There is not a day in which we do not see some news related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, although there is a common position regarding the benefits that it can generate in different areas such as health, education, environment, etc., the development of AI-based systems generates certain ethical challenges that can result in wide-ranging risks, since they will be used worldwide.

We could ask ourselves, how can a technology that should be designed to facilitate work, decision-making and contribute to the improvement of people’s lives, have a negative impact if it is not designed and monitored properly?

Taking as a reference the reflections of Coeckelbergh (AI Ethics, 2021): “AI will progressively increase its capacity for intentional agency, replicating and replacing human agency, generating the problem of the absence or dissolution of ethical responsibility in technological systems”.

Some people may be wondering what the metaverse is, or even that it goes unnoticed in their daily lives.

Avoiding technicalities, and in order to provide a simple explanation, we can say that the purpose of the metaverse is “the creation of an immersive digital world“.

That is, a world through which users, using convergent technology such as virtual reality glasses, haptic garments, etc. can perform the same activities they do in real life (going to the movies, meeting friends, studying, working, shopping, …) and that, in turn, what happens in this digital world has repercussions in their lives. For example, it could be the case of making a purchase of a product through this digital world and it arrives at your home as if you had ordered it “in the real world”.

Although the metaverse seems somewhat novel, it is a term that appeared in the 1992 play Snow Crash, where people could interact in a virtual world through avatars. This concept was also seen years later in the video game Second Life or, more recently, in the Decentreland platform where you can even buy virtual plots of land as if it were a reality.