Web3 is essential for data sovereignty in the Metaverse

Roaming the Metaverse is like playing a computer game, but soon, it will be exactly like real life. Unlike some dystopian visions of the metaverse, I don't think we'll abandon reality and stop participating in the real world. On the other hand, advances in AI content generation could lead to a metaverse featuring our lifelike avatars and propel us toward a hyper-reality that combines the real world and our digital lives.

In the future, everything we do on the Internet today can be done in the Metaverse, just with a more attractive visual interface. There’s a reason why the virtual content we’re exposed to today is low-res and cartoony, because real-world content is expensive to produce, and games are still a staple of the current Metaverse. On the other hand, the real world around us is vivid and rich, with a 24/7 high-definition personalized content experience - that is, our reality.

As technology advances, lifelike content in the Metaverse will become indistinguishable from physical reality. The driving force behind this change will be powerful AI content generation algorithms that use real-world data to perfectly reproduce our own version in the digital environment. The question is, as the real world expands into virtual space: how do you stop bad actors from taking control of your lifelike virtual version?

Will our digital selves become slaves to big corporations?

The deluge of personal data generated by the growth of the internet and countless amazing digital products and services has been collected by big corporations. Every search engine query, comment, like, avatar, email, and purchase is another note in the symphony of our digital identities, heard only by certain companies and their algorithms. The Metaverse takes data collection to a new level, filled with immersive content and increasingly rich data streams.

While we might be willing to exchange cookie data or information about our purchases of internet products and services to make our lives easier, it's not clear that we'd be equally willing to hand over virtual versions of ourselves that can spawn in a hyperreal metaverse. The unique biological voice and facial data of the human body are handed over to these companies for processing.

The way many internet services collect data has made more and more people reluctant to share their personal data with online platforms, especially Gen Z users. As we move into a hyper-real metaverse, the stakes are heightened due to the incredibly private nature of the data needed to render real people, including digital copies of our faces, bodies, and voices. This is a major hurdle in developing an inclusive and user-friendly metaverse, especially when it comes to hyper-real content.

If we are going to bring billions of people into virtual worlds, content creators will need to use AI content generation algorithms trained on real-world data to create personalized immersive experiences at scale. But individuals must be willing to share their intimate biometrics and private data with content creators; otherwise, the Metaverse may end up being just an endless Zoom video conference of a bunch of thighless torsos chatting together.

How to Ensure Your Hyper-Real Identity in the Metaverse

The arrival of a "hyperreal" metaverse is an exciting and unsettling prospect. On the one hand, the Metaverse will create new immersive avenues for human expression and interaction. For example, the move from analog telephony to video conferencing only started 15 years ago and has rapidly changed the quality of our interactions with family and friends around the world. Imagine how meaningful a real-time, immersive, lifelike virtual "party" would be when you actually feel like you're with your friends and loved ones.

On the other hand, platform owners have the potential to acquire new and increasing personal and biometric data from users. In addition to this, criminals may create harmful content and use it to exploit individuals and communities. Recent examples of these risks include political misinformation and the misuse of pornographic images directed at women. As we collectively explore how the Metaverse will unfold, we will all need to be careful with user education, policymaking, and the careful development of hyper-real technologies and artificial intelligence. Ultimately, as we approach a hyperreal metaverse powered by artificial intelligence, the biggest challenge will come down to who controls user data and the security measures we put in place to protect individuals.

The first principle of securing your hyper-real identity in the Metaverse is to aggressively claim ownership of your private biometric data. While governments have a responsibility to stop criminals from stealing your data and identity, at the very least, you can use blockchain technology to claim your hyper-real identity and track its use by legitimate content creators. Imagine protecting your biometric data with a non-fungible token (NFT) that represents your hyper-real identity, controlled only by you. You can use this NFT as an authenticated login service as you move between virtual worlds in the Metaverse, and control which platforms have access to your biometric data.

Take VR headsets, which already track users' eyes, map their surroundings, and record their voices. If participation in the Metaverse is based on collecting these biometric data formats, then we need to design systems that give individuals control over when and how their data is used. In this regard, Web3 tools, including blockchain and other permissionless technologies, are critical to ensuring data sovereignty in the Metaverse, as they enable tracking of personalized content at scale without requiring users to blindly trust third-party biological feature data.

Web3 will put individuals in control of their Metaverse identity and biometric data

Attacking a person's personal identity in the real world is very expensive in terms of time, resources, and potential consequences. But in today's internet environment, the barriers to mass identity theft have been greatly lowered, and millions of people fall victim to these attacks every year. Using Web3 tools, including NFTs and blockchains, to ensure individual data sovereignty in the Metaverse is critical. Because the deeply personal details inherent in this data create new opportunities for malicious actors to impersonate individuals and exploit our identities.

These risks are magnified in the metaverse. If an attacker can make a lifelike digital avatar of you say or do anything without other users being able to tell if that person is really you, it becomes much easier to fight fraud and build the web of trust that is so vital to a healthy community. challenging. A hyper-real metaverse will unlock new opportunities for working and playing in virtual spaces, but only if there is a profound shift in the way data is exchanged and secured online.

While there will always be malicious actors in the Metaverse, Web3 technologies can provide a set of guardrails for a positive economy where individuals can safely share their biometric data and Identity appears. It is critical that we create systems that empower individuals to control how they present themselves in the metaverse and who has access to their biometric data. These systems will make personalized content creation a process of consensus and collaboration between the companies creating the content and the individuals involved in the content. This is a profound shift in the incentive structure at the core of the modern Internet and Web2. In the age of Web2, the price of accessing the major platforms and enjoying the best products is giving up control of your personal information. And in the near future, NFT, blockchain, and Web3 tools will allow users to participate in the digital economy for the first time without giving up control of their data.