To conclude our journey we want to look at the crude predecessor of this simulated reality – the online world – in which we live today and see if we can already see early indicators of these benefits and pitfills and perform thought experiments to look ahead of what could happen in the true simulation we sketched in this book. The analysis will not be correct or complete because the future is uncertain, but we hope we convinced you in the previous chapters that history shows the development of simulated reality is a slow and gradual process for thousands of years. This journey is what makes us human – an insatiable curiosity to learn together about the world around us and everything there is to experience in this universe. We can ignore and wait until the future reveals itself but we hope you will follow us in this last chapter in a discussion on the possible benefits and pittfalls long before the technology can be realized so we can adjust its course to reach its full potential.

1. Full democratization of experience or walled gardens for the happy few?

Computer games for decades have shown us that experiences that are impossible in real life can be possible and accessible to all. We can build civilizations in Civilization or control armies to conquer the galaxy. We can fly across the world in different airplanes or race in a Formula 1 car in the streets of Monaco. Professor Nathan Adam [ Virtual Reality and The Democratization Of Experience | Nathan Adam | TEDxNashvilleSalon – YouTube ] explains how VR democratizes experiences. Experiences that were too costly, too dangerous or otherwise out of reach or completely impossible become accessible to all. Like the Internet has democratized information, VR will democratize experience and tap into our curiosity to learn and experience together everything there is to learn about the universe we live in.

Today many of us cannot imagine life without Internet access. Free access to internet and the democratization of information is seen as a way to reduce inquality and poverty. [How Giving People Free Wi-Fi Actually Can Help End Extreme Poverty (globalcitizen.org) ]. Having access to the true simulation will also be seen as a basic human need that should be affordable to all.

There is a real risk that governments and corporations will use their power and influence to control who has access with which priviledges and determine what can be experienced to restrict our freedom to experience and self-expression. Furthermore, these organization can demand something in return for this right to democratized experience – being your data, loyalty, money or ideas – to strengthen their power and influence further because of national security, shareholder interest.

In the Nosedive episode of the Netflix series Black Mirror we see how society has embraced a technology wherein everyone shares their daily activities through implants and wearables and rates their interactions with others on a scale of one to five. The ratings people receive from others cumulate and affect their socioeconomic status. People with a rating of 4 have much more access and priviledges than people with a score of 3. In the episode we see the fall of the main character Lacie due to a series of events outside her control, restricting her access to products, services and experiences. While this may seem far fetched, the Chinese government invests in monitoring and tracking people through government controlled cybernetworks, surveillance systems and algorithms. With better control over data, a more productive economy and more effective government that makes decisions on hard science rather than intuition can be realized is the argument made China and Big Tech: Xi’s blueprint for a digital dictatorship | Financial Times (ft.com). The Chinese government is often cited, but Western governments use national security or cyber attacks to maintain an invisible social credit system. Access to the true simulation should not be restricted by ratings set by governments but by finding guilty of breaking cyberlaws in a strong and independent legal system.

Corporations also pose a great risk on the democratization of experience. In surveillance capitalism [Shoshana Zuboff: ‘Surveillance capitalism is an assault on human autonomy’ | Society books | The Guardian ] describes the logic of how companies such as Google and Facebook first extract data from us by giving our consent through long and complicated statements, bundle our data into prediction products that they then sell to advertisers to determine what content we should experience or other organizations to make decisions on behalf of us. This form of influence and control is much more subtle than the rating scheme but as dangerous. It can be seen as dark pattern [Dark Patterns – Types of Dark Pattern; Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design – A List Apart ] that tricks people into doing things they did not mean to. We need to become more aware of dark patterns, how they can be spotted and neutralized. Designers and engineers should be taught in university about ethical design so a new generation designers and engineers prevent these dark patterns to be invented and implemented. Organization that continue to use dark patterns must be named and if repeated hold accountable and punished.

To achieve full democratization of experience we need to remove barriers and limitations that are not needed to protect our safety, security and other basic needs to maximize the possibility for self expression. We should have a choice to switch to a universe that is fully controlled by an authoritarian government that knows everything about everyone to experience that life but also switch to a universe like Fortnite where you can be blown up by anyone at anytime without consequences. Within those universes and within the value system and rules set, everybody should have equal rights and opportunities to get the best out of the true simulation.

2. Shared understanding or echo chambers that pull us apart?

One of the key benefits of virtual reality is that it provides us with the ability to see, hear, feel the world from someone else’s senses. It will allow us to explore other perspectives and experience the world in a different way in an empathy machine. The term empathy machine likely originated with Roger Egberts for film [Ebert’s Walk of Fame remarks | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert ] who describes how going to a great movie allows you live somebody else’s life for a while and walk in somebody else’s shoes. Film producer Chris Milk sees virtual reality as the ultimate empathy machine [Chris Milk: How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine | TED Talk ] because unlike in films you are truly immersed and actor in the story. A true simulation would be the superlative of the empathy machine. In chapter 3 we saw how education was transformed in a true simulation because teachers could take their students back in time to experience a historic event or participate directly in how people lived their lives in early times. The idea that games can make the world a better place is advocated by game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal [Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world | TED Talk]. She argues that to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, obesity, we need to aspire to play more games because they inspire us to collaborately solve problems, challenge ourselves to improve and share epic stories tpo each other.

The problem with games like World of Warcraft or Roblox is that they are better than reality because we spend all our time in these game worlds. Collectively World of Warcraft players have spent 5.93 million years solving the problems of virtual Azaroth [idem]. One of the risks is that we grow detached from reality and no longer pay attention to our environment, culture or even ourselves, a topic we return to later in this chapter. Another risk is that society forms many communities, tribes, social networks that grow closer internally through the empathy machine but become increasingly disconnected from others because they only value perspectives and views that match their own. The risks of these echo rooms have been given a lot of attention in relation to social media. Technology platforms like Facebook, Twitter would drive a wedge between groups according to commentators because their recommendation algorithms promote similar stories in their feeds. While many take this as the truth, the influence of echo chambers in social has been highly over-estimated according to latest research [The myth of the online echo chamber – BBC Future ]. It turns out that social media and search users tend to land upon more polarised news sources but contrary to echo chambers and filter bubbles, they are also more likely to visit sites expressing opposing viewpoints so their media diet was much more varied. The problems of extreme political views online do not appear to come from the range of voices we hear, but how we react to them. One of the contributing factors seems to be the anonymity of our interactions online that make it easy to respond in a more hostile way [Evolution explains why we act differently online – BBC Future ].

There appears no easy solution to this problem. To ensure the true simulation becomes the ultimate empathy machine for the better, we need to invest in education to teach basic critical thinking skills and how to identify bias in an arguments so we can judge news sources and experiences more thoughtfully. We need also to invest in teaching online norms and values to ensure thinking twice before sharing our thoughts. The empathy machine itself could play an important role to teach these values. Offenders who reply with death threats could be let to experience what it means to receive these death threats and do not feel safe at home or at work. Improved algorithms may be able to detect and trace hostile interactions so the government is able to warn offenders earlier of undesired behavior and reduce polarization of extreme views that hurt others.

If we are successful we will grow closer to each other in a true simulation, respect and care more for each other because we better understand each other better and solve each others problems together, if we fail the true simulation will grow a deep wedge between us, fuel hate, trigger ideological conflicts and lead to extreme polarization that stiffles democracies to operate and very fabric of society.

3. Supernatural health or physical and mental degradation?

In computer games we are used to have super powers that give us great strength to move heavy objects, turn invisible to sneak past enemies or simply fly away. Injuries heal automatically and we may even multiple lives to replay a level. People who have physical disabilities may still be able to climb mountains or run a marathon in a computer game. A true simulation will make supernatural health feel much more real because we are fully immersed with our all our senses and forget for longer periods of times that our general health and condition is declining as we age or disabilities prevent us from going to certain places as we saw before in chapter 3.

There are major risks however to both physical and mental health, both short-term and long-term. If we start with short-term physical health risks there is the possibility that we hurt ourselves while performing in front of a computer vision sensor, running in an omni-directional threadmill or interacting with another input device. Shortly after the Xbox 360 Kinect sensor came out, gamers reported Kinect-related injuries Gamer danger: Kinect Xbox injury alert (smh.com.au) and experts provided advice such as creating a safe playing area by clearing the room of objects, limit the amount of players in the same space and wear more protective gear. Software itself can also advise users to check the environment or even identify objects in a room and warn users while interacting of collision warning. In a true simulation our health may also be affected negatively by the scent and taste systems that trigger allergic responses. Some people respond heavily to artificially created scents that are used in scent marketing for example. Besides short-term physical health effects of normal use, we need to be aware of the possible negative health effects of malfunctioning devices. Imagine the scent system being hacked so they release toxic molecules into our home or the vision system damaging your eyes. Strong design guidelines for such devices must be set by government and independent organizations must exist to test and approve human input/output devices before we can install them into our homes and use them.

Physical health effect because of prolonged used of software and games are well known and document in medical literature.Video Gaming Injuries Are on the Rise — Health Nexus (thehealthnexus.org). The most common injuries are overuse injuries of the hands. In many cases bad design of mice, keyboards, game controllers is an important contributing factor. Keyboards become smaller and smaller for example. Less common but severe injuries result from sitting straight for hours on end while gaming. In one case a healthy and physically active man was rushed into hospital because he sat cross-legged for over eight hours with his kids playing games and developed blood clots formed in his lower legs causing a potentially life-threatening deep vein thrombosis. In 2002 in South Korea, Kim Kyung-Jae died from playing a medieval-themed online game for 86 hours. He is believed to be the first person to die from gaming too much but many more have died since by highly addictive online games. In 2012, the South Korean government banned children 16 and younger from playing online games between midnight and 6 AM [Gamers Are Dying in Taiwan’s Internet Cafes (vice.com)]. More recently China allows children to spend 3 hours online per day [Kids in China now restricted to just 3 hours of online gaming per week – The Verge ]. The blue light emitting from smartphones and TV screens is also being linked to macular degeneration, damage to the photoreceptors in the retina that could cause blindness although more research is needed. Is Blue Light From Your Smart Phone Harmful To Your Eyes? (forbes.com). Government regulations to protect children and people who are addicted will remain necessary in a true simulation but the simulated reality engine itself could also monitor health effects more actively and potentially even decide to temporarily restrict access. Those of you who installed RSI apps on their laptops know how difficult this can be and how users often find this more annoying than helpful so a better way would be through design. In the Matrix we see how people receive everyhing they need to stay indefinitely in the simulated reality through a cable that runs into their mouth to feed them and a cord that plugs into their neck to control the simulated reality. While this effectively addresses the long-term health problem, many people including the author will view this as a nightmare scenario where we become completely dependent of the simulated reality. How we can deal with long-term physical health effects in deep simulation (imagine being in simulated reality for days instead of hours) without invading our body and mind with technology to counter these effects requires further research and innovative solutions. One area of inspiration could be space research where the health effects of prolonged duration in space have been studied for several decades. Until then we should restrict our time in the simulation through a combination of government regulation, experience design and technology to prolong our stay in the simulation.

While there is a lot of scientific research on the negative effect of games, it is worth pointing out to the positive aspect of game-like elements on healt. Many of you may augment their work out or jogging in the park with music on your smartphone. If you own a fitness cycling, running or rowing machine you may have an app on your smartphone that shows you your progress on a virtual track and makes your work out experience more exciting and fun. In a true simulation these work outs would engage all your senses and be even more rewarding and exciting. Designers will need to learn the tools of this new toolbox of the true simulation to design experiences where you don’t lift a heavy object with a joystick or game console controller button but by using your body and providing touch feedback to feel the weight of the object you need to lift. Instead of making the user experience better, we may need to think about making the user experience worse, less efficient.

In television, films and in games we are used to ratings that have been designed to protect people and children in particular from viewing explict sex, drug abuse, violence or horror scenes for example. The true simulation experiences will be more powerful than previous media so we need to control the use of the true simulation in the same way. Up until now virtual environments have not been able to create physiological and emotional responses to the extend that they initiate a post-traumatic stress disorder [Can You Get PTSD From A Virtual Experience? (popsci.com) ] but this does not mean it won’t happen in an advanced virtual reality. Virtual reality today may simply not be real enough. There is also however also a positive effect on our mental health. Early VR research studies in the mid-1990s put people afraid of heights onto virtual footbridges, balconies and cliffs to expose them to the source of their fear and gradually help them overcome it. The same VR therapy approach has also been successfully applied to for example help victims of 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and veterans in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Multiple studies have found a strong link between heavy social media use and increased risk of depression, anxiety, loneliness and even suicidal thoughts. Social Media and Mental Health – HelpGuide.org. [better reference] However online worlds such as Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft show how online worlds can also connect people and create a sense of purpose in solving problems together or creating something new. Esport contests are watched by thousands of people online and people who play and watch these virtual sport contest find these meaningful. We can expect that as these online worlds become richer and varied we find more purpose and meaning in the digital universe. Most of us will quickly lose interest in driving a virtual car through a fixed terrain, but what if we could really become a professional Formula 1 racer, travel the universe for race tracks in competition with others, work with the pit stop team to tune engines, enjoy the interactions with digital fans would that be better than living a life where you make long work weeks to make ends meet and pay the bills in a small high rise appartment?

More research is needed to understand how we can design online virtual worlds that are regenerative for our mental health, make us stronger instead of weaker. We also need to invest more in education so our children learn how to use the metaverse in such a way that it improves their lives, builds and grows friendships and relations, discover and learn new things, find meaning in creating and exploring experiences.

4 Preservation of reality or loss of authenticity?

It is difficult to imagine today, but what if virtual becomes more real than reality itself? French sociologist Jean Baudrillard coined the term hyperreality in his book Simulacra and Simulation in the early 80s as “the generation of models of real without any origin” [Simulacra and Simulation – Wikipedia]. Back then hyperreality was seen as an abstract, controversial idea that was hard to grasp but forty years we cannot imagine a world without computer simulated environments and e-commerce [Welcome To Hyperreality: Where The Physical And Virtual Worlds Converge (forbes.com)] . If this hyperreality becomes even more real, will we still think about our planet, our cultural heritage and possibly even ourselves? Will we take care to preserve our reality, not just to preserve the simulated reality to run itself but also the natural environment in which we live, our cultural heritage in archeological sites, museums around the world and our own physical health? Or will we end up in a world sketched in the Pixar animation Wall-E [WALL·E (2008) – IMDb ], where two lonely robots travel around the Earth to find each other and wonder why the planet is void of life and full with debris. Eventually the robots discover humanity has moved to the stars in spaceships where people watch television and play games all day and do not need to walk and exercise anymore. In Wall-E the robots convince the captain and the guests on board the space ship to move back to Earth and settle on the planet.

Let us first consider nature itself. Will we get more detached from nature? Ever since humanity invented tools, we use our tools to shape the world around us and transform nature into farmland, roads, canals, towns and cities. For this reason this epoch in Earth’s history is called the Anthropocene, although a better term may be event because compared to previous epochs this period just begun. The Arrogance of the Anthropocene – The Atlantic. In survival TV programs such as Expedition Robinson we see how much people have alienated from life in the wilderness and survival after thousands of years. Although the effect of nature are well documented, from increasing happiness and physical health to lowering stress, we do not know to which extend virtual reality experiences of nature may also work to lower stress and increase happiness. There is however a clear correlation between increased spending power and environmental damage. Research shows that income is by far the most important determinant of environmental impact. If you have surplus money you spend it. The only form of consumption that is clearly and positively correlated with good environmental intentions is diet: people tend to eat less meat and more organic vegetables. But the amount of transport fuel, home energy, and other materials the wealthy consume grows with income. Although the rich are disproportionally responsible for climate change, they are least affected by it through their multiples homes, yachts and money to relocate. For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth | George Monbiot | The Guardian. It seems that we will remain or even become more detached from nature, but in the next section we will argue that a true simulation may solve the paradox between growth and wealth on one side and finite natural resources on the other side.

What about the preservation of our own cultural heritage? Every year millions visit musea to see works of art. Even if we would be able to create an almost perfect copy in true simulation of the Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci or the Starry Night of Vincent van Gogh, there will be people who are interested to see the authentic original. Japan’s theme park Hausu Ten Bosu in Sasebo, Nagasaki recreates the Netherlands by displaying life-sized copies of Dutch buildings, but dispite this theme park – or maybe even because – Japanese tourist find their way to the original towns and cities in the Netherlands. Even digital experiences themselves can also be made scarce and original through the use of so-called Non Fungible Tokens Non-fungible token – Wikipedia. In 2021, a 12 year old made the headlines by creating a collection of pixelated whales that he sold for over $400,000 through Ether (a cybercurrency). 12-year-old coder made 6-figures selling Weird Whales NFTs (cnbc.com). The key question is how much we will value those authentic experiences over a perfect copy in a digital experience. Visiting the original Rembrandt Night Watch in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum will cost much more time, money and often may not be so great as imagined because the museum is very busy and a perfect copy would imitate all five senses, including the sounds and scent of the Rijksmuseum’s 17 century floor. We need to teach our children to preserve nature and history and take care of institutions that support them for future generations to come so they can see the original flora and fauna, art works, buildings etc.

The final and perhaps most interesting question is whether we preserve ourselves. If we gain superpower abilities and supernatural health, will we still care about physical relationships and sex, raise children and take care of our parents or will cybersex be better than the original? Generally, there is an inverse correlation between income and total fertility rate within and between nations Income and fertility – Wikipedia. The higher the GDP per capita of a human population and the higher the education, the fewer children are born. In 1974, Karan Singh, former minister of population in India illustrated this trend by stating that “development is the best contraceptive”. Will the true simulation be the ultimate contraceptive? More research is needed to understand the effects of cybersex on human psychology and relationships both short-term and long-term and the impact on demographics. Lack of population growth, aging populations and declining birth rate is a concern for countries like Japan How Does Japan’s Aging Society Affect Its Economy? – The Diplomat already and becomes a problem for all Western countries, China and other development countries. Modern capitalism is built on growth and with a declining population and stagnating productivity (low inflation) this threatens the growth of the global economy. A true simulation could solve this contradiction between economic growth and declining population and the paradox between growing wealth and finite natural resources in a surprising way as we will see next.

5. Regenerative sustainability or uncontrolled resource exploitation?

In 2021, Earth overshoot day fell on July 29 Earth Overshoot Day 2021 Home – #MoveTheDate. Earth overshoot day marks the date that humanity’s demand for ecological resources exceeded what the Earth can regenerate in a year. The date of Earth overshoot day has seen an increasing trend from the mid 1970s until today.

The world economy of 2021 is still an extractive economy that exploits natural resources, cheap labor and exhausts nature. Climate change has made the impact of the extractive economy on our lives and nature abundantly clear but despite considerable attention and political will to reduce our footprint, the majority of countries is not on track to reach the Paris agreement Global Update: Climate target updates slow as science demands action | Climate Action Tracker .

We discussed before that income is by far the most important determinant of environmental impact. Wealthy countries and individuals are most responsible for Earth overshoot day, they spend their surplus money in luxury cars, home energy, swimming pools, exotic holiday destination, and material consumption and acquisition and thereby sustain the exhaustive economy.

2020 is in many ways a year to forget, worldwide millions of people lost their lives because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and millions more lost a family member or friend, their work or income. But in 2020 the decline in consumption as a result of lock downs and the increase in working remotely and growth in online entertainment, gaming, streaming video subscriptions and online social experiences did set back Earth overshoot clock to August 22. Global CO2 emissions also dropped for the first time.

If there is anything positive about the global pandemic, it is that it has given us undeniable scientific proof that humanity can reduce its footprint. The key insight is that by transforming physical into digital experiences we need less mining of natural commodities such as metals, oil and gas, less manufacturing of material products and less distribution, warehousing and retail to deliver these tangible products to consumers. We may also need less business travel and physical offices if we can manage our work in the metaverse. A true simulation would dematerialize the global economy much further and in much more profound ways as we illustrated in chapter 3. It would not only dematerialize the desk in this YouTube movie Evolution Of The Desk – YouTube but also much of the office, retail outlets, manufacturing plants, supply chain locations. A true simulation might solve the paradox between infinite economic growth and the equal accumulation of wealth and a finite planet with finite resources.

Belgian philosopher Ingrid Robeyns argues that there should be an upper limit to the amount of income and wealth a person can mass because surplus money leads to the capture, use and destruction of the planet’s natural wealth. Limitarianism [Full article: What, if Anything, is Wrong with Extreme Wealth? (tandfonline.com) ]believes that if everyone is to flourish, we cannot afford the rich and we need to draw a line above no one should rise. Limitarianism and other similar theories often view capitalism and technology as the root cause problem but could a true simulated reality be its solution?

The key question to ask is whether the combined energy and resources needed to create and operate the true simulation is less than the sum of all the economic activities which extract material commodities, produce physical goods and deliver tangible services that are displaced through dematerialization. If the energy consumption of the true simulation is a significant part of the global energy consumption and the sum of activities that can be dematerialized is a small or modest part of the global economy, we run the risk that the true simulation will bring Earth overshoot day much earlier instead of later. If however the energy consumption is comparatively low we can dematerialize a significant secion of the global economy, and democratize human experience, increase wealth while at the same time restore the nature balance sheet.

6. End of work or new slavery?

Through digitization, dematerialization and decomocratization of experience we can see also a trend of demonitization as described by Peter Diamandis in Abundance Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think – Wikipedia. This can be easily understood as follows. To produce physical goods and services costs are being made to extract, transform, assemble, configure materials and parts into products and services. Once these goods and services are digitized, the cost to reproduce them are zero. If the variable costs go to zero, it will be difficult to maintain a premium price. A case in point is a bill passed in South Korea to prevent platform owners like Google and Apple from restricting app developers to built-in payment systems. Apple and Google must allow developers to use other payment systems, new Korean law declares – The Verge . If the bill is signed, tech giants have to accept that the 30% commission on all payments through their app stores may have to be cut or significantly lowered.

In a true metaverse the process of demonitization will have expanded in both breadth and depth as more products and services categories will have become digitized further than today is the case. If companies are unable to keep high premium prices, there is less money needed to access these experiences further driving the democratization of experiences. If less is money is needed, we can work less and have more free time to do the things we would really like to do. Many jobs will be created by the primary support system that develops and maintains the simulated reality and some jobs in the secondary support system may never be replaced, but many people could become professional consumers like the influencer and virtual tourist guide we met in chapter 3. We have to accept that there is simply less work to do and even more importantly that this is okay. These professional consumers are the reason why there can be a true simulation in the first place. Without their participation and collaboration the metaverse is empty and meaningless. A recent experiment with a four-day work week in Iceland turned out to be a succes; worked reported feeling less stressed and at risk of burnout, and said their health and work-life balance had improved. They also reported having more time to spend with their families, do hobbies and complete household chores. Four-day week ‘an overwhelming success’ in Iceland – BBC News. In Utopia for realists, Rutger Bregman presents many more examples of successful local experiments with shorter working weeks and a universal basic income to promote a more productive and fair society. Utopia for Realists – Wikipedia.

If we do well we may be able to reduce the work week further from 4 days in Iceland to 1 or 2 days and lower the age at which we retire from work. We need to learn to accept that there is an end to work and that this is not a bad but a good thing. Less money makes us more equal and makes the true simulation a much more diverse and interesting place to be. The opposite scenario is that the price to access and play the true simulation becomes exorbitant high because the elite wants to accumulate even more wealth and further strengthen its power and control over the rest of society that is addicted to the true simulation. Pay to win schemes will become more common and scarcity is artificially created so only the elite is able to pay for the truly remarkable premium experiences. Those of us with less money to spend will work long weeks to have only restricted access and cheaper experiences. We need stronger democratic governments and institutions that monitor for dark patterns and the abuse of power and control. avoid excessive concentration of power in few companies and institutions, and actively interfere and correct to give us more wealth and more time. We need strong leadership that dares to leave traditional paradigms that block us in our development behind and choose a different path forward.

7. Safe sanctuary to retreat or no place to hide?

Today every household in the US has on average 10.37 devices that connect to the Internet. Average number of connected devices in U.S. 2020 | Statista. The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to bring everything from medical wearables and electric toothbrushes to solar panel systems and camera security systems online so this number will only grow into the 2030s. All these smart objects leave traces of data behind. As we spent more time online more behavioral data is collected, aggregated and analysed, it becomes increasingly difficult to hide and protect our privacy. Today technology evades our homes and lives and in the future even our thoughts through always-on wearables and mobile device. In the dystopian British TV series Black Mirror many episodes warn us about the importance of privacy and security Black Mirror Illustrates The Importance of Digital Privacy | by Christian Stewart ✔️ | DigiPrivacy | Medium. In Shut Up and Dance we learn about a hacker who captures people’s secrets and blackmails them to perform a series of tasks that each becoming increasingly disturbing. In Hated by the Nation we learn how hackers gain access to killer bee drones that are used to kill people.

Humanity may eventually evolve into a hive mind or merge with superintelligent artificial intelligence and give up individual privacy and maybe even individual consciousness, but this is completely alien to us: We can’t even begin to imagine this, it is why the Borg in Star Trek are the most powerful adversary and polar opposite of the United Federations of Planets that stands for freedom. Having a home, a place where you can shelter is a basic human need that comes immediately after having food to eat and water to drink. The concept of place is probably as old as humanity itself and not likely to change any time.

At home you lock your door, close the windows and lower the lights to retreat into your own sanctuary where you know you are safe. We need privacy by design in a true metaverse where people are always online. What are the equivalents of locks, houses and windows that can be locked or opened? How can we as normal people regain and keep control over our own privacy and security by implementing these measures as easy as going to the lock smith or DIY store? How can we trust the barriers we create are truly impenetrable? More research and development on ethical algorithms Amazon.com: The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design: 9780190948207: Kearns, Michael, Roth, Aaron: Books is needed to ensure socially aware algorithms that avoid gender or racial bias and protect privacy through new techniques like differential privacy. In 2020 Chinese researchers reported secure quantum cryptography over 1,120 km by quantum entanglement of two photon pairs that were distributed via two bidirectional downlinks from a satellite to two ground observatories. Entanglement-based secure quantum cryptography over 1,120 kilometres | Nature.

Privacy design and technology such as quantum internet and socially aware algorithm design alone will not be sufficient, like the locks of a lock smith we need to trust the organizations that provide us with the technology. In Europe the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) is an important step in the consitutional rights of digital citizens because it can fine organizations who violate privacy for up to 4% of annual turnover and personal liability for management should a breach occur. Stil, GDPR is only a first step: many companies are still faced with many legacy systems and repositories, consent management lacks sophistication – to what do you say yes if you click “I agree”, the distinction between controller and processor has impact on the eco-system and the scope of personal information is growing. Organizations should embrace a privacy by design approach. They should change their business processes, data management systems and IT infrastructure to consider privacy in everything the organization does. Why GDPR is not enough. The GDPR (General Data Protection… | by Alicia Ngomo | The Startup | Medium.

Governments should invest more in raising awareness of the importance of privacy through the education system so children learn about the potential risks and also fund research and design into privacy technology and concepts that help to make the true simulation a safe sanctuary for all of us.

8. Self security and integrity or rampant cybercrime?

Every day valuable information and money from companies and individuals is stolen by online hackers who gain access to information systems leading to substantial costs. Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime cost to grow by 15 percent per year from $6 trillion in 2015 to $10.5 trillion in 2025 Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025 (cybersecurityventures.com). Whereas in the 20th century cybercrime would be restricted to mainframes, servers and personal computers, the threat and scope of cyberattacks and hacks has extended to mobile devices, cars, planes, buildings and transportation systems as the Internet of Things becomes a reality. In 2017, a variant of a ransomware called “WannaCry” spread within a day to infect more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries. WannyCry disrupted governments and many organizational and company networks at an unprecedented scale according to Europol. One of the largest agencies struck by the ransomware was the National Health Service hospitals in England and Scotland, up to 70,000 devices – including computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment – may have been affected [NHS cyber-attack: GPs and hospitals hit by ransomware – BBC News ] Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) temporarily had to shut down its chip manufacturing facilities in August 2018 as a new variant of WannaCry spread to 10,000 machines in TSMC [Apple chip supplier TSMC resumes production after WannaCry attack | Reuters ].

When the Covid-19 pandemic spread globally, so did cyberattacks. The increase in virtual activities such as remote work and online shopping created a fertile breeding ground for cybercriminals. We can expect that if we spend even more time in virtual reality, these activities will continue or become even more. In a true simulation the risk of cyberattacks and hacks could extend even further towards connected wearables, implants and sensors on our bodies or even inside us. Malware and ransomware could potentially become much more damaging or even fatal when self-driving cars become unresponsive or a scent generating system runs out of control and releases toxic levels of molecules.

Cybersecurity is already one of the fastest areas of growth in the labor market. The US bureau of labor statistics predicts cybersecurity jobs will grow 31% through 2029, over seven times faster than the national average job growth of 4%. Today more than ever companies and organizations are searching for qualified professionals with the right level of expertise. Why a cybersecurity career will remain in demand (studyinternational.com). Besides investing in more qualified security specialists and putting information security on the agenda of the board room, we need to give attention to education and training to prevent breaches and attacks and build a culture of security that makes technological defenses more robust. Only 1 in 9 businesses provided cybersecurity training, yet human error accounts for 90% of security breaches Why a cybersecurity career will remain in demand (studyinternational.com).

Technological improvements also remain necessary to create a more secure environment. Microsoft, Google and other software companies want to get rid of passwords When can we finally get rid of passwords? – The Verge because they are often easy to hack. An intermediate step that is quickly the standard is two-factor-authentication where besides a user name and password you need a physical device like a smartphone or fingerprint to authenticate yourself. Artificial intelligence advances will help to detect malicious behavior in large volumes of transactions better and faster and potentially help to reduce or even prevent cyberattacks. Use of blockchain technology and watermarking techniques will leave traces of unauthorized or unwanted behavior that can be detected by AI algorithms.

We need to make some reservations however to what we discussed above. We should ask ourselves the question what cybercriminals still have to gain if experience is fully democratized. In the previous sections we described how in a highly digitized, dematerialized and democratized experience economy everybody, include cybercriminals, could simply own a private island with plane, be the superhero in their own universe or live the life of a celebrity. If there comes an end to work in return for more spare time, criminals may get out of a job too or find themselves in a niche black market for illegal experiences or safety off experiences where you could really die if you loose the game for example.

In the future we may also care less about data that is stolen. AI algorithms quickly reveal whether something is real or not and we may even send deep fakes as jokes to each other as future snapchat posts. Through education we will have learned to view the world more in gray instead of black and white. A more important risk is the loss or corruption of our memories, virtual assets, behavioral routines in the simulation. Your progress in the simulation may be decades of work that could be lost in a second. We need backups of our most important data in different physical locations and if data is stored it should be protected against corruptions and trusted organizations.

9. Future now or blissful ignorance?

The pace of technological development and changes to society is often overwhelming and it often seems as if we are running behind the facts. Dutch philosopher Arnold Cornelis in his book Vertraagde Tijd described how we are caught up between two different definitions of time. The time of the external social clock and the time of the internal clock with a unique hidden program of self-direction and development in every person. When the changes in society (external clock) speeds up, adapting our own inner clock leads to a catastrophic learning process. We have less time to explore possibilities, make sound decisions, and feel more anxious and less happy. The philosophy of delayed time develops a cultural relativity of time that joins Einstein special relativity but extends this to culture and the human mind: The faster the external clock, the more we need to slow down our own internal clock for otherwise we lose our ability to self-direct our future and develop fear, anxiety and sadness. Simulations and games allow us to explore different possibilities and future outcomes. Soldiers, pilot, engineers and managers are trained in simulations to respond to different situations so that when the situation happens they immediately know what to do next. A true simulation will decelerate the external social clock, it will enable us to explore different alternative futures. If we ever become technologically able to upload our consciousness into cloud and live further as digital post-human beings, the true simulation will help us glimpse into that possibility and give us plenty of time to decide if we want to really press that button.

Arguably the most important benefit of a true simulation is therefore that it strikes the middle ground between a pure theoretical philosphical debate that always remains in the future and most people will be unable to fully understand and judge on one hand and an opportunistic unguided development of technology that confronts society when it is too late on the other hand.

We hope we made you aware with book, that you start to learn more about the metaverse and start dialogues with others on its future development so it serves us as a whole and not the selected few or at a great cost to our planet or society. The metaverse is deeply built in our curiosity to experience everything, it is what makes us human to tell, share, experience stories, it will be unstoppable because it is who we are, but we need to start experimenting and learning together as society to simulate the true simulation so we maximize the benefits and eliminate the risks. Are you ready player one?