PANEL: Unraveling Realities: Navigating AI & Manipulation in Immersive Virtual Worlds

From fully customizable artwork and digital assets to chatbots and non-player characters with complex personalities and storylines, generative AI could reduce the roadblocks to creating virtual worlds in XR and make them more compelling to users. Companies are unsurprisingly racing to incorporate generative AI into immersive environments, but this is not without risk. XR applications utilizing generative AI may capture sensitive data about people, which could be used to manipulate people into making harmful decisions, particularly individuals belonging to vulnerable populations. This activity could implicate a host of existing and proposed laws in the U.S. and abroad, such as those addressing sensitive data categories and “dark patterns.” While these laws were not drafted with generative AI’s manipulative potential in mind, they could nevertheless impact its design and deployment in immersive virtual environments for the foreseeable future.

In this presentation, you will leave with an understanding of:

• How generative AI is being applied to create and enhance virtual worlds in XR;
• Why manipulation may occur in XR worlds when generative AI is used, as well as examples of how this may manifest; and
• How many U.S. and foreign laws, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s Section 5 authority, Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the EU’s GDPR, interact with manipulation caused by generative AI applications to XR.