Metaversed

Chapter 11New Rights and Regulations

It's almost like stealing people's data and giving it to a hyper-intelligent AI as part of an unregulated tech monopoly was a bad thing.

—Mark Bowman in The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Unforeseen effects of technology can generate unwanted transformations that ultimately tilt our lifestyle. Even if it's uncomfortable, we need to discuss how emerging tech can be monitored and regulated. We don't have to cross our fingers and hope that Big Tech companies figure it out themselves (again).

As an article in ZDNet puts it, “You can be anything you want in The Metaverse, you just can't be in control.”¹ The 2020 documentary drama The Social Dilemma brought to light how the best intentions for new technologies can have terrible consequences. Through these “based on a true story” movies and the interviews given by social media platform creators, it becomes scarily clear how small innovative discoveries and implementations can have negative societal implications.

For example, social media's data-driven, advertising-based business model influenced and still influences consumer behavior. As the saying goes, “If you're not paying for the product, then you are the product.” VR's founding father Jaron Lanier describes its power in the movie as “the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.” There is a very fine, almost imperceptible line between meaningful advertising and consumer manipulation. In the ...