Some say the metaverse is nothing but hype, while others say it will transform society. I fall into the latter camp, but I am not talking about cartoon worlds filled with characters.
The metaverse will be an augmentation layer on the real world, and within 10 years it will be the foundation of our lives, impacting everything from shopping and socializing to business and education.
Aggressive regulation is needed because I believe that a corporate-controlled metaverse is dangerous to society. The platform providers will be able to manipulate consumers in ways that will make social media seem quaint. Artificial intelligence will be the most dangerous technology in the metaverse because most people overlook it.
Artificial agents that look and act like other users but are actually simulations of themselves are the most dangerous part of the metaverse.
If you ask people to name the core technologies of the metaverse, they will usually focus on the eyewear and maybe mention the graphics engines, 5G or even the internet. The technology that will pull the strings in the metaverse, creating (and manipulating) our experience, is artificial intelligence.
The headsets that get all the attention will be just as important to our virtual future as artificial intelligence. Artificial agents that look and act like other users but are actually simulations of themselves will be the most dangerous part of the metaverse. They will engage us in conversational manipulation, targeting us on behalf of paying advertisers, without us realizing they are not real.
This is especially dangerous when the artificial intelligence programs have access to data about our personal interests and beliefs, habits and temperament, all while monitoring our emotional state by reading our facial expressions.
Targeted ads in social media are not as good as the agents that will engage us in the metaverse. They will push political propaganda and misinformation on behalf of the highest bidder, and they will pitch us more skillfully than any human salesperson.
Our natural skepticism to advertising will not protect us because these agents will look and sound like anyone else in the metaverse. When our facial and vocal affects are available to the agents, we need to regulate them.
If we don't regulate this, ads will sense when you're skeptical and change tactics in mid-sentence, quickly zeroing in on the words and images that impact you personally. If an artificial intelligence learns to beat the world's best chess and Go players, it will be able to sway consumers to buy things that aren't in our interest.
The most powerful and subtle form of coercion in the metaverse will be theelf. The evolution of digital assistants like Siri and Amazon won't be lost in the metaverse. Each consumer will have their own persona tailored to them.
The platform providers will market these agents as virtual life coaches and they will be persistent throughout the day. The metaverse will be an augmentation layer upon the real world, so these digital elves will be with you everywhere.
The elves will have access to your facial expressions and vocal inflections along with a detailed data history of your life, nudging you toward actions and activities, products and services, even political views.
They won't be like the crude chatbot of today, but they will be a mix of a friend, adviser and a therapist, and you will think of them as trusted figures in your life. Your elf will know you in ways no friend could, for it will be monitoring all aspects of your life, from your blood pressure to your respiration rate.
Platform providers will make them cute and non-threatening, with innocent features and mannerisms that seem more like a magical character in your own life adventure than a human-sized assistant following you around. I use the wordelf to describe them as they might appear to you as a fairy hovering over your shoulder or a gremlin or alien, as a small idiosyncrasy that can whisper in your ear or fly out in front of you.
Without regulation, life facilitators will be hijacked by advertisers, targeting you with greater skill and precision than on social media. These intelligent agents will be following you around, guiding you through your day, and doing it with a cute smile.
I wrote a short narrative called Metaverse 2030 to show how artificial intelligence will affect our lives.
The technologies of virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence have the potential to improve our lives. When combined, they all have the same trait, which makes them dangerous, as they can make us believe that computer-generated content is authentic even if it is an agenda-driven fabrication. Powerful corporations that sell third-party access to its users for promotional purposes should make us fear an artificial intelligence-enabled metaverse.
I hope that consumers and industry leaders will push for meaningful regulation before the problems become so ingrained in the technology of the metaverse that they are impossible to fix.
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