27 April 2022

Chatham House: What is the metaverse?

The metaverse is a vision of how the next generation of the internet will operate.

A metaverse will be an improved digital environment where it is possible to move seamlessly between work, play, shopping, socializing and creativity in one digital landscape.

What form that landscape will take is a subject of debate. Firms like Meta (Facebook) are investing heavily in an immersive experience, where users with wearable hardware discard reality for a purely virtual world, interacting via avatars – the basis for the ‘Oasis’ depicted in Ernest Cline’s novel, Ready Player One.

The metaverse could fundamentally change not only how humans interact with technology but also how they interact with each other and the world around them.

Others see the metaverse as more like an integration of the physical environment with the digital, where the real world is overlaid with digital surfaces and objects. This augmented reality approach builds on experiences like the highly successful Pokemon Go phone game, which allows players to seek and discover digital creatures in real world locations.

At the moment the metaverse is mainly a commercial enterprise. The building blocks are being rapidly developed by big corporates including gaming and technology companies. Firms like Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft are in direct competition, drawing on their enormous technological resources to design their own metaverse offerings.

This situation has serious implications for society. Just as the internet transformed the world in unexpected ways, the next iteration of our digital world will have an impact far beyond delivering more exciting entertainment and efficient commerce.

The metaverse could fundamentally change not only how humans interact with technology but also how they interact with each other and the world around them. It also raises questions about the effect on national and individual identities in a society where people spend increasing amounts of time in a parallel world.

How does the metaverse work?

The way the metaverse will work is still being defined. But it will probably provide users with a single avatar or digital identity, which grants them access to an integrated digital ecosystem. The ecosystem would potentially have its own currency, property and possessions. This could be a digitally altered form of reality, a virtual world built from scratch, or some combination of the two.

Within this metaverse, users may ultimately be able to perform all the online tasks that are currently spread

across separate digital properties like websites and apps, ideally without the need for the many passwords and user accounts that characterize current digital experiences. Chinese apps (or ‘super-apps’) like WeChat already have significant interoperability, integrating a discussion platform, payments and a social credit system.

Meanwhile the gaming community might argue that a game like Fortnite qualifies as a kind of prototype metaverse. The game boasts 350 million registered users globally (a population equal to the US) and includes in-game currency that can be earned and traded.

While the building blocks exist, they are not yet connected into a true metaverse. Our assumptions are based on existing knowledge and behaviour. Many predictions may come true, but other possible paths will fail or simply not be taken up by developers and users as technology grows and people adapt to and help shape its possibilities.

How do you access the metaverse?

It is not yet possible to access a complete metaverse. But how we access the metaverse in the future will be a crucial influence on its development. Will it become an open access tool of opportunity or a closed access, more commercial enterprise?

Currently users access the digital world via screens, whether mobile or desktop devices. A metaverse will be accessed via easily portable and immersive hardware like headsets, gloves, watches and contact lenses. These will allow users to view, hear and touch a digital landscape directly, as opposed to via a projection on a screen. It will be increasingly easy for sophisticated algorithms to collect far more complex, dynamic data on users.This hardware will, however, also allow the metaverse more direct access to its users.

It will be increasingly easy for sophisticated algorithms to collect far more complex, dynamic data on users. This would include heart rate, pupil dilation, gestures and gaze direction.

Therefore, while users will be granted greater access to a digital world through a metaverse, providers of goods and services will have an even more intrusive insight into their users’ beliefs, fears and desires....

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