In the metaverse, will robots become humans?

At present, human technology is developing rapidly, and artificial intelligence has enabled robots to start simulating human thinking. Once we enter the virtual world of the metaverse, everyone lives with a virtual identity. So are the people around us humans or robots with artificial intelligence?

As the concept of the metaverse develops and expands, we need to pay attention to a series of issues arising from the metaverse: What are the order and rules of human-machine interaction in the metaverse? Will the relationship between robots and humans change as a result? Will robots in the metaverse become humans?

Virtual world and real life

In the simulation game "Minecraft", we can create our own world as we please. For example, if you want a bucket of magma on an empty island, you can smash the surrounding stones to get sand, then smash the sand to get sand, and then smash the sand to get dust. Put the dust into water to make clay blocks. Use the smashed clay blocks to make a crucible, put the stones into the crucible and burn them to make magma. We can also realize experiences such as building houses in this game world, which are often difficult to achieve in reality.

Leaving the world created by the game, we can also enter another space. Here, the elderly can walk briskly and drive cars and airplanes, and children can transform into Ultraman and Spiderman to save the world... The people here are very different from ordinary people in the real world. This space is not the game world, but a brand new space that is coming soon, a space that can realize some of our unrealistic ideas, this is the metaverse.

What happens when artificial intelligence meets the metaverse? In the metaverse, robots will exist in a virtualized form. In this new space, many new issues will arise in terms of the relationship between humans and machines, the nature of humans, machines and their algorithms, emotions, and morality. So, what is the metaverse?

When artificial intelligence meets the metaverse

The metaverse originated in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992, the American science fiction work Snow Crash mentioned the concepts of "Metaverse" and "Avatar". Broadly speaking, the metaverse is the space where the real world and the virtual world interact with each other.

In November 2022, there was a trending Weibo search titled "Zhang Hanyun Wears a Wedding Dress in the Metaverse", which actually refers to a cross-dressing show realized with a matching stage. Nowadays, many celebrities have created their own new virtual images and held concerts directly in the Metaverse, breaking through the time and space limitations of the real stage through the virtual stage, allowing the audience to be in it and bring more beautiful imaginations to the audience.

There are many similar examples. In the past two years, affected by the epidemic, many universities have held "Metaverse Graduation Ceremonies". The New Media Research Institute of Peking University designed and produced a virtual school graduation scene based on web browsers and 3D scene technology. The Animation and Digital College of Communication University of China also held a "cloud graduation" ceremony. Graduates transformed into cube figures, walked the red carpet in the pixel world, changed into bachelor's suits with one click, and took photos in the 1:1 restored campus scene. In addition, there are virtual scenes such as the "Metaverse Double Election Fair". The Department of Information Engineering of the School of Artificial Intelligence (School of Future Technology) of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology was officially renamed the Department of Metaverse Engineering, becoming the first department named after the Metaverse in mainland universities in my country.

These examples that appear around us are undoubtedly based on the development of artificial intelligence, mainly combining artificial intelligence to create virtual digital human images in the metaverse.

How robots become human

With the development of technology and people's needs, robots are becoming more and more anthropomorphic. So, what is the relationship between robots and humans? The development of artificial intelligence has led to more and more machines replacing humans. Are robots the same as humans?

In ancient times, the two words "machine" and "qi" were not connected. The ancients explained the meaning of the machine separately. "Ji" is "ji" and "qi" is "qi". "Shuowen Jiezi" explains "ji" as "ji, the main launcher", referring to the crossbow machine. "Qi" has many interpretations in ancient times, including the general term for tools, human measure, talent, etc.

On December 2, 2021, a British robotics company developed Ameka, which is known as "the most human-like humanoid robot in the world today". It not only looks like a human, but also has facial expressions and movements like a human. Customers can not only replace the robot's skin according to their needs, but also copy a robot that is exactly the same as themselves. At the same time, the parts of the robot can be disassembled separately, and the disassembled parts can also operate independently. This shows that this modular intelligent design does not even require the robot as a whole. In terms of its function, robots are very different from the human body, and this difference is mainly manifested in ideology. How do people produce human consciousness? And what is the consciousness of robots? Consciousness is a function of the human brain. Is it the same for robots?

The sci-fi TV series "Hello, An Yi" tells the story of a highly artificial intelligence robot that has self-awareness, and has gained love and growth in human society, becoming a "human". In the interaction between robots and humans, it is not only physical consistency, but also mainly reflected in emotional interaction, and this interaction process does not hinder whether the robot has consciousness. The main measure is still the restraint of the law, and the subject of restraint is still human.

In daily life, robots are becoming more and more common, especially service robots, which can be seen everywhere. So, can robots become human? As the subject of robot ethics, with the development of artificial intelligence, robots are becoming more and more intelligent and anthropomorphic. Do robots need to bear the same responsibilities as humans? Who will be responsible for the mistakes made by robots? Are designers and users responsible for the consequences of robots' behavior on human users and other machines? This kind of relationship between humans and robots itself belongs to the scope of ethical research. The first thing that attracted attention was the power of robots, but at the same time, we also need to remain vigilant in the development of technology.

In his novel "I, Robot", the science fiction master Isaac Asimov proposed the "Three Principles of Robotics", or the "Three Laws of Robotics". These indicate that robots are not humans, and their dominant subject is still humans themselves. So, do the order and rules that exist in real space still apply in the metaverse?

New Challenges of the Metaverse

With the development of artificial intelligence, synthetic videos, audios, and photos generated by artificial intelligence technology will bring unprecedented challenges to the normal operation of society. The video that was once popular in 2022 was AI face-changing. Many people had a lot of fun playing it. Not only was it the so-called "face-changing", but they could also use AI to synthesize their own comic faces. Everyone's starting point is to see what their comic faces look like in the world of the second dimension. Initially, this technology was used in the commercial field, such as film production, but soon face-changing videos also appeared in political news and entertainment news. It was difficult to distinguish between true and false, which brought many risks, such as political risks, cultural risks, and military risks.

Moreover, a related study shows that the arrival of the metaverse is based on business, which means that more and more virtual and 3D network tools and objects will be embedded in our environment and promote each other, becoming a lasting feature of our lives. The emergence of these technologies will depend on potential benefits, investment and customer interest, and will be affected by their drawbacks and unexpected consequences. At the same time, the metaverse as a technological social experiment is not a simple technological innovation, but a complex technological social complex and artificial world. The essence of the ethical impact it brings is the deep conflict between people and technology at the value level.

With the development of artificial intelligence technology, the progress of robot simulation technology has brought new challenges to the development of human-computer interaction. The shuttle between the real world and the virtual world of the metaverse by artificial intelligence has also stimulated new questions about the ethical relationship between robots and humans. Although the metaverse has not yet really arrived, the technology of artificial intelligence in the metaverse has not been fully realized, and the virtual existence of robots in the metaverse is only a possibility, in the future metaverse world, artificial intelligence technology and human-computer interaction services will inevitably be basic scenarios, and foresight analysis of scientific and technological ethical risks is necessary. According to current research, under the conditions of the beautiful values ​​of the metaverse, humans will inevitably play their main role and create an ideal world of fairness, rationality and freedom.