The European Union has been vocal about its place in the rapidly expanding ecosystem of emerging technologies.
It has pioneered clear crypto regulations with its long-awaited Crypto-Assets Markets (MiCA) framework that was signed into law in late May. The European Union has also been moving forward with regulations for the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Recently, on July 11, the European Commission released His latest plan is to take the lead in the development of the metaverse and prevent big tech from becoming too dominant in an economically viable sector.
A European vision of the Metaverse
The latest EU proposal estimated that the global market size for metaverse developments would exceed €800 billion by 2030, compared to its year-end value of €27 billion in 2022. McKinsey latest a report Even the metaverse has an estimated value of $5 trillion in the same time frame.
According to the Commission’s initiative, it wants to move forward with reverse development to reflect the EU’s values and fundamental rights, along with the push for openness and interoperability.
Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the European Commission, said the EU needed to “have people at the centre” in order to shape it according to its principles.
“We want to ensure that Web 4.0 becomes an open, secure, trustworthy, fair, and inclusive digital environment for all.”
The panel held European Citizens Panels in February and April of 2023, which focused on the metaverse. It aimed to formulate proposals for a “vision, principles and procedures” that would ensure that virtual worlds based on the European Union were fair.
According to the Commission, 140 EU citizens were randomly selected to participate, resulting in 23 recommendations that guided the strategy.
Merging the digital and real worlds is no longer science fiction.
Early this year, 140 European citizens put forward 23 recommendations to guide the development of human-centered, safe and reliable virtual worlds.
See how they helped shape our new strategy in virtual worlds ↓
– European Commission (EU_Commission) July 11, 2023
The current pillars decided upon by the EU for its metaverse strategy include empowerment and skills enhancement to create a pool of professionals in the field of virtual worlds, support for the EU Web4 network at a business level, support for societal progress and virtual public services, and shaping standards for open and interoperable virtual worlds.
But wait, what is Web4?
European Commission tweet About its pillars of virtual worlds and Web4 strategy got a mixed response from users, with many questioning what Web4 meant, and others joking about actually developing Web5 and Web6.
According to the strategy, Web4 is distinguished from Web3 by its integration with the real world. The committee’s statement acknowledges that Web3 is still “currently evolving,” with its main features being openness, decentralization, and user empowerment.
“The next generation, Web 4.0, will allow the integration of digital and real objects and environments, enhancing interactions between humans and machines.”
For the European Union, Web4 could look like an introduction to smart cities with the right basic infrastructure.
It is already investing in initiatives such as Destination Earth (DestinE) and Local Digital Twins for smart societies, as well as the European Ocean Digital Twin, which is said to allow researchers to advance science to develop rigorous applications and help public authorities make informed public policy decisions on relevant issues.
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The panel also included “advanced artificial intelligence and surroundings, the Internet of Things, trusted blockchain transactions, virtual worlds and XR capabilities, and digital and real objects and environments” as full integration into Web4 that differentiates it from Web3.
It claims this will enable “a truly intuitive and immersive experience, seamlessly blending the physical and digital worlds.”
On July 5, the European Blockchain Sandbox, part of its Smart Cities Initiative, unveiled its first 20 use cases.
applicable EU regulations
For now, Vestager said there are no current draft metaverse regulations. However, it expects many other rules already in place to affect it, such as privacy, market power, and upcoming AI regulations.
As mentioned earlier, the European Union recently signed the groundbreaking MiCA regulations into law, which became one of the first comprehensive sets of rules in the world to regulate the crypto industry.
On July 12, the European Securities and Markets Authority announced that it plans to issue three advisory papers on its MiCA standards for crypto-asset service providers while fulfilling its mandate under the MiCA regulations.
There are already questions regarding the regulations’ policies on stablecoins and the exclusion of decentralized finance in the published regulations.
In addition to recently published encryption legislation, the European Union is working on regulations that will affect the AI industry. On June 14, the European Parliament passed the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which would force tools like ChatGPT to disclose all AI-generated content and take other measures against illegal content.
The race against big tech
All of these initiatives come with virtual worlds and regulations for emerging technologies when big tech companies like Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Apple, and Google work on their own versions of the metaverse and AI tools.
The EU has clearly stated in its metaverse strategy that virtual worlds will not be “dominated by a few big players” and should “be driven by open technologies”.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has been publicly committed to developing its own metaverse accessible through its virtual reality headsets. However, by the end of 2022, the company has lost billions due to its metaverse division.
In 2022, Microsoft announced the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of the major players in the gaming industry.
Recently, Apple dropped its latest version of its virtual reality glasses, the Vision Pro. However, instead of putting it to use in the metaverse, it chose to use the wording “spatial computing”.
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