The metaverse is a large-scale social environment based on the convergence of virtual and physical reality. Participants can take part in the metaverse through virtual, augmented or mixed reality. They can carry out everyday activities together, ranging from entertainment through to education, business, politics, health or even legal proceedings. This may have a profound impact on the way we live providing new beneficial ways of carrying out a multitude of activities but may also introduce a multitude of problems that we cannot envisage. Mobile devices in conjunction with the world wide web and social media have led to revolutionary changes in society including on the positive side deep connectivity between people, but on the other, a potential threat to democracy. The immersive nature of the metaverse will potentially enhance both the positive and negative impact by an order of magnitude.

The metaverse is an idea rather than a reality. There exist systems that offer nascent examples of a metaverse (such as VRChat, Horizon Worlds, Decentraland and others) but these are virtual environments that can be visited simultaneously by a multitude of participants, who can see avatars of one another and interact together in limited ways. Such systems have been around since the 1990s, usually called ‘collaborative virtual environments’ (CVEs). The modern versions introduce conceptually nothing new except for their scale in implementation. Even the avatars often used today are hardly more elaborate than those that were used in the 1990s and early 2000s, although today we have the possibility of using personalized avatars of increasing quality. Therefore, the central problem to be addressed in this Research Topic is to foresee how a metaverse might actually go beyond the well-known idea (and implementations) of CVEs. How will experiences in the metaverse be different from experiences in CVEs? What technology underpins the creation of such a metaverse? What applications are likely to emerge across a range of activities that are likely to be positive for humanity? What are the ethical, legal and political implications – both positive and dangers? Primarily what evidence can be offered to support the views or findings of the authors?

This Research Topic is in conjunction with the conference “A Metaverse for the Good” (although submissions that were not initially presented at this conference are also welcome). Papers may be of any of the types afforded by Frontiers, although those that include empirical evidence for the arguments that they present will be prioritized. The themes of the Research Topic include the following (ideally including specific evidentiary examples):

• Metaverse as an agent for a more inclusive, responsible and sustainable business and economic environment

• The economic impact of the metaverse on companies, industries, and economies

• The future of work – for example, whether ‘working from home’ in immersive real-time collaboration with others around the world, including with people physically present at the workplace, will be feasible. Are there examples of this today?

• New models for metaverse based education – massive online physical and virtual classrooms that anyone can join from anywhere.

• The use of AI in the foundations, implementation and applications in a metaverse.

• The impact of immersive experiences on the individuals, in terms of learning, engagement, self-efficacy.

• Technical challenges including computer graphics, distributed and networked systems, block chain, human-computer interaction.

• Neurotechnology – for example, whether people will be able to interact in the metaverse through brain-computer interfaces, and the impact for people with physical disabilities.

• Ethical, regulatory and legal aspects – ranging from ethical problems including the use of AI, how the metaverse might be regulated.

• The metaverse for medical and psychiatric treatment.

Impact

Frontiers in Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour

Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality in Industry

Haptics

Technologies for VR

Virtual Reality in Medicine

Participating Journals

Frontiers in Robotics and AI

Haptics