3 Dancing With The Devil: V/R  Serpents And The Metaverse Playground (McCreight)

You can’t always get what you want…. But if you try sometimes, you’ll find
You get what you need…..  Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed album, 1969 (Stones, 1969)

 STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1-identify and discuss what critical issues and concepts define the Metaverse

2-discuss and analyze the significance of reality escaping and alternative reality seeking, which underpins Metaverse excursions

3-evaluate and discuss the likely impact and importance of AI on metaverse development

4- assess the onward trajectory of social acceptance and adoption of Metaverse use by the public

5- examine and discuss the psychosocial and political risks that are undertaken by society if Metaverse is used and access is unregulated 

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET

Looking back 55 years to the famous Rolling Stones song (Stones, 1969) and its lyrics, one might consider that art does imitate life in that we often find that our overwhelming desire to acquire and possess something which has been consuming our taste for it is either perpetually elusive or just unattainable. The saga of human existence has been haunted by a recurring dream to secure complete and omnipotent knowledge of the universe and utter dominion over the environment, thereby reducing the chances of error, catastrophe, or runaway calamity to near zero. Instead, the raw pursuit of science and technology for its own sake and the unquenchable thirst for perfect insight, holistic understanding, and dominant leverage over events have brought humanity to its unwitting demise. The urgent and undeniable impetus for acquiring more, knowing all, and exerting undisputed dominion over it continues. Economics 101 warns there is always a price to be paid.

History demonstrates that that price sometimes includes our humanity’s immediate or insidiously gradual erosion. We yearn to know more about the photon, the neutrino,  and sub-atomic things just as much as we aggressively seek insights about the universe, the galaxies, and the cosmos’ hidden origins. Again, like the elusive gnat or butterfly, we strive to grab hold and study it, but it slips through our grasp, so our unwavering appetite to capture the object of our desire and dissect it grows beyond measure. What we think, imagine, theorize, or see enables us to describe different forms of reality that haunt us and always intrigue us inwardly. But can we confirm that what we see is actually what is there? Deception and illusion are as accurate as death, but sometimes, we blissfully ignore both. Our appetite for it is both naïve and all-consuming. That fact fails miserably from deterring our endless pursuit of it anyway.

The collective and individual-looking glass affords a varying range of views. One stems from our internally derived perception of what is real and what our immediate environment includes. We allow estimates, thoughts, imagination, and dreaming to coexist with real-time experiences within each person, allowing each person’s looking glass to vary to an intensely personal degree. Hence, we have different viewpoints and ideas about the reality within which we dwell. The group maximal looking glass is composed of what society and groups of people see at the same time and place. Thousands remember the ill-fated 1986 Challenger launch, which killed the astronaut crew, or many millions remember the awful images of collapsing World Trade Center towers on 9-11. In both cases, wildly different alternative evaluations and estimates emerge from those who witnessed these two events. A shared human history where the undisputed facts about what happened is shared universally does not exist. Does that mean history is wrong—or our perception of it?

Initially, as humanity reckons with the attractive arrayed against the vicious and dangerous variations of human behavior where trust, reliance, and security are concerned, pausing to sort out its meaning and implications makes sense. Driven by basic needs to eat, sleep, and reproduce, the offsetting drives that propel humanity to the brink include dominance, aggression, coercion, and power. It provokes the essential question about which drives accurately depict and explain human history. Along with that dilemma is the perpetual hunger that humans tend to have for genuine facts, objective information, reliable data, truthful narratives, and material understood to be valid. Humanity cannot avoid an unlimited hunger for truth dwelling peacefully alongside myth and dreams. Indeed, there is no hidden price for that—or is there? Enduring reality and living peacefully within it is far different from seeking an alternative—is that true?

SEEING IS BELIEVING: REALITY IS ONE THING, WHILE ASPIRATIONS ARE QUITE ANOTHER

Humanity has wrestled with the forces of history and destiny for millennia, and it’s too soon to determine how the fighter performed and whether the match itself has settled anything. This is especially wrenching when one identifies the titanic struggle continues where no particular outcome is guaranteed. That is an accurate but disturbing and sobering thought since we all like to know how the story ends.

In the timeless quest to affirm the pseudo-axiomatic vision that ‘what you see is what you get,’ we sometimes discover the other timeless insight that we recognize as ‘be careful what you wish for.’  This aphorism applies to our current fixation with modern and evolving technology and unrestricted scientific journeys into transhumanism. If this were a grand prix or an ‘iron-man marathon,’ there would be guardrails and caution flags to hem in the risks of accident, miscalculation, or calamity. No caution flags can be found in modern science and technology’s open, unrestricted ‘wild west,’ nor are they expected or needed. Science and technology writ large has a blank check to define and shape our collective future to a breathless degree of autonomy and utter unaccountability never before seen in human history.

The author suggests that the situation is neither good nor bad for the next 30 years of unrestricted science and technology when humanity’s survival and longevity hang in the balance. It is not that the author is against progress and achievement but instead calls forcefully here for a serious discussion about the definition, ground rules, intrinsic values, and outcomes in which ‘progress and achievement’ itself might be widely understood. Is that too much to ask? It certainly is if the custodians of science and technology have the power to decide whether that question should even be raised—let alone answered.

Science is never satisfied with what it knows—or has convinced itself it is knowable- and therefore testable in confirming ways. As such, society has invested enormous power, trust, admiration, and influence over human history by proclaiming that science has solitary possession of the requisite skills to interpret and explain what takes place around us in Earth’s environment, all forms of life, and define the operational elements of the universe itself. Here sits a profound dilemma outside the scope of this immediate essay—what steps are necessary to put ordinary humans back in charge of their collective destiny and future and thereby relegate science and technology experts to the benign role of consultants and advisors whose opinions are available only when called upon? They say you cannot put the genie back in the bottle.

Experience shows that, as humans, we routinely rely on sight and hearing to verify the reality surrounding us and where we dwell. Of course, we also retain some natural qualities and skills to discern danger, estimate risk, and resort to intuition when faced with ambiguity. We also know that those bereft of sight rely on other senses to compensate and discern what the immediate environment includes. While we are keenly aware of the autonomic nervous system within each of us, we lack a complete A-Z awareness of its actual operation. The quest to know how judgment, decision-making, and risk awareness operated to keep our earliest ancestors from becoming dinner for wild, rapacious animals and other humans is still unsettled. So, the various elaborate and subtle functions of the human mind, the central nervous system, and cognition are more elusive than apparent, even to the so-called experts. That fact alone should give us pause—but it doesn’t.

Cartesian reality reckoned we step boldly into ontology and epistemology using it confidently while assuming we could reliably explain the core origins of our existence and our human purpose. Reliable knowledge and immutable verified facts are the foundations of philosophy, politics, and science. Immediately, we confront the disturbing contradiction that even ideally acquired knowledge does not account comprehensively for the uncertainties embedded in the future. However, we flirt with the flawed idea that the future is knowable, controllable, and predictable.

We can build a massive cargo ship today and safely imagine it sails the oceans securely a few weeks from now. However, we cannot discern what might happen to it even a few days hence. It was built to withstand all conceivable challenges found in nature and nautical engineering to attain a 97% degree of reliability against most expected maritime risks, which most competent engineers readily acknowledge is the optimal level the best engineering can achieve in human-manufactured systems. Good, honest engineers will admit no system is 100% reliable 100% of the time in all conceivable situations. They readily admit that 97% of reliability is pretty darn good.

This brings us to the threshold of unpleasant truth #1—or another way of saying it is you can’t always get what you want. However, even those with 20/20 vision cannot see 48 hours into the future and discern through ordinary human sight [even theoretically augmented with AI support] what is factual, what is faux information, and what is likely or possibly destined to happen two days from now. Seeing the future versus shaping it all together is still more science fiction than fact. Unexpected or unforeseen disaster, error, or calamity always exists in randomized environments, and the smartest among us cannot always determine with 100% accuracy what Monday will bring as they contemplate its arrival from a Friday afternoon perspective. Worse, in some cases, their hubris and professional confidence may also influence or determine if their eyes and intellect have deluded or deceived them. Error and calamity are patiently waiting.

Unpleasant Truth #2 is to be very careful what you wish for. Discovery and the energetic inertia attached to unfettered scientific inquiry have led to fantastic revelations and breakthroughs in materials science, IT, genomics, robotics, and many other technologies. In every case, evident and not-so-obvious outcomes accompany scientific discovery. For example, machines have been labor-saving for centuries, but their future trajectory suggests machines may one day overwhelm and subjugate the people who created them. Likewise, the endless search for the secret keys of the genome and life sciences delivers excellent medical benefits and pathways toward healing but the endpoint of deliberate. Random combinations of DNA and genomic and microbial material contain the time bomb of a future plague or a disease that undercuts humanity. Despite all that, we tend to engage and absorb the risks, regardless of whether the consequences are well understood.

Despite that region of blindness, which is seldom acknowledged, often talented people steeped in learning and knowledge for its own sake still see far into the future with their wit and imagination, writing fantasy and fiction and positing theoretical visions of how quarks originate and the cosmos behave. Despite lacking a faultless yardstick to discern and reveal the surface environment of Mars or Jupiter from afar, we retain firm speculation about this without empirical evidence to support the logical theory. NASA scientists had enough vision to imagine the trajectory, estimate the gravitational forces and propulsion dynamics sufficient to employ their innate intellect, and create a viable rocket system propelling astronauts to the Moon. The several successful moon landings confirm testable hypotheses, and we acquire a level of scientific hubris that is both admirable and whimsical. Indeed, we posit the belief that long-range space probes like the Voyager and Hubble missions act as confirmatory examples of science’s ability to do almost anything. As a result, we invest high degrees of trust in science for being correct, accurate, and reliable. There is little room for doubt.

As hundreds of passengers board a jetliner for overseas travel daily, they intuitively trust that math, science, engineering, and technology assure them a safe, pleasant, and uneventful flight. We also understand that modern jet travel is not conducted in a zero-risk environment. In taking our seats aboard a jetliner from Los Angeles to Tokyo, we never allow ourselves to imagine a systems failure, an inept pilot, brutally dangerous weather, or a covert onboard terrorist. Is that risk aligned with any of these possibilities truly zero? Nevertheless, we buy tickets and plan trips.

Allowing for the unpleasant reality, which includes an error, miscalculation, poor judgment, excessive risk-taking, mechanical failure, and sheer folly, we find science and technology safe enough and reliable enough to support everything we take for granted in life. That seems normal, coherent, and logical enough that one could reasonably wonder why anyone would ever want to escape this complex cocoon we call reality. So secure, orderly, predictable, and safe reality is the cushion within which we carve out a life of enjoyable events and experiences. Why would anyone seek another wholly separate plane of existence, a competing reality, and thereby dwell in this alternate reality—or, if you will—an alternate universe? Why do we read, consume science fiction, dream, or indulge in escapist vacations?

Can we see, discern, or fathom what underpins this overwhelming desire to escape reality and create or inhabit a one-off version? Not readily, except we consider there are parallels in the human desire for a break, a vacation, or an indulgent escape. Wanting to dwell in a manufactured or parallel reality is understandable, but medical science has said this is a discernible mental illness. Despite that observation, the human condition features periodic ventures where escape from reality is pursued diligently in opium and peyote-induced trances, in fanciful literature of myth and poetry, and in aspirational writings about the nature and destiny of humanity and its abiding inner need for freedom and liberty. So, apart from these instances, there are both psychological and cosmological explanations for escapist inclinations. However, humanity itself may find itself paying a deeply hidden price.

Psychologists recognize the desire to escape reality as a form of psychosis, which is most often characterized as a sense of distorted reality. A psychotic episode may include many so-called ‘positive symptoms, which include Hallucinations: seeing, hearing, and feeling sensations that are not occurring. Delusions: believing in false realities, such as having superpowers. These experts say psychotic disorders or episodes arise when a person experiences a significantly altered or distorted perception of reality. Such distortions are often caused or triggered by hallucinations (false perceptions), delusions (false beliefs), and disrupted patterns of frequently disorganized thinking. (Univ of Michigan Medicine, 2022) However, we seem to abide by the search for an alternative reality embedded in V/R and A/R and the Metaverse without a sideways glance at the dichotomy of presumptive mental illness so often attached to a lust for escaping the reality we call ordinary life.

The scientific world of math and physics holds a different view of the ‘escape from reality’ obsession. [ See Figure 3-1] Scientists consider the quest for alternative reality legitimate and reasonable. Carefully parsing the territory scientific experts inhabit, they note that observing something exists or trying to explain it differs from understanding its underpinnings or defending it. The axiomatic view of ‘I think therefore I am’ is in jeopardy given the limitations of thought and whether simply imagining a cosmos one way dictates how it is. Lessons from the ugly historical contest between Galileo and Copernicus and their strident critics illustrate that people clinging to an unpopular idea find themselves at severe personal risk.

For example, the entire debate about black holes’ facts, origin, and operation is poorly understood, yet it doesn’t discourage scientific severe inquiry into the issue. For example, some astrophysicists wonder why the universe hasn’t already been destroyed by evaporating black holes, thereby raising pivotal questions about the most significant and minor things imaginable. Despite that interim view, scientists are bitterly divided over whether extra dimensions—including real ones—exist. They note that the quest for grasping dark energy and matter hinges on whether these theories can be validated and thereby risk the creation of an entirely new realm of physics. This view is sustained despite disputes inside physics about what observed reality is and whether the notion of extra dimensions holds water. [1]

Some physicists worried 15 years ago the Large Hadron Collider [LHC]near Geneva might inadvertently create tiny black holes with unexpected residual results. As of 2024, nothing cataclysmic has officially appeared, yet we trust scientists at LHC to know what they do daily. This implies trust and faith in physics and their high priests, the physicists, that the fundamental ingredients of life, matter, energy, and the universe’s building blocks cannot be disturbed, knocked off course, or mistakenly redirected to some unexpected destructive outcome. [3] If that dilemma doesn’t underscore the scientific jungle of doubt, ridicule, and deception among learned scientists, consider the ongoing and urgent search for extra dimensions outside our own. Some experts opine that something called space-time has four dimensions. Ongoing disputes and debates continue about gravity, time, space, and the existence of other dimensions at the same time that creative IT geniuses and computer scientists want to open the portal to another dimension even though it contains minimal risks arising from its alleged virtual nature. [4] (ATLAS, 2018)

Theorists trying to understand this problem have found a (possible) solution requiring severe consideration of extra dimensions. It may be determined that extra dimensions are accurate, but only time will tell. Many will sustain and continue the search for these additional dimensions, fully persuaded that they exist and are just waiting to be found. However, the fact that such theories contain a strongly speculative estimate of dimensions beyond the four already noted suggests there are possible realms of discovery and mystery the most learned scientists cannot discern. Why would people pursue faux dimensions via A/R and the Metaverse when the prospect of genuine verifiable alternatives remains theoretical? Can it be ascribed to human curiosity, the search for adventure, and a lust for probing the unknown? [5] [See Figure 3-2]

Harvard University theorist Lisa Randall explores how physics may transform our understanding of the fundamental nature of the world. She thinks an extra dimension may exist close to our familiar reality, hidden except for a bizarre sapping of the strength of gravity as we see it. She also wanted to clarify the nature of science: what it means to be correct and wrong, what it means to make measurements, and the roles of uncertainty, risk, and creativity. For example, neutrinos may indeed move faster than the speed of light. There could be more to the universe than the three dimensions we are familiar with. They are hidden from us, perhaps because they’re tiny or warped. It could exist parallel to our universe. But it’s not just a carbon copy of our universe, which many people think of when they hear that phrase. Ironically, LHC scientists theoretically ruled out this possibility by looking at collisions of cosmic rays that create this same type of energy. We live in a world with many risks, and it’s high time we start taking the ones we should be worried about seriously. Physicists showed this particular one is not a risk. But what if they are wrong?? Can physicists commit scientific errors? (Irion, 2011)

Some physicists noticed that recent advances in quantum technologies have made it possible to create different realities and compare them in the lab to determine whether they can be reconciled. The original thought experiment is straightforward in principle. They begin with a single polarized photon that, when measured, can have either a horizontal or vertical polarization. Before that measurement, according to the laws of quantum mechanics, the photon exists in both polarization states simultaneously—a so-called superposition. Whether this superposition exists or not, this interference experiment shows that the photon and the measurement are in a superposition. So, the two realities are at odds with each other. “This calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers,” In turn, this implies an inherent inability to discern one reality from another. [6]

There is always the human inclination to harbor aspirations and dreams. What does the human compilation of history indicate about that? The hope, ambitions, or dreams of attaining a goal are often used to define aspirations. We acknowledge that aspirations and dreams are at least as important to us as palpable reality. Aspirations for freedom, a better life, better health, peace, and security are part of humanity’s history and destiny. The idea of destiny implies a situation where we continue seeking something better, richer, more secure, and satisfying. In that sense, escape from reality suggests a desire for a better life for those whose lives are suboptimal. This brings us to the doorstep of V/R and A/R along with the Metaverse, where promises of a secure round trip from the here and now to some fantasy existence and experience beckons and where risks of harm, loss, and calamity are near zero. What risks, dangers, and hidden catastrophe exists there?

The underlying desire for an escape to an alternative universe, or a reality that is augmented or rivals what can be seen, is at the heart of human interest in allowing technology to safely take us there and return to ordinary reality when convenient. The fundamental factors inside the human mind include the contrary and duplicitous forces of what is needed vs. desired, envied vs. avoided, embraced and absorbed vs. rejected and nullified. So, as potential consumers and users of V/R and A/R along with the Metaverse, we should ask what kind of alternative reality is available to experience or generally for sale. What price –if any, understood or assumed–reflects the genuine cost of true escape, even if it is temporary? Is it always a round trip back to personal reality, a risky one-way journey, or an indulgent vacation to a forbidden place? Is it a hidden dimension or simply a different pathway and set of experiences where one life is exchanged for another, like a suit of clothes? Alternative realities have their place so long as they lack a point of no return [7] (Buchanan, 2020)

This set of preliminary questions about the frontiers of AI, Quantum, A/R, V/R, and the Metaverse must be publicly discussed and widely understood. The well-reinforced principle of ‘informed consent,’ which underlies all surgical procedures, affirms that the patient knows what will happen medically and the attendant risks involved. Trusting that expert scientists have somehow removed all the guesswork and uncertainty in the enterprise is both naïve and dangerously foolish. This critical broad-scale public discussion must occur before the doorways into the Metaverse are flung wide open. Otherwise, we have surrendered our sovereign personal prerogative to provide consent and approval for an experience that approximates the sign adjacent to an inviting jungle pond–swim at your own risk. [See Figure 3-3]

Despite many unsettling similarities, life is not meant always to be a high-stakes poker game or casino game laden with a chance where trust, reliability, security, safety, and respect for life are rejected as paramount in favor of the hedonistically random and deadly law of primal survival. Do we play the cards dealt with or ask instead for a new deck, dealer, or game? There is an undisputed mystery about trusting science to shape, define, explain, and govern our collective future where we have no assurance that the equations and theories will prove valid and exhibit no risk of failure or error 100% of the time.

Experts and ordinary people would likely agree that virtual excursions via V/R and the Metaverse should not require a medical waiver. But do these periodic excursions inflict discernibly adverse effects on human cognition and mental health? Is anybody asking these questions or pursuing a reliable clinical answer? How many extended hours wandering in the Metaverse playground could be dangerous? What validated limits of human endurance and toleration will allow it? What risks are absorbed automatically when the escape from reality contains no travel insurance or safe return guarantees? Does a health advisory seem warranted?

Escaping Reality and Dwelling in Another Reality—Good or Bad?

Before ascertaining whether the need to escape reality is inherently desirable, we should consider whether it is good or bad. Confusing one for the other or making them somehow equivalent is inherently dangerous. Desirability and goodness are not mutually exclusive despite the human temptation to lapse into equivalent value invested in both terms. This begs the question, in turn, of whether one can legitimately assess the pros and cons of dwelling inside the worlds of V/R. A/R or the Metaverse in a gleeful, risk-free round-trip excursion as often as one desires.? More pointedly, it begs whether the desire to do so is inherently good or bad for humanity to experience. Perhaps the answer is derived from the ‘aspirational dynamic’ that motivated the Constitutional founding fathers, Aristotle, Solzhenitsyn, Rousseau, or J.S Mill, to imagine a society of freedom of expression, thought, and assembly. Instead, we must consider the corrupted versions of freedom that Marx, Engels, Mao, and Stalin professed and thereby realize that something so cherished and desirable is open to manipulation and redefinition by its sponsoring power or mouthpiece. Admitting that dilemma means considering the sheer political manipulation of risk as a benchmark criterion for judging whether A/R, V/R, and the Metaverse are as harmless as described. Suppose hidden, evil, and inherently destructive risks existed inside an open-ended excursion into A/R V/R and the Metaverse. Wouldn’t the trusted custodians of fact and truth—indeed, the priestly class of scientists—vouch candidly and persuasively for their inherent safety? Do we now enjoy such assurances? [See Figure 3-4]

This indulgence assumes the pristine, unshakeable confidence that discerning what is good versus wrong is not an inherently political or psychological delusion. Humans generally appreciate, seek, value, and uphold whatever is pleasing, preferring it over what is wrong, dangerous, evil, or deadly, which is a starting point. It assumes no perennial debate or opaque linguistic form of deception that distinguishing between good and evil is ambiguous or impossible. This is very important in determining what criteria can be objectively applied to assess whether V/R and the Metaverse are good or bad for the human condition.

With the dominant emergence of relativism in the 19th century, there is ample reason to ask whether the distinctive definitional boundaries between good and evil are subject to periodic revisionist interpretation, given the alleged advantage that a 21st-century standpoint provides. There is discernible pressure to redefine and reimagine what we have considered foundationally solid, reliable, and well-settled. Given that contentious situation, one would expect that good vs. wrong bedrock meanings are not in definitional jeopardy. Society is replete with social, political, economic, and professional pressures impinging on its members and elites. Of course, nobody is immune to such pressures, least of all the esteemed community of scientists, engineers, and technology gurus who must endure and overcome those pressures daily. This cadre of experts is not immune to its stifling effects, but it is fair to consider their scope and impact.

Societal pressures are diverse, multifaceted, opaque, persistent, and often relentless, offering everyday demands on people who may resist, avoid, and evade these pressures as frequently as circumstances allow. Creative energy is needed to devise effective ways of skirting demands that range from pleasant and satisfying to downright dangerous and near deadly. A friendly invitation to a neighboring beach retreat for an extended weekend where fun, frivolity, and conversation abound amidst free-flowing food, libation, and attractive temptation also includes the risk of accident, injury, theft, tangible loss, and mishap in just getting to the location itself. Then there are the unexpected arenas of conflict or disagreement when other guests intrude, offend, or interfere with your idea of what a ‘great weekend getaway’ should be. For some, getting away to decompress, to relax and chill silently and with aloof abandon, is painfully elusive and less than satisfying. But there is more.

Weekend getaways with friends and mixing with others to create a no-fault, convivial environment of lubricated social exchange do not include pressure. However, this is far simpler than pressures arising from workload demands, deadlines, uncooperative coworkers, tyrannical bosses, and stifling worksites where the steady accumulation over sustained months stores up tension, frustration, anger, and residual resentment, which can boil over when another careless driver unthinkingly captures your coveted parking space. Or consider the pressure of crushing debt, mounting unpayable bills, falling short of the cash needed to fill your refrigerator or gas tank, and you have the raw ingredients of submerged and displaced soul-wrenching pressure.

What tends to happen if the anger and frustration cannot be dissipated or diverted is often manifest in ill-timed anger and short-tempered outbursts where the net avalanche of pressure spills into behavioral rage. We all know that negative energy seeks expression or release elsewhere—maybe a movie, a sporting event, an alcohol-saturated indulgence, or some other form of escape. Escape becomes the preferred default position when societal pressures become overwhelming, and the handy proximity of video games, TV, social media, extended isolation, and certainly diversion into A/R, V/R, or the Metaverse is handy. It provides the desired avenue to put distance between you and expand and exhaust pressure daily. You don’t even have to leave your home. But is this desire healthy or addictive?

Other questions arise based on the arguable premise that one may become addicted to alcohol, drugs, social media, and eventually V/R or the Metaverse. If the net risk of psychosocial addiction raises no caution flags, it belongs alongside alcohol and drugs as a perfect example of ‘swimming at your own risk.’  But then, for many, though they often deny it, those embracing addiction knew what the consequences could be and chose the immediate gratifying pleasure of it over any logical reasons to deny themselves the experience. Is it just as plain and straightforward—or vaguely destructive– when V/R and metaverse addiction kicks in? How many episodes does it take to manifest? Likely, medical science and neuroscience haven’t yet decoded that puzzle.

This is an acceptable argument for granting that those wishing to escape reality via the V/R A/R or metaverse route may do so without attaching a risk value akin to swimming with sharks or wandering into the caldera of an active volcano. If the risk of indulgence is perceived as near zero, then people will engage as they see fit. They will forsake any clue whether the excursion is zero risk to their psyche and physical wellbeing—or dangerously vague—and try it anyway. In that sense, we accept via social tolerance that mature adults can withstand the full consequences of getting blind drunk or stoned to the point of catatonia, knowing the vague, uncertain results don’t always lead to episodes of injury or death. In other words, humans tend to believe that certain risks are worth taking regardless of the implied outcomes.

But can we gauge the ambiguous risks and the cost of its unknown insidious inner effects on our minds, cognition, and consciousness when several ventures into V/R and the Metaverse are taken? Especially if it is not readily measurable. Do neuroscientists extend an a priori blessing and an open invitation to its unrestricted and unlimited use? Does a seatbelt insure you against either death or injury in a high-speed auto collision? Do people want or need medical safeguards to indulge in V/R? [See Figure 3-5]

Can we completely rule out the onward, immediate, latent, and eventual risks of ‘good or bad’ psychological and physical reactions among those who don the V/R mask? Intense daily excursions into the Metaverse may distract people enough to avoid returning to a dull, ordinary life. Engaging in extended metaverse experiences may trigger queries about where you are. Can your mind and cognition distinguish the real from the contrived? What do medical science and neuroscience say about this? Should we assume near zero risk attaches to V/R and the Metaverse and plunge ahead? You can undoubtedly visualize certain dangerous activities, such as extreme mountain climbing or scuba diving, where the issue of signing a medical release beforehand is regular. Does it make sense to offer it before strapping on the V/R mask? Are there unknown legal liabilities and indirect degrees of implied culpability if one experiences a regrettably ‘bad trip’?

Escaping reality and seeking an alternate reality must now be viewed as somewhat rational, even though medical science still views it as expressing a form of mental illness. Worse, we will likely stumble into the Metaverse without the kind of minimal caution from doctors or neuroscientists, which approximates the warning sign one reads as you consider climbing aboard a rollercoaster generating a norm of 3G’s effect on the body. For many rollercoaster riders, that sign is an amusing afterthought.

Embracing and accepting reality stands in plain juxtaposition to those manifestly unhappy with it. Wanting something better and more beneficial to the human spirit is admirable so long as it is life-affirming rather than its opposite. There are valid political and historical reasons for challenging this idea when one considers the concept of democracy and freedom of expression as the antidote to kingly tyranny or despotism. In that sense, the escape is rooted in a desire for a better world. Many would argue that is the prime driver behind advocates or V/R, A/R, and the Metaverse. They claim it presents no new or hidden risks, unlike watching a science fiction movie or a Star Trek episode on TV. However, that remains to be seen. What kind of risk analysis framework or analytical architecture should apply here?

Shotgun Wedding?—AI Mated with the Metaverse

We know that generative AI combines machine learning, natural language processing(NLP), image processing, and enhanced computer vision. This convergent blend of technologies carries no cautionary warning labels like a pack of cigarettes, even though neuroscience has never weighed in on the full scope of its evident and subtle neurological and cognitive effects. Generative AI is a unique form of artificial intelligence that focuses on creating new and original content, such as images, text, music, and, most importantly, virtual environments, replicating reality. Its advocates see it as enabling novel experiences and enhancing user engagement where generative AI algorithms can generate virtual worlds within the Metaverse. Using leveraged algorithms, diverse landscapes, structures, and environments can be created, forming discrete virtual worlds offering unique and immersive experiences for their users. Moreover, generative AI allows the emergence of personalized avatars and various lifelike virtual images with distinctive characteristics, traits, and behaviors. Advocates see the engineered merger of generative AI with the Metaverse as a transformative blending of virtual and physical reality, offering a gateway towards highly beneficial human interaction and sustained engagement. As such, the champions of mating AI with the Metaverse see only the upside and unlimited value with almost zero caution flags waving to underscore the risks, doubts, and uncertainties associated with its unknown effects. Experiences, and creating dynamic virtual worlds. (arxiv)

While the public is advised to be excited and delighted at the prospect of generative AI mated with the Metaverse, there is hardly a discouraging note to be found online. Ethics, legality, transparency, ownership, regulation, liability, and social impact seem scarce, and skeptics seem rooted in timid prose and ambiguous metaphors. Unresolved issues about the shotgun wedding between generative AI and the Metaverse remain vague, unaddressed, ignored, or overlooked. Items requiring severe debate and consideration include digital norms, operational access, system security assurances, the integrity of stored data, privacy protection, fact and truth insurance, system malfunction, financial crime, infrastructure destabilization, unexamined areas of personal safety, and insulation from manipulative hacking all taking center stage. Like unveiling new technology, its advocates eagerly trumpet and gleefully extol its virtues. Also, they tend to hide or disguise its drawbacks and hidden ill effects studiously. Caveat emptor doesn’t apply because the government is a silent partner in launching this arrangement and will worry about any downstream ill effects or harmful consequences after the IPO hits Wall Street. Neuroscience has been quiet about suspected or alleged adverse effects, which allows many to claim no legitimate reasons for caution. So, given the absence of compelling evidence of harm linked to V/R and metaverse excursions, it serves as a testament to advocating universal adoption for every adult and many kids. This appears nearly certain even though elsewhere, society has decided a license is requisite to driving a car or brandishing a firearm.

Deep learning and AI-enabled solutions to enhanced internet and computer-based connections, creating an intimate pathway for enriched human experiences saturated with maximum opportunities for derived metaverse immersive excursions, are already here. At the 2023 World Economic Forum, Hewlett Packard’s [HPE] own ‘Innovation Strategist” Jeff Fougere, enthusiastically told attendees, “….our innovative virtual company museum, showcasing a digital twin of our legendary HP garage leveraging complete control over 3D environments, and engaging team members with TED Talk-style presentations set on a simulated moon base and enhanced product demonstrations with captivating 3D animations.,” He continued extolling the project, saying. “…HPE’s research teams are investigating the possibilities offered by Generative AI technology enabling the instantaneous creation of 3D models, images, and environments using intuitive voice commands. When integrated with the Metaverse, generative AI has the power to transform our most imaginative ideas not just into text or images, but into three-dimensional content and experiences”  (AI is shaping the Metaverse—but how?, 2023) [See Figure 3-6]

There is hardly doubt that beneficial mergers of generative AI with the Metaverse can assist and support architects, engineers, physicists, lab biologists, and physicians as replication of natural systems, complex structures, metabolic networks, and human bodies enables levels of creativity in design, assessment, and treatment never before seen. Direct neural transmissions from humans to avatars and vice versa, along with enabled exchanges of thoughts, ideas, and options between human players and inanimate avatars in the Metaverse, are within the realm of design considerations and the scope of maximized metaverse experiences. What kinds of medical advice and dosing instructions found on the side of prescription drugs best fit this scenario? Does it even seem feasible to consider a warning before engaging?

Adult supervision, indirect liability, loco parentis, and other legal injunctions are part of the routine daycare, public education, and custodial nanny rules we expect when kids are involved. It begs whether metaverse experiences should be restricted to adults or freely used by kids under 16 only with adults present. The net result is the technology is being developed at lightning speed while the safety. security, and utility aspects of its human users and consumers are riding on molasses. This cannot continue, and it argues powerfully for wider public involvement in steering how and when AI-enabled metaverse systems will be available at COSTCO.

Societal Wellbeing and Risking the Devil Dance

Maybe people dwelling under the pangs of everyday pressure take a drive into the country, lose themselves in a movie marathon or series of books, or find an outlet less likely to please their neighbors or nearby law enforcement personnel. But if people seek instead solace in social media, slapping on an Oculus headset or engaging in hours of A/R and V/R wandering hedonistically through the Metaverse, is that something society at large, and global humanity, should regard with disdain or lingering concern? After all, the extended indulgence in A/R V/R and Metaverse diversions may channel latent hostility and repressed anger into a carefully contrived and safely isolated area where nothing violent, criminal, crazy, or patently anti-social bursts out.

What is far less than clear is knowing with some degree of certainty whether people who divert automatically towards A/R V/R and metaverse excursions are doing so without willfully embracing indirectly harmful, psychologically dangerous, or emotionally devastating experiences that attenuate and enhance the risks of societal anger and anti-social frenzy. Inadvertently, unconsciously,  the extended escape into V/R and A/R and the Metaverse may create a harmlessly benign and amusingly ambiguous outcome before it triggers something entirely unexpected and damaging. Is the overall impact of V/R and Metaverse activities on society and human livelihood something that should be subjected to a full-blown environmental impact analysis? What factors would make it exempt?

This is just one way of saying like an excess of anything—whether it is food, alcohol, skiing, scuba diving, running marathons, or anything else to wanton extended indulgence –there is a risk of behavioral and mental outcomes that may be more destructive than helpful. Does medical science, neuroscience, psychology, or other presumptive disciplines focused on human health know? Suppose we suspect that 12 hours of TV a day for kids is terrible, or smoking three packs of cigarettes a day is harmful, or that consuming over 8,000 calories per meal is unhealthy. In that case, we are simply calling attention to the realities of safe versus unsafe indulgence. Do we know what the amount, extent, and level of sustained A/R V/R and metaverse escapism do to the human mind, personality, and overall sense of everyday rationality?

People who are morbidly fascinated and truly addicted to drugs, pornography, violence, driving recklessly, and being cruel to animals and such are regarded as borderline risks to society and dwell just inches from actual criminal conduct. In many cultures, these private shadowy ideas and inclinations are considered protected inner thoughts when secretly retained without acting out the undesirable behavior. People can imagine strangling their enemies without actually doing so or imagine firing shotgun blasts at gangs terrorizing an innocent family in a shopping mall parking lot, and their contemplated acts of criminal behavior are insulated from repercussions because they are indeed just thoughts. What changes when thoughts and hidden desires can be acted out in V/R scenarios where the experience and psycho-behavioral validation of the gunshot or strangulation are made real for the person? Is it essentially or precisely similar or even equivalent? Has a crime been committed if the V/R headset enables people to be transported to a place where criminal conduct is possible in a virtual world? Today, we say that is impossible and imaginary, but does the Metaverse open unknown doors in dimensional reality that make the V/R criminal conduct real? In effect, can a V/R crime actually trigger or inflict actual and eventual harm to another person?

Because the V/R episode is virtual and simulated, nothing in the spatial-temporal plane of reality verifies it authentically happened. No harm is done. Can we make the same claims about those who, in the sheltered privacy of their own homes, spend countless hours indulging in escapism via V/R A/R and the Metaverse? Is there a hidden, subtle, unknowable risk that dwelling in the virtual world of unlimited metaverse indulgence deceives and colors the brain experiencing or executing the criminal conduct in such a way as to replicate the criminal act itself in psychophysiological terms faithfully? Afterward, the person who experiences the faux reality in virtual terms risks feeling they have genuinely committed a criminal act. Is that a measurable harm itself? Is there palpable guilt after committing a virtual crime?

Considering the likely CONs of the Metaverse, we find these arguments…

• Increasing cybercrime and disruptive criminal inroads in private areas
• Risking lost connections with reality and the natural world
• Unknown mental health, psychosocial, and personality effects
• Absence of objective referees, moderators, or monitors of experiences
• Residual risks of extended psychosocial addiction
• Opening the door to hidden negative neurological influence

Other possible CONs compel judgments whether its broad scale implementation and open access require the introduction of augmenting, auxiliary, advanced, and untested technologies where blending their long-term cumulative psychosocial impact is impossible to predict precisely. Participation in the Metaverse is not risk-free. Maximizing its benefits and applications to market its attractiveness will require owners, operators, and presumptive government regulators to develop and deploy cutting-edge digital communication ‘guardrail’ technologies. This may trigger the inclusion of next-generation digital communication gadgets where their integration for user safety displays less than apparent effects with hidden surprises like accepting the risks of lithium batteries. Critics have pointed to dangers inherent in mixing AI with the Metaverse to create a “giant false god” that can create unhealthy relationships and even anti-social relationships. Would an AI-enabled avatar ‘friend’ look like to a child, or would AI create a wizard, warlock, or warrior persona that people on their own would not? (Schmidt, 2021)

Finally, other prominent skeptics such as Elon Musk claim confidence is not high about artificial intelligence’s transparency and safety within his own companies. When this is coupled with the Metaverse, concerns deepen. Worse, Lax privacy and security concerns plague metaverse advocates. Platforms have been the subject of investigations worldwide for their supposed internal practices that either downplay or disregard how their platforms and services have worked against the interests of their users or customers. [8] (Dionisio, 2013) [See Figure 3-7]

 

This level of excitement among the public means enormous pressure to acquire and enjoy the Metaverse, which will overtake any sincere efforts to manage, regulate, or discern its long-term strategic security implications and effects. At a minimum, we know readily that “…use of AR/VR technologies can have serious national security implications. Adversarial actors may take advantage of the reality-altering capabilities of these technologies without adequate security. Similar concerns arise from digital replication capabilities such as deepfakes, i.e., doctored images or videos featuring people performing actions that never occurred. For example, digital alterations could make a person appear in a place where they are not or distort information military personnel receive on the ground during a crisis.” (“Fabio Vanorio Ministerial Advisor, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs …”) (Viorno, 2022)

Then there is also the issue of verification and authentication, which the Metaverse will only make more complex and ambiguous. Verification in the Metaverse poses an enormous challenge, as people cannot attend appointments or participate in group business meetings and decision-making venues without ironclad authentication of their real-world identity. As a data protection expert defines: “Without proper verification, the risk of impersonation will be “impossible to control.” Adding to the lack of robust security verification, there is a door to malicious digital twins, digital fraud, fake news, and grave doubt about persons and documents presumed to be authentic. This is especially true when participants cloak their real selves behind avatars with counterfeit identities and create avenues for hacker access. To user accounts. (O’Flaherty, 2022)

This avenue of legitimate risk analysis just gets more convoluted when the various interventions and organized mayhem derived from criminal and terrorist use of the Metaverse becomes better known and criminally exploited via cartels and transnational terror groups. The ability to thwart, detect, defend, and alert legitimate governments, commercial enterprises, and ordinary citizens alike to criminal and terrorist activity within the Metaverse will be severely challenged and periodically breached—external penetration of the Metaverse. In 2022, Interpol noted that “.As the number of Metaverse users grows and the technology further develops, the list of possible crimes will only expand to potentially include crimes against children, data theft, money laundering, financial fraud, counterfeiting, ransomware, phishing, and sexual assault and harassment.”  (Tung, 2022) 

Death Spiral of the Devil Dance—Is There More?

A looming controversy makes the arguments and pleas about the operational architecture and risk elements of the Metaverse somewhat moot. Definitional boundaries are messy here, and the proponents of metaverse adoption are free to invent terms and their meanings. There is this companion set of things called the Omniverse and the Multiverse. It seems the Metaverse implies a level of deep interoperability across worlds and platforms in which assets and characters flow from one to another. However, the Multiverse contains multiple independent worlds that share little, if any, data. Examples include two games with different rules, equipment, sign-in systems, and friends lists. The Omniverse is infinite, whereas the Metaverse and Multiverse are finite.

By contrast, the Omniverse contains infinite universes, while the Metaverse and Multiverse each contain a finite number. The Omniverse comprises all Metaverses and Multiverses, whether or not they can communicate with each other. Kevin Collins of Accenture explained that the original vision for the Metaverse was one continuous, embodied digital space where specific rules apply universally around identity, ownership, and technical specifications. However, he said that’s not how it’s panning out. The Omniverse includes all metaverses and multiverses, whether interoperable or not. “There is only one omniverse, including everything,” Collins said. (Lawton, 2024)  That distinction either clarifies or obfuscates its intended meaning.

So, in the future scenarios expected, the Metaverse remains a domain of niche applications used by consumers for entertainment and gaming but stops well short of an all-encompassing virtual reality that sucks everyone into it.

(Lubetsky, 2022) Is that satisfactory for people who want to know—and are entitled to know—how the unfolding of the Metaverse will affect their lives, security, and future? For now, the answers are vague, wrapped in slick promises of endless diversion. It begs the question of what reasonable criteria should guide and govern the limitless access to a new technology whose human effects are unknown.

Other experts have said the Multiverse is a hypothetical collection of multiple observable universes, and the Omniverse includes all possible universes, including our own in the cosmological sense. Some have also noted that the  Metaverse implies an LP interoperability across worlds and platforms in which assets and characters flow from one to another. At the same time, the Multiverse contains multiple independent worlds that share little, if any, data. Examples include two games with different rules, equipment, sign-in systems, and friends lists. This makes the enduring colossal quest for affirming what is true, factual, correct, and objectively specific even more fragile and subject to jeopardizing forces that contend with what our natural senses say is real. The devil’s dance with technology is complete. Even today, well before the metaverse blooms and becomes pervasive, we have in the media, university education, and polite discourse the existence of twin realities and dueling narratives that suggest

• Climate change is real or not.
• The Earth evolved over countless millennia or was created
• The universe is unlimited. The universe has finite boundaries
• Mankind evolved from the apes or was created from dust

So, the narrative becomes captive to the tug of war embedded in political discourse, and the search for immutable truth becomes a perpetual contest over logic, assumptions, beliefs, and arguments. The Metaverse and V/R open the mind to other forms of reality, which contain good and bad risks and obvious and hidden consequences for extended excursions. Suppose human life persists and grows towards an uncertain but stable and secure future. In that case, it is fair to ask how society benefits from supporting a blended universe where reality, periodic escape from it, and extended excursions into the Metaverse coexist simultaneously.

Does the average person have a seat belt or airbag to cushion the shock that may happen when the faux reality of the Metaverse hits home? Assurances and platitudes will permeate the media and airways to usher like a cuddly, harmless puppy in the Metaverse. Here is the benign popular appeal repeated in thousands of media reports, which is meant to mitigate doubts, reduce fears, and roll out the welcome mat for everyone. Matt Ball, the former CEO of Amazon, depicts the sentiment in its harmless, appealing prose…“It is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time, rendered, 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence.”  (Matthew Ball, 2022)

At the end of the day, if objective truth, factual information, reliably verified narratives, and honesty are the only insulation we have against the devil’s dance of propaganda, misinformation, deceit, false narratives, and deception, how can we engineer newly emerging technology to preserve that distinction of sanity and adhere to a standard of common sense? Who ensures quality control? Who checks periodically to stave off hacking intrusions? Who becomes the guardian of truth and the ultimate fact-checker? How does our society protect itself from the misuse of technology to subvert human freedom and our need for liberty by relying on a substitute that pretends to offer escape but doesn’t? How best to avoid and thwart the tyranny of complex technology when we often wish to exploit it merely for entertainment?

CONCLUSIONS

Escapism, for its own sake, is not evil. However, recurrent avoidance of stressful situations may prevent a person from seeking to solve big problems or from learning to tolerate the stressors they face every day. Some in the mental health field suggest that escapism through video gaming can also be an adaptive coping strategy that helps regulate or restore mood following exposure to stressful situations. Long-term psychosocial and behavioral dynamics are much less clear. It is too early to indicate whether the Metaverse will broadly be a greater risk or benefit to mental health than other digital media despite clear indications the Metaverse has the potential to take a more significant place in our daily lives. People dwelling inside the Metaverse may prefer having fun and engaging in pseudo-adventures instead of facing the grim, uncertain, risk-laden reality they find whenever they set foot outside their door. Their desire to escape reality even for a few moments is not suspect, given the often harsh and brutal things residing on the periphery of real life itself. A distinctively rich and seductive quality about the Metaverse beckons us to indulge in things like chocolate ice cream, roller coasters, and free food without much care about the effects, personal impact, or consequences involved. For those who don the requisite headset and allow themselves to transit reality into a fanciful virtual and augmented reality experience, there is sublime satisfaction in doing so as much for the variety of impressive and fascinating excursions it offers as there is for taking a break from all the dismal, painful and sometimes disappointing episodes which real-life often delivers. So, it is fair to ask whether this is a dance with the devil.

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ENDNOTES