by Mónika Mercz
Our society hinges on continuous progress, evidenced by the fact that in the last few decades, innovation has sped up to an unprecedented degree. This technological boom has brought with itself the spread of digitalization, and ultimately, the birth of a parallel, virtual world, akin to Plato’s allegory of the cave. But in this philosophical question of reality versus our interpretation of it, what constitutes the real world? Are we inside the cave, or would we enter it by way of participating in a virtual reality?
To answer these questions, we must first understand what a “virtual world” is. It may be defined as digitally constructed environments where peer-to-peer interaction can take place.[1] An amplified version of an individual virtual world is the metaverse, which can be seen as a large network of interconnected virtual worlds. This move from independent virtual worlds towards an integrated network is a continuous goal of innovation, and depends on progress in the areas of immersive realism, ubiquity of access and identity, interoperability, and scalability.[2] In these virtual worlds, users represented by avatars interact, usually in 3D form, focused on social and economic connection.
This service is quite popular among people, who all wish to try what it is like to experience a digital reality so advanced that it feels like a parallel, real world. Therefore, it is no surprise that the metaverse market is projected to reach a potential market volume of US$507.8 billion by 2030, with an estimated annual growth rate of 37.73%.[3] This amazing level of growth could even culminate in 860,000 new jobs created by 2025.[4]
Potential benefits of utilizing the metaverse include easier urban planning and environmental sustainability, citizen engagement and participation in urban development, in addition to advancement in fields such as education, culture and recreation, social services, local public administration, and many more.[5] However, we must acknowledge that the immediate implementation of virtual worlds has great potential to exacerbate existing social inequalities and mental health issues.[6] This is underlined by unfortunate cases, where crimes were committed in a virtual reality.[7] This is why rules enacted in recent years by the EU are likely to apply to the new field of virtual worlds, to prevent damaging actions taking place in this parallel reality. Regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the AI Act, as well as the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) are set to apply.
To combat the risks associated with the metaverse, while reaping the benefits it can offer to humanity, the European Commission have adopted a strategy on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds to hopefully ensure an open, secure, trustworthy, fair and inclusive digital environment.[8] This decision came about, because the EU recognized that virtual worlds can improve the quality of life for EU citizens and increase the competitiveness of the EU industry. However, problems arise, seeing as the main developers of virtual worlds infrastructure and applications are located in the US and Asia. This means that virtual ecosystem rules could be in conflict with EU values and legislation.[9]
There are plans to make public services available in the metaverse, but this development also requires that the public sector complies with administrative law, as well as ethical and human rights principles in this virtual context.[10]
As part of the Digital Decade programme,[11] the Commission initiated a multi-country project with Member States and cities: a European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC),[12] that will own and operate common infrastructures for cities’ digital twins, called the Networked Local Digital Twins towards the CitiVERSE EDIC (LDT CitiVERSE EDIC).[13] Through this initiative, it will be possible to buy and use a local digital twin component developed in one Member State across the single market, opening opportunities for digital SMEs and businesses beyond national borders. Members will co-develop joint initiatives and tenders for economies of scale and aggregating EU technology at world level.[14]
The CitiVERSE – inspired by the ISO/IEC 23005-1:2020 and IEEE 2888 standards – has been defined as a series of interconnected and distributed hybrid and virtual worlds that represent and are synchronised with their physical counterparts.[15] Both the terms ‘CitiVERSE’ and ‘metaverse’ relate to virtual environments but seem to have distinct meanings and implications.[16]
Through these innovative technologies, we will be able to live our lives in two separate worlds: the physical reality which we all know, and the virtual reality of cities, countries, worlds, where our avatars can interact freely. These new opportunities will undoubtedly greatly affect human relationships, the population’s mental health, our economy, and several other areas of everyday life. In the end, this chance to escape the real world’s troubles might even lead to people not wishing to leave the virtual one.
Ultimately, the cost of discovering and exploring the virtual world might be that those who enter are never the same coming back. We seem to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis in this situation, as not utilizing the metaverse would result in substantial loss of growth, but chasing after it may lead to the loss of our human connections. The goal of the EU is to preserve human rights, therefore, seeing how it can regulate virtual worlds in a meaningful way will be an interesting process.
[1] Maria Beatrice Bittarello: Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2008): Virtual Worlds Research: Past, Present and Future, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v1i1.282
[2] John D. N. Dionisio-William G. Burns-Richard Gilbert: 3D Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse: Current Status and Future Possibilities, ACM Computing Surveys 45(3), 2013. DOI:10.1145/2480741.2480751
[3] Microsoft: Metaverse Market Reports 2024, https://www.reportlinker.com/market-report/Advanced-IT/726665/Metaverse?term=metaverse%20trends&matchtype=b&loc_interest=&loc_physical=9062996&utm_group=standard&utm_term=metaverse%20trends&utm_campaign=ppc&utm_source=google_ads&utm_medium=paid_ads&utm_content=transactionnel-1&hsa_acc=9351230540&hsa_cam=15072746546&hsa_grp=134493507565&hsa_ad=595194373117&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-1460570666535&hsa_kw=metaverse%20trends&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInuOt6fmRiAMVm6-DBx2olBFWEAAYAyAAEgKy4_D_BwE
[4] European Commission: Virtual worlds, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/virtual-worlds
[5] Alvarez Rodriguez, M., Martinez, C., Delannoy, M., Ponti, M., Kung, A., & Arribas, I. (2023). Towards an EU roadmap for an inclusive and sustainable CitiVERSE (Draft). Unpublished Report.
[6] European Commission: Emerging digital technologies in the public sector – The case of virtual worlds, 2024. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/eaa56c9b-44af-11ef-865a-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
[7] R. Dremliuga, A. Iakovenko and N. Prisekina: Crime in virtual reality: discussion, International Conference on Cybersecurity (ICoCSec), Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, 2019, pp. 81-85, doi: 10.1109/ICoCSec47621.2019.8970947.
[8] European Commission: Towards the next technological transition: Commission presents EU strategy to lead on Web 4.0 and virtual worlds, 2023. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3718
[9] European Commission: Emerging digital technologies in the public sector – The case of virtual worlds, 2024. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/eaa56c9b-44af-11ef-865a-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
[10] Leslie, K., Moore, J., Robertson, C. et al: Regulating health professional scopes of practice: comparing institutional arrangements and approaches in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. Hum Resour Health 19, 15 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00550-3
[11] The Digital Decade programme was established with EU Decision, 2022/2481.
[12] European Commission: European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (EDIC), https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/edic
[13] Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2024/459 of 1 February 2024 on setting up the European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for Networked Local Digital Twins towards the CitiVERSE (LDT CitiVERSE EDIC), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202400459
[14] Living in EU: The LDT CitiVERSE EDIC is a fact, 2024. https://living-in.eu/news/ldt-citiverse-edic-fact
[15] Yoon, K., Kim, S.K., Jeong, S.P., & Choi, J. -H.: Interfacing Cyber and Physical Worlds: Introduction to IEEE 2888 Standards. IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Reality (ICIR), Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2021, pp. 49-50, doi: 10.1109/ICIR51845.2021.00016
[16] Alvarez Rodriguez, M., Martinez, C., Delannoy, M., Ponti, M., Kung, A., & Arribas, I.: Towards an EU roadmap for an inclusive and sustainable CitiVERSE (Draft). Unpublished Report. 2023.
