Anonymous Collaboration in Metaverse

Abstract

This paper introduces a method enabling anonymous collaboration in the metaverse. As the Internet is turning to its next revolution in which time and space are incorporated more thoroughly to the everyday communication, visual and aural communication are given more prominent roles. This might lead to more biased interaction since people may possess pre-judgmental attitudes regarding other people’s age, gender, and ethnical attributes, which could impact collaboration. These attributes are rather easy to visually change within the metaverse by simply changing the avatars’ appearance. This research focused on the real-time aural communication in the metaverse, and the risks of harmful profiling based on people’s language use and voice. The research setting was a custom-made metaverse, where two anonymized participants interacted with each other to achieve the goal through collaboration. In the study, their interaction was monitored. Afterwards, they answered to questions in which told about their experiences and tried to de-anonymize the other participant. This preliminary research indicated that via modulating the sound, it was possible to anonymize users to a reasonable range within the custom-made metaverse.

Keywords: Metaverse, Ethics, Anonymization, Virtual Reality, Linguistic Profiling, Collaboration

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003937