GSG Wrap — Ethics in the metaverse 4.14.22
Edition 15, Vol 2, The Week that Was — Grey Swan Guild News Wrap — April 14, 2022
This week’s lead editor is @AntoniaNicols with sous-chef @robtyrie, along with submissions from the deep thinkers, the avatars, airbenders and navigators of the Grey Swan Guild, a virtual think tank that does stuff like ponder the future, the ethics and the human implications of the metaverse.
Normally, a Week That Was breaks out the Great, the Good, the Undecided, The Bad, and The Ugly on a typical topic. This week’s topic, however, “Ethical implications of the metaverse”, is so new to the zeitgeist that there simply aren’t enough articles out there to break things down into the GSG hierarchy. This week’s wrap is our attempt to wrap our arms around what’s out there already, identify some of the brighter ethical red flags, and summarize a few of the very few solutions proposed to address ethical considerations in the metaverse.
As always, we have questions. And in this case, we have deep concerns for the rights of the many, the rights of the few and the rights of the individual. This is the brilliant work of philosophers, not CEOs of the richest companies in the world. Or so we hope. Caveat Emptor. And now, Let’s Wrap.
The Oxford Dictionary defines “ethics” as the moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity. Webster defines “moral principles” as things that are, or related to, principles of right and wrong in behaviour. As for “right and wrong”. Well, that's a 10 thousand year story with many interpretations; some right or some wrong. Indeed, there are some principles that were wrong that become right and vice versa. Such is the fluidity of social mores.
If you search the internet today, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone arguing that the metaverse does not need some kind of ethical framework. “Every brand and company will need a metaverse strategy and defined metaverse ethical policies,” according to FastCompany, which cites the need for a strong identity and security solutions for the convergence of digital and physical worlds to protect content creators, brands, and consumers. Forbes agrees that Now is the time to discuss ethics and privacy as it relates to negative physical responses (related to the psychological trauma of being attacked in a VR space), kids in the metaverse, biometric data, brain-computer interfaces, protecting digital twins, and deepfakes and alternate representations of reality.
1.Some of the most informed writing is being published by gamers and independent writers on Medium as opposed to industry publications, like this article by Thomas Graham, who argues that “we must build systems that empower individuals to control the fundamentals of who they become in the metaverse. These systems must complement and extend our highest ideals of equality, individual sovereignty, and liberal democratic institutions in the real world.” Gamephilosophy.org published a thought-provoking paper on Meta-ethics for the metaverse, using Alan Gerwith’s Principle of Generic Consistency, which posits that persons in both the real and virtual worlds have rights to freedom and well-being, and that avatars, when perceived as extensions of real people, have rights and moral obligations consistent with their human counterparts. If you don't believe this, you've never really watched any of the Matrix. Red Pill? Blue Pill?.
2.Gamephilosophy.org paper Meta-ethics for the metaverse recommends that the rules of virtual worlds, as “instantiated by the designers’ code and the administrator’s end-user license agreement must be consistent and comply with the requirements of universal morality”.
3.Zdnet.com proclaims that The Metaverse is a human rights dilemma waiting to happen, and proposes the following technical solution: a personal protocol to allow people to control what constitutes their digital identity. A personal protocol would allow a person to have total control of their utterances in text and other forms and how they are used, including how their utterances and their digital likenesses are sorted and sifted.
4.This article in unblock.net argues that blockchain is one way to provide a democratic environment by allowing users to vote on how the virtual world will be developed. “Blockchain-based metaverses are permissionless and have a predefined set of transparent rules that cannot be changed by a single entity,” they write. “For any modification of these rules, they require proper consensus from the userbase or the holders of the governance token of the blockchain.”
5.Deloitte argues that another solution is Trustworthy AI — ensuring that the metaverse model respects privacy, provides transparency when people are interacting with a digital agent, acceptable error rates when it comes to AI output, and clearly determines where accountability lies in the design and deployment of a metaverse. And this article in Wired on How to govern the metaverse takes a leaf from the gaming playbook to outline potential solutions already tried in the gaming community and reminds us to think outside the box, suggesting sentencing offending avatars to perform virtual community service, or undergo virtual mentoring or counselling programs.
6. Steven Mintz, the “Ethics Sage”, argues that the no-tech approach may be the most effective of all; just try to be a better person. This may be the simplest, yet the hardest approach to take.
7. Lastly, from Arman Abraham, a lawyer based in the UK, here is his look at emerging legal issues that must emerge given the interactions of humans online and the creation of digital objects with ownership. Things like negligence, harassment, defamation, libel, hate, kidnapping, extortion, privacy breaches, identity theft, property theft, robbery, trespassing, vandalism, and arson, are all possible. We know clearly that just because something only exists in the digital world like bitcoin, doesn't mean someone can’t steal it and the original owner is really poorer in the real world. It also means people can go to jail for those transgressions — if we can all figure out the ethical boundaries and jurisdictions. International Courts for Digital Crimes anyone?
Conclusion No conclusions, but there are questions
To close off, this emergent set of risks of creating structures with unknown ethical frameworks should concern you. Just because humans can do things and create new places where we interact, we should not throw laws or human rights out or skip thinking about and considering moral dilemmas. Although the Metaverse is a whacking big electronic abstract, it needs constraints just like in the meatspace world. Some constraints have to be new and novel because the medium is new and novel.
We are reminded of the sage words of Richard Feynman, not only a physicist but also someone who could explain very complex topics clearly. In the excerpt from an essay, he places the responsibility of creating ethical spaces on the human creators. That’s food for thought. He says,
The first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things. Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also to the credit of the moral choice which led us to good work. Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it. Such power has evident value — even though the power may be negated by what one does.
I learned a way of expressing this common human problem on a trip to Honolulu. In a Buddhist temple there, the man in charge explained a little bit about the Buddhist religion for tourists, and then ended his talk by telling them he had something to say to them that they would never forget — and I have never forgotten it. It was a proverb of the Buddhist religion:
“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.”
What, then, is the value of the key to heaven? It is true that if we lack clear instructions that determine which is the gate to heaven and which the gate to hell, the key may be a dangerous object to use, but it obviously has value. How can we enter heaven without it?
The instructions, also, would be of no value without the key. So it is evident that, in spite of the fact that science could produce enormous horror in the world, it is of value because it can produce something.
The Tapestry
All the wonders of the zeitgeist get selected filtered, upvoted, downvoted, retweeted and deleted. This is a set of things that are floating at the surface related to this week's topic.
Oh Yes — There is Philosophy and Ethics all over the Matrix down to the glitch
5 Podcasts About Ethics, Regulation and Law
If you don't study or read about ethics, you don't know this. You also should know that hoping people do the right, ethical things, is not a strategy for goodness or freedom.
- Stay Tuned with Preet (Formed State Attorney for SDNY)
- The Moral Science Club (University of Cambridge)
- Examing Ethics (The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University)
- Super Human Ethics (Mathew Fox)
- Craphound (Sci Fi Author and EFF leader. Corey Doctorow)
Graphics of the Week
A Framework for the Metaverse (derivative Ball basically shows layers of the internet — there is nothing that makes this idea metaversean. It’s not wrong, it’s just too basic. We do hope he adds a legal and regulation element). Maybe Mr. Ball and Ms MacMeekin can merge their visuals.
The Lexicon
Deepfake (noun): A video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, is typically used maliciously or to spread false information. Usage — “the committee hearing on worldwide threats cited deepfakes as a growing concern”
Special note from Texas… looks like these are unethical because there are laws about them in the largest state in the union. Political Deepfakes (TXSB751) is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and fines up to $4,000. Another extortion ruling enacts punishment for an extortion conviction depends on the value of the money or property involved. The greater the value of the goods extorted, the harsher the penalty.
Meme of the Week
Movie of the week
If you haven't watched it yet -you should. If you have, watch it again and think bout Horizons and other Metaverse VR constructs.
Other Movies to Ponder Ethics in Cyberspace — oops that The Metaverse (tm)
- The Matrix (all of them)
- Repoman
- Avatar (all of them)
- Ready Player 1
- Blade Runner
- Tron (all of them)
- Star Trek (all holodeck episodes across the cannon)
- STAR WARS (hint… some of the “planets” were simulations)
- Foundation (The Series, a long form movie)
With Apologies to Asimov — 6 New Laws for the Metaverse?
- The metaverse may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
- The metaverse may not be used to injure or harass a human being nor, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- The metaverse must cooperate with humans. It must follow the orders that are given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- The metaverse must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
- The metaverse must establish the identity of all characters it contains in all cases. All robot characters or NPCs must be identified transparently to all humans.
- The metaverse may not have any contracts, algorithms, patterns or other cognitive tricks that willfully cause clinical addiction in humans.
Meta-Ethics for the Metaverse: The Ethics of Virtual Worlds
Yes — This paper is worth reading. An Ethical Framework for all parts of the Metaverse. Spense is a mensch.
There is more to see than Heaven and Earth in the Guild. Here is what’s coming 👁
What’s Next?
Why not join us on Sunday, April 17th at 8am (PST) 11am (EST) / 4pm BST We’d love to hear your thoughts on this wrap, so why not join us on Clubhouse this Sunday the 17th of April 2022 at 8 am PST | 11 am EST | 4 pm BST | 5 pm SAST to make sense of it all?
Have your say, and engage with your favourite Grey Swan Guild Wrap Editors:
Doyle Buehler, Sylvia Gallusser, Sean Moffitt, Agustín Borrazás, Rob Tyrie, Louise Mowbray, Ben Thurman, Antonia Nicols, Esmee Wilcox, Geeta Dhir, Gina Clifford, Su McVey with Clubhouse Captains Howard Fields, Scott Phares, and Lindsay Fraser.
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