The metaverse could bring out the good, bad, and ugly sides of people
Prepare for a shitstorm
Recruitment
First, online recruitment and engagement are hallmarks of modern extremism, and the metaverse threatens to expand this capacity by making it easier for people to meet up. Today, someone interested in hearing what Oath Keepers founderStewart Rhodeshas to say might read an article about his anti-government ideology or watch a video of him speaking to followers about impending martial law. Tomorrow, by blendingartificial intelligence and augmented reality in the metaverse, Rhodes or his AI stand-in will be able to sit on a virtual park bench with any number of potential followers and entice them with visions of the future.
Similarly, a resurrected bin Laden could meet with would-be followers in a virtual rose garden or lecture hall. The emerging metaverse affords extremist leaders a new ability to forge and maintain virtual ideological and social communities and powerful, difficult-to-disrupt ways of expanding their ranks and spheres of influence.
Coordination
Second, the metaverse offers new ways to coordinate, plan and execute acts of destruction across a diffuse membership. An assault on the Capitol? With sufficient reconnaissance and information gathering, extremist leaders could create virtual environments with representations of any physical building, which would allow them to walk members through routes leading to key objectives.
Members could learn viable and efficient paths, coordinate alternative routes if some are blocked, and establish multiple contingency plans if surprises arise. When executing an attack in the physical world, augmented reality objects like virtual arrows can help guide violent extremists and identify marked targets.
Violent extremists can plot from their living rooms, basements or backyards – all while building social connections and trust in their peers, and all while appearing to others in thedigital avatar form of their choosing. When extremist leaders give orders for action in the physical world, these groups are likely to be more prepared than today’s extremist groups because of their time in the metaverse.
New targets
Finally, with new virtual and mixed reality spaces comes the potential for new targets. Just as buildings, events and people can be harmed in the real world, so too can the same be attacked in the virtual world. Imagine swastikas on synagogues, disruptions of real-life activities like banking, shopping and work, and the spoiling of public events.
A 9/11 memorial service created and hosted in the virtual domain would be, for example, a tempting target for violent extremists who could reenact the falling of the twin towers. Ametaverse weddingcould be disrupted by attackers who disapprove of the religious or gendered pairing of the couple. These acts would take a psychological toll and result in real-world harm.
It may be easy to dismiss the threats of this blended virtual and physical world by claiming it isn’t real and is thereforeinconsequential. But asNike prepares to sellvirtual shoes, it is critical to recognize thevery real moneythat will be spent in the metaverse. With actual moneycome real jobs, and with real jobs comes the potential for losing very real livelihoods.
Destroying an augmented or virtual reality business means an individual suffers genuine financial loss. Like physical places, virtual spaces can be designed and crafted with care, subsequently carrying the significance people afford things in which they have invested time and creativity building. Further, as technology becomes smaller andmore integratedin people’s daily lives, the ability to simply turn off the metaverse and ignore the harm could become more challenging.
Preparing for the new (virtual) reality
How then to face these emerging threats and vulnerabilities? It is reasonable for corporations to suggest that hate or violence will not be allowed or that individuals engaging in extremism will be identified andbannedfrom their virtual spaces. We are supportive of such commitments but are skeptical that these are credible, especially in light ofrevelations about Meta’s dangerous behavioron its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. There isprofitto be had in hate and division.
If corporations cannot serve as reliable sole guardians of the metaverse, then who can, and how?
Although the arrival of a full-fledged metaverse is still some years in the future, the potential threats posed by the metaverse require attention today from a diverse range of people and organizations, including academic researchers, those developing the metaverse and those tasked with protecting society. The threats call for thinking as much or more creatively about the metaverse as those with malevolent intent are likely to do. Everyone needs to be ready for this new reality.
Article byJoel S. Elson, Assistant Professor of IT Innovation,University of Nebraska Omaha;Austin C. Doctor, Assistant Professor of Political Science,University of Nebraska Omaha, andSam Hunter, Professor of Psychology,University of Nebraska Omaha
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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