Regulate the Metaverse
Why regulation is important and urgent.
In a popular article last month, I warned that a corporate controlled metaverse is rapidly coming our way and will be far more dangerous than social media. In response to that piece, many reached out, asking how we can avoid the problems. Having been involved in VR and AR from the very beginning, this is a topic I’ve spent decades thinking about.
So, why is the Metaverse dangerous?
It’s not the technology that’s dangerous, but the fact that powerful corporations will be able to mediate all aspects of our lives, selling access to our daily experiences to the highest bidder. I know this sounds like today’s social media, but in the metaverse the intrusion will be far more intimate than any technology ever created. To describe this rigorously, I find it helpful to define the Three M’s of the Metaverse, as the core problems boil down to its ability to monitor us, manipulate us, and monetize us:
(1) The Metaverse will monitor our lives: Over the last two decades, tech companies have made a science of tracking our behaviors, characterizing how we browse and where we click, so they can peddle our profiles to advertisers. Many consider this an egregious invasion of privacy, but little has been done to solve the problem (at least, not in the US). In addition, this obsession with tracking and profiling has made social media a destructively polarizing force, allowing platform providers to target us with custom messaging that amplifies our existing biases and preconceptions, radicalizing populations.
In the metaverse, this gets much worse. The technology will not just track where you click, but where you go, what you do, who you’re with, what you look at, even how long your gaze lingers. The platforms will also track your facial expressions, vocal inflections, and vital signs (as captured by your trusty smart-watch and soon, earbuds), while intelligent algorithms use this data to predict your emotional states. This means the companies controlling the metaverse will not just know how you act, but how you react, profiling your responses at the deepest level. Of course, the danger here is not merely that they track these things, but that they can easily use this data to manipulate our wants and needs, influencing not just what we buy but what we believe.
(2) The Metaverse will manipulate our actions: From the early days of radio and TV, advertisers have targeted us by demographic, skillfully influencing our views. With the advent of social media, segmenting the public has gotten far more precise, enabling hyper-targeted messaging. In the metaverse, this targeting will get far more personal, the content much harder to resist. After all, in today’s world we usually know when we’re being advertised to and can muster a healthy dose of skepticism. In the metaverse, we won’t be hit with overt pop-up ads or promo-videos, but simulated people, products, and activities that seem just as real as everything else around us.
For example, in the metaverse you will meet people who look and act like any other user, but they will be computer generated personas (SimGens, I call them) that are programmed to engage you in conversation, reading your facial expressions and vocal inflections so they can pitch you more skillfully than any used-car salesman. And these virtual conversational agents will be be crafty, armed with a database of your interests and inclinations, plus a history of your previous interactions with similar ads. Even the manner in which these intelligent avatars appear to you — their gender, hair color, eye color, clothing style — will be custom crafted by algorithms that predict which features are most likely to influence you personally. I know this sounds creepy, but it will happen unless we demand regulation to prevent it (more on regulation below).
(3) The Metaverse will monetize us like never before: As a longtime entrepreneur, I appreciate that platform providers are not charities — they need business models that generate real revenue. And because the public has resisted paid subscriptions, the industry standard has become free access in exchange for advertising. This is why so much effort goes into tracking and profiling users. We the public have chosen to be the product that’s bought and sold rather than the customer paying the bills. I point this out because a great way to solve these problems is for users to change our mindset, being willing to pay for access to environments rather than selling access to ourselves.
So, how do we fix the Metaverse?
As described above, shifting from ad-based to subscription-based models could be a powerful fix, eliminating the motivation that platform providers have to monitor and manipulate their users. Unfortunately, this only works if consumers are willing to pay for access. I suspect some will be willing to pay for a safer metaverse, which will inspire entrepreneurs to create subscription-based platforms, but we can’t assume this becomes the norm.
One promising approach is the creation of decentralized platforms that are controlled by users rather than corporate providers. This is not a new idea, as open-source VR worlds go back decades, but with the addition of crypto and smart-contracts (i.e. DAO technology), this direction is now more viable. One example is Decentraland with 300,000 monthly users.
Still, we have to assume that large corporations will create the platforms that dominate our lives. And we can’t expect people to simply opt-out of the metaverse, as it will become a critical access-point to digital content. This is especially true for the “augmented metaverse” that will use AR glasses to project layers of virtual content throughout the real world. Opting out will mean missing out on important information in our daily lives. So what can we do? At the risk of sounding cliché, the best solution is meaningful regulation. Of course, the million-dollar question is:
How do we regulate the Metaverse?
First and foremost, we need to limit the level of monitoring allowed. In the metaverse, the platform providers will have access to everything we do and say and touch and see — they should not be allowed to store this data for more than the short periods of time required to mediate whatever simulated experience is being generated. This would greatly reduce the degree to which they can profile our behaviors over time. In addition, they should be required to inform the public as to what is being tracked and how long it’s retained. For example, if they’re monitoring your gaze, you need to be overtly notified when such tracking is active and how it’s being used.
At the same time, there should be strict limits on what type of tracking is allowed and for what purposes. For example, the public should demand restrictions on advertising algorithms that monitor your facial expressions, vocal inflections, posture, and vital signs (including your heart rate, your respiration rate, pupil dilation, and even your galvanic skin response). I know this type of tracking sounds extreme, but it’s the direction we’re headed and it’s not far off. Unless we strictly regulate the metaverse, these very personal physiological reactions will be used to fine-tune marketing messages, adapting their strategy to influence us in real time.
In addition, we need to assume the metaverse will move away from traditional marketing methods like pop-up ads and promo-videos, instead targeting us in far more natural ways, injecting promotional objects and activities into our world that look and feel real. If a third-party pays for a virtual product placement in your augmented surroundings, they should be required to inform you that it’s a targeted placement, not a serendipitous interaction that you just happened to stumble upon.
The same is true when advertisers target us with simulated personas that engage us in what feels like natural conversations. They should be required to clearly and overtly inform us whenever we interact with conversational agents controlled by intelligent algorithms, especially when the algorithms have a hidden promotional agenda. This becomes even more important when those algorithms are also monitoring our reactions, for example assessing our posture and breathing so it can skillfully adapt its approach in real time. This type of “interactive manipulation”, optimized by AI, will happen soon and it will be profoundly coercive unless highly regulated.
Is the Metaverse worth it?
Clearly there are dangers to avoid as we transition from mobile phones to immersive worlds. This begs the question — is the metaverse worth it?
Having been involved in this field for over thirty years, I’ve experienced the ups and down of multiple hype-cycles and the long VR winter. And yet, I still believe in the vision — immersive media like VR and AR has the potential to make our lives magical, expanding what it means to be human. But to avoid serious dangers, we need to rapidly and aggressively regulate this space. Many people tell me its too early, but I deeply disagree. We need to push for regulation now, before the problems become so ingrained in the corporate infrastructure and business models that it’s impossible to unwind.
I know that regulation is never easy and rarely a popular pursuit. But without restrictions on platform providers, we may find ourselves in a deeply mediated world that looks and feels natural, while behind the scenes powerful corporations are manipulating our lives as a vehicle of persuasion, altering our experiences without us even realizing it. This is not the future we want for ourselves or our kids, so we should push for regulation now.
Like it or not, the metaverse is coming.
.……………. (For a vision of the future - check out Metaverse 2030)
Louis Barry Rosenberg, PhD is an early pioneer in the fields of VR, AR, and AI. Thirty years ago at Air Force Research Laboratory, Rosenberg developed the first functional augmented reality system enabling users to interact with a mixed reality of real and virtual objects. He then founded the early virtual reality company Immersion Corporation (IMMR on NASDAQ) in 1993 and the early AR company Outland Research in 2004. He is currently CEO and Chief Scientist of Unanimous AI, a company that amplifies the intelligence of human groups in shared environments. Rosenberg earned his PhD from Stanford, was a professor at California State University and has been awarded over 300 patents for his work in VR, AR, and AI. He writes often for VentureBeat and Big Think.
