A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Technology, Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Society of the Metaverse

Michele Di Dalmazi¹Doron Friedman²Jessica Galissaire³Henri Isaac⁴Anna Kobusinska⁵Aurelio Lopez-Tarruella-Martinez⁶Jean-François Lucas³Omar Niamut⁷Xueni Pan⁸Yannick Prié⁹Matthias Quent¹⁰Raúl Ruiz Rodríguez⁶Maria V Sanchez-Vives¹¹Piotr Skrzypczynski⁵Mel Slater^12*Anthony Steed¹³Petter Wannerberg¹⁴

• ¹Polytechnic University of Milan, Milan, Lombardy, Italy
• ²Reichman University, Herzliya, Tel Aviv District, Israel
• ³Renaissance Numérique, Paris, France
• ⁴Université Paris Dauphine, Paris, France
• ⁵Poznań University of Technology, Poznań, Greater Poland, Poland
• ⁶University of Alicante, Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain
• ⁷Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
• ⁸Goldsmiths University of London, London, London, United Kingdom
• ⁹Université de Nantes, Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France
• ¹⁰Magdeburg Stendal University of Applied Sciences, Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
• ¹¹August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
• ¹²Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
• ¹³University College London, London, England, United Kingdom
• ¹⁴Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Gothenburg, Sweden

Since late 2021 there has been increasing interest in the idea of the 'metaverse'. This is a virtual, augmented or mixed reality system that potentially millions of people can simultaneously inhabit, and where people can interact with one another in real-time, irrespective of the physical distance between them. It is heralded by some as the next level 'world wide web', that will use a 3D immersive interface, with the potential to mix virtual and physical reality, with environments persistent over time, and interoperable between different platforms and devices. Yet today there is no true example of a metaverse, only a number of nascent examples. Here we discuss the technical foundations for such metaverses, the role of generative AI, possible impact on society -including education, healthcare and the quality of life, business and consumers, the future of work, and its implications for democracy. We also discuss public perceptions of the metaverse, issues of governance and regulation, and its legal implications. Overall, while the metaverse may radically and positively alter the way that we live, we must take into account ethical and regulatory issues, in order to avoid predictions of a dystopian future being realized. This paper is, therefore, a multi-disciplinary introduction to the metaverse concept that may be useful to readers with many different types of interest.