The minister of state for artificial intelligence from the United Arab Emirates warned that committing murder should be illegal in the metaverse.
Al Olama said that it would not create the memories that you will have from the experience.
He said that if he came into the metaverse, he would murder you and you would see it.
It makes sense to outlaw child sexual abuse imagery in the virtual world, but it's an argument that stretches the definition of the word.
It is one thing to shoot an enemy in a first-person shooter, but another thing to distribute illegal content.
It's hard to say what crime is in a virtual world, especially one that doesn't really exist yet.
There is a question of who gets to make the decisions about what should be in the metaverse.
The UN's agency for information and communication technologies, the International Telecommunication Union, came up with international safety standards.
It may make sense to have an independent international body in charge. Having online spaces govern themselves leaves a lot of gaps in their moderation efforts and allows for a lot of harassment and the villainizing of entire communities.
Do we want the UN to decide what games are allowed in virtual reality?
Is Al Olama suggesting we should have a virtual police force? It is a difficult problem because any large-scale metaverse would be difficult to operate legally and logistically.
Despite the optimism of tech leaders and billions of dollars spent, the metaverse is still a long way from becoming a reality. We don't know if a worldwide, unified metaverse will ever take hold, given the interest from several competing players already.
This is assuming that the idea of wearing a virtual reality headset so kids can scream at you is something that catches on in a serious way.
The United Nations should outlaw serious crime in the metaverse.
Facebook says it isn't building a metaverse after all.
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