Irakli Beridze and Maria Eira: What We Believe About Metaverse

IRAKLI BERIDZE is the Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics, UNICRI, United Nations

It is easy to believe in things we see with our eyes. It is even easier if we also hear and feel them with our own hands or our bodies. Our senses, stimulated physically, help us to naturally identify what is ‘real’. With the advent of the metaverse however, what we perceive and identify as ‘real’ stands to change. And soon.

Within the next ten years, it is highly likely that most of us will either work, study, exercise, travel or have some part of our life in the metaverse – a digital universe characterized by the interaction of physical, augmented and virtual reality in a shared online space. The concept as of late attracted an accelerated attention from governments, businesses, academia and civil society alike. News outlets are writing enthusiastically about this concept, particularly since Facebook’s October 2021 rebranding as Meta, and the unveiling of its plans to build its own metaverse platform. This interest is not without cause. The technology truly promises to enable people to interact in ways previously thought unimaginable.

As a result, tech companies, large and small, are investing in the metaverse, including major names such as Microsoft and NVIDIA. As are countries. The Government of Barbados, for instance, has announced plans to open a digital Embassy in the Metaverse. Interest is also fomenting at different international forums, including at the United Nations. Notwithstanding the interest, there is not yet a clear view of how the metaverse will evolve and materialize in practice, and many questions about this emerging technological phenomenon simply remain unanswered.

As a still single planetary species, we, as homosapiens, have a limited physical world around us which provides natural boundaries – both in terms of opportunities and risks associated with our daily existence. With the metaverse however, virtual worlds are limitless. This provides unimaginable possibilities – again both in terms of opportunities and risks. No borders, no physical limitations. But can we be allowed to operate without boundaries, and effectively do whatever we want, in a virtual world?

There are an increasing number of examples of when the answer has to be ‘no’. Last month, a woman claimed that her avatar – her digital representation in the virtual world – was sexually assaulted in a virtual reality (VR) platform. The assaulted woman reported that two male avatars were making obscene comments, and one of them was very close to her. She explained that when another user touches her avatar, the hand controllers vibrate, creating what she described as “a very disorienting and even disturbing physical experience during a virtual assault”.

Of course, many will ask themselves, “if it is all virtual, what’s the big deal”? The truth is that these kinds of experiences make the boundaries between the virtual and real world very tenuous. Anyone who has had the opportunity to experience VR goggles and interact with other avatars has probably felt some discomfort when an avatar gets very close in the virtual space. Particularly if that other avatar is a complete stranger.

In fact, it is surprisingly easy to convey a sense of body ownership in virtual environments. The feeling of embodiment can be induced when visually substituting a person’s real body by a life-sized virtual one, and reinforced when the user has an avatar with a self-representation, and can see from the first-person perspective. This feeling is amplified in environments with high levels of immersion, which is the case of multi-sensorial settings with visual, audio and tactile stimuli.

So, yes, what’s the big deal? Well, if we see, we hear it, and we feel it, are we not somehow living it?

In addition to crimes of a sexual nature, there is growing concern from critics of the metaverse about the presence of stigma, hate speech, xenophobia, racism and discrimination – issues long prevalent in the gaming community and on social media, but taking on new meaning in the metaverse. For instance, an African-American player from a VR game platform recently expressed in an interview that racial harassment in VR has the same effect as racial harassment in real life.

The depiction of graphic content presents similar problems. Researchers have reported the presence of gun violence, drugs and sexually explicit content in several VR platforms. Additionally, although many of these platforms have age restrictions, there are many underage kids using these applications on regular basis. Failure to catch and moderate content such as this, may mean that minors end up exposed to harm. In a world where sexual predators roam online and almost all cases of child sexual exploitation and abuse feature online interaction to some degree, all risks should be taken seriously.

Aside from this, other forms of crime could take place in the metaverse including fraud, identity theft, radicalization to violent extremism, and money laundering. The platforms could conceivably also be used to spread disinformation and fake news, in many ways much like existing social media platforms.

Although the negative prospects have taken the attention of the media, the metaverse has an immense positive potential, which should never be discounted. It can help us to advance health care, providing virtual platforms for surgeons to obtain valuable practical experience at no risk, or even to facilitate virtual surgeries in real time. It can also open up tremendous new markets for small and medium sized businesses to capitalize upon and generate new forms of income. The opportunities are ‘virtually’ limitless.

An interesting study recently indicated that virtual embodiment in VR platforms can improve performance in cognitive tasks. What was seen in this study was that participants, wearing body-tracking suit and a VR headset, that were virtually placed in avatar physically representing the body of Albert Einstein, demonstrated a better performance in IQ tests than when they did when using an avatar with a physical appear more similar to their own. Even a curious example like this shows how the metaverse could be leveraged in creative ways, in this case to support education systems and enhance training methods.

The metaverse can truly be a powerful tool, depending on how we use it. From our perspective at the United Nations, we are eager to explore how the metaverse can help to realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 global goals. We need, however, to also consider carefully the potential harms and develop proper governance of these platforms to guarantee a safe and healthy environment, especially to the most vulnerable ones – the children – to make sure that we can make the most of it.

How should governments and societies regulate such a borderless technology, however? If the space is limitless and does not fall within the traditional borders of our physical nations, how can countries or even international organizations such as United Nations, hope to deal with it? Can we govern it from ‘outside’? Or should we already be thinking about taking up our own presence within the metaverse, and using it as a new virtual forum to build a better and more sustainable future for all.