The metaverse has not fully “existed,” but it has already inspired billions of dollars in investment. Computer scientist and founder of Unanimous AI, Louis Rosenberg, has been working in the field of virtual reality for thirty years. He assessed the current situation and did not like what he saw, especially when it came to the current tech giants’ advertising-based business model.
This week, I discussed with him the potential threats to privacy and consumer rights in the immersive virtual world, as well as what regulatory agencies might need to start paying attention to. Here is an edited version of our conversation:
How does your tech background influence your attitude towards the metaverse?
Metaverse technology could give large companies immense influence and control over society, making the issues we currently see on social media seem a bit old-fashioned. I started thinking and writing about this issue as early as 2008 because we saw social media evolve from a utopian technology with all these amazing possibilities to one with all these unforeseen consequences, and I am increasingly clear that the metaverse will also develop in this direction.
Social media platforms have become very good at tracking and analyzing people by observing their clicks, what they buy, and who their friends are. In the metaverse, these things will be exacerbated.
What are the specific risks of this business model?
Metaverse platforms will be able to track where you go, what you do, where you look, how long your gaze lasts, your gait; they will look at your posture, be able to infer your level of interest. They will monitor your facial expressions, voice inflections, vital signs, blood pressure, heart rate, the blood flow pattern on your face. These extensive profiles will make the amount of information social media companies have seem like the good old days.
Then they can use it to lock in and persuade you. Advertising will go from promoting media to promoting experiences. They can change the world in a targeted way, so what you see is different from what others see… If this is not regulated or limited, the metaverse’s ability to influence people will be the most dangerous persuasion tool in human history.
In your academic paper, you wrote that either companies will self-regulate these issues or the government will do it for them. What incentives are there for the former?
I don’t think there is any motivation to self-regulate unless consumers demand a safe platform, and the platform competes on who is safer or who guarantees more rights. I don’t think it will happen organically without market forces driving it.
What is your message to regulatory agencies about the metaverse?
The fact that social media has become much more dangerous than anyone expected is helpful because at least people have accepted the fact that these large platforms can be very dangerous. Now is the time when the industry can actually be influenced by policy, and if there are guardrails, the industry can choose different business models.
I tried to get this message out, not the intuitive reaction, “Oh, it’s too early, people don’t even know what the metaverse is, how can you regulate it?” Meta, Google, Apple, and Samsung all know very well what the metaverse will be. Just a few days ago, Roblox announced that they are going to start advertising on their platform. There are 50 million children in the Roblox metaverse; advertising to children is even more repulsive than advertising to adults, but economic pressures are driving them to do so.
If Roblox is willing to go in this direction for children, platforms aimed at adults will not take much time to make this decision unless there is regulation.
Today’s AR/VR policy conference invited many experts on the metaverse and the emerging technologies that may power it, covering the role of virtual reality in everything from intellectual property to geopolitics.
Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) delivered the keynote speech on behalf of the “Reality Caucus,” calling on tech giants to use their substantial investments for good. An emissary from that world heard his request, Christina Jackson of Meta, who outlined the company’s global affairs president Nick Clegg’s earlier suggestions for shared metaverse governance in a panel discussion on “online safety, free speech, and content control in the new digital town square.”
Jackson said, “If developers are creating these spaces, they may want their set of rules to be different. Who is responsible for regulation? It may depend on the space, and then it may be a shared responsibility. Should one person answer? I don’t know.”
The conference also hosted representatives from the Biden administration’s Department of Labor to discuss “the role of AR/VR innovation in the workforce,” as well as the Department of Defense in a panel discussion on “how AR/VR will reshape defense, government services, and international relations.”
The European Union is launching its bureaucratic machinery to address the issue of virtual worlds.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will include “initiatives on virtual worlds,” such as the metaverse, as part of her plan for a Europe fit for the digital
