The Hidden Prophecy of Ready Player One: The Future Of User-Generated Content, Generative AI & Trust & Safety Frontier

As a dad on a mission to find the perfect book to read to my geek-in-training 2nd grader, I need something that would ignite her imagination, hold her interest, be fun for both of us, and maybe even sneak in some learning.

Enter "Ready Player One," the book that's basically the bible for anyone wanting to dive into the world of the metaverse.

It's packed with mind-blowing huge virtual worlds, countless immersive experiences and more rich and deep online characters than you can count. It's the ultimate gateway to understanding the concept of the metaverse.

But a few pages into our reading adventure, it hit me: This book isn't just about the metaverse.

It tells the story of the future of user-generated content.

The storyline takes you through virtual worlds that are so vast and detailed, you can't help but be amazed.

• Fancy a jaunt through Middle Earth with all of Tolkien's mythology at your fingertips? You got it.
• Longing for the nostalgia of vintage arcade games and music, surrounded by players who look and speak like your childhood buddies? No problem.
• How about an interactive adventure game inspired by the life of your favorite artist?

This kind of rapid creation and limitless possibility is exactly what we'll be able to achieve in the next 12-24 months with generative AI.

Now, while I'm usually one of the first to raise concerns about how generative AI will impact labor and human creators, as I'm reading the book today, I'm struck by the massive opportunity it presents for human developers and designers to think bigger and bolder.

However, there's a flip side to all this awesomeness: the scale of the new hazards we'll face.

• How will we detect AI-created manipulative harms hidden in an infinite world?
• How can we distinguish between human-created experience and a synthetic one?
• What's to stop someone from creating a virtual world of horrors based on bullying, harassment, toxic behavior, and other types of abuse?
• Identity theft and impersonation are already risks in today's online spaces, and they'll be even more significant in a virtual world where users create avatars and identities.
• With virtual currency, goods, and services being exchanged, scams and fraud will skyrocket. Users might be lured into fake transactions or tricked into giving away valuable in-game assets.
• Malicious users, or "griefers," might disrupt the virtual environment by attacking or harassing others, destroying virtual property, or exploiting vulnerabilities in the system to cause chaos and distress.
• The immersive nature of virtual worlds could lead to users spending excessive amounts of time online, neglecting their real-life responsibilities and well-being.
• And let's not forget about privacy concerns: The collection and storage of users' personal information and data within the virtual world could lead to privacy breaches or misuse by third parties.

So while I left feeling pumped about the possibilities, I couldn't shake this nagging sense of concern.

We must consider deeply the guardrails that should be installed around new generative AI. There is a dire need to incorporate "safety by design" principles into the creation of this exciting new technology, from the training, prompting, and output stages.

This is just one of the problems we're tackling at ActiveFence. 

We see the growing need for Trust & Safety teams to brace themselves for the technological leaps ahead. 

We're all going to have to step up our game in a big way, flexing our imagination muscles and looking ahead to anticipate potential harms and create scalable solutions to keep things in check.

So, buckle up, my fellow metaverse travelers. We're in for one heck of an interesting decade.