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. Overall, the enterprise’s operating losses for 2022 totaled $13.72 billion.
The unit’s total income from operations was $6.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2022 and $28.94 billion for the full year, as indicated statistics From Meta’s financial report for October-December 2022. At the same time, Meta’s leadership is determined to maintain the firm’s investments in virtual reality and AI technologies, according to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO and co-founder of the social media platform.
“The moral shift has to be one that recognizes that the metaverse/virtual reality we are creating (or whatever we create will emerge from it) is a place where people will exist, and that they have rights here that are different from any other.” transcend the business needs of the organization,” Black said. “It would be too complicated to do when we still have municipal, county, state/province and country boundaries” which may not exist in the metaverse “but this meatspace would pretty much control the humans who make it up.”