The ‘Metaverse’ and the challenge of responsible standards development
Thomas A. Hemphill
Abstract
On June 21, 2022, the Metaverse Standards Forum (or ‘Forum') was announced with 35 founding members, including Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Cesium, the Web3D Consortium, and the Web 3d Consortium. The Forum, a unique coordinating structure designed to develop agreement on fundamental technical, interoperability protocols for the metaverse, may provide the technical foundation for later established open (and inclusive) standards (from emergent dominant designs) in relevant technology domain standards development organizations. If implemented with a diverse array of metaverse relevant stakeholders, this exercise in pluralistic inclusion will allow for a socially and ethically responsible consensus to be embedded in the foundational outcomes, i.e., protocols, developed by the Forum. Moreover, it will have the key benefit of a ‘legitimacy’ that the industry will be able to utilize in the social and public policy arenas moving forward with formal standards-setting, and eventual commercial implementation, of this potentially revolutionary, disruptive technology.