Critics see the idea of Facebook’s Metaverse as a “dystopian” to humanity, a sign of great suffering and injustice ahead.
Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta, is investing billions of dollars into a project in hopes of seeing the creation of an immersive virtual reality environment. This idea is known as the Metaverse.
With Metaverse, people can interact with users around them and users in cyberspace.
According to IFL Science, Dr David Reid, Professor of AI and Spatial Computing at Liverpool Hope University, is one of those concerned with the idea.
While believing that the Metaverse has the potential to bring about some interesting things for humans, it also risks exacerbating existing problems such as data privacy issues and cyberbullying drastically.
More worryingly, this technological development will blur the line between virtual and reality. Whoever becomes the leader will have access to an unprecedented amount of data. That means having countless powers.
“The market is huge. Whoever controls it will basically have control over the whole reality,” Reid said.
He also said that many prototype MR (mixed-reality) systems today have face, eye, body and hand tracking technology. Most have advanced cameras. Some even incorporate Electroencephalogram (EEG) technology to pick up brain wave patterns. In other words, everything we say, manipulate, see, or even think can be monitored in MR.
This is why Reid insists that we need a system to keep tabs on the Metaverse.
“No single company should have control over something that big,” he said.
In addition to Reid, Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, said he believed the metaverse project was rushed in an attempt by Facebook to fend off a bad precedent after former employee Frances Haugen reported the company.
