The Metaverse Faces Uphill Battle as Tech Giants Struggle to Turn Concept into Reality – Can the Industry be Saved?
While tech giants continue to pour billions into the Metaverse’s development, industry observers caution that it could take years before the concept lives up to its promise. However, they also say that the technology’s nascent stage allows its developers to try to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made when the internet was created.
As the Metaverse is “not yet set,” according to Micaela Mantegna, an affiliate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center, and, owing to this, it could still be possible to reduce the toxicity, harassment and hatred which have spread across the web and social media.
“[W]e already ruined one internet,” the researcher said during a recent panel discussion held the Game Developer Conference, as reported by Wired.
Enforceable regulations and ethical guidelines could offer one way of tackling those issues. The Metaverse is a relatively new invention, but the solutions implemented in other tech fields, such as video games, could offer some guidance, according to Mantegna.
“Video games have always led the way in these technologies,” she said. “I think maybe we can start this conversation here and start creating solutions for this.”
The fight against online harassment extends to platforms such as Fortnite and Second Life, and the rapidly rising popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) among internet users is also drawing regulators’ attention across the world.
“We need to think about all the experiences we already have thinking about AI ethics,” according to the researcher.
Ryan Black, a lawyer focused on the video game industry who also appeared on the panel, observed that the Metaverse will most likely not constitute a single universe, but a set of realms designed to cater to the needs of
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