How the rise of generative AI could kill the metaverse — or save it
Fueled by the promise of a dynamic remote interactive environment, the advent of the metaverse was seen as a turning point for the technological world. However, just as quickly as it became the talk of the town, it began to face serious criticism and backlash. Now people appear to be losing interest quickly. Mark Zuckerberg, who re-introduced the concept of the metaverse, has even stopped pitching it to advertisers.
In the last financial quarter alone, Meta’s Reality Labs division, responsible for VR and the metaverse, recorded an operating loss of $4.279 billion. Meta is now focused on building LLaMA, their large language model (LLM) competitor of ChatGPT and Bard. It seems that the rise of generative AI could slowly but surely kill the metaverse.
Doomed or groomed: The metaverse in the times of generative AI
There is no doubt that, unlike the metaverse, generative AI has developed at a rapid pace. The idea has quickly evolved from more than just a concept to taking over the better half of the world. Organizations and businesses that once dreamt of the metaverse have quickly adapted to GenAI, which has created the impression that the former might meet a slow and steady death.
However, the metaverse is a social platform built on multiple technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and AI. It’s possible that the rapid development of generative AI could further fuel the growth of the metaverse in various ways, including:
While generative AI has some potential positive impacts on the metaverse, there are also several possible downsides, especially from a cybersecurity perspective. Hackers and cybercriminals are already using the technology to exploit user security in various ways, such as by helping them create better phishing emails. Moreover, there have been reports of hackers utilizing tools such as ChatGPT to create malware.
With AI becoming a dangerous and looming threat to cybersecurity, its implementation can become a safety hazard for metaverse users. This could be one major setback in its development since the concept has faced several speculations regarding its cybersecurity issues.
