Socially Beneficial Metaverse: Framework, Technologies, Applications, and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper explores the development, architecture, supporting technologies, applications, and future challenges of a socially beneficial metaverse, emphasizing its potential societal and industrial impacts.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a socially beneficial metaverse, detailing its architecture, supporting technologies, applications, and the challenges to its development.

Findings

Proposes the SB-Metaverse framework for social good

Identifies key supporting technologies like VR, digital twins, blockchain

Discusses future challenges for SB-Metaverse development

Abstract

In recent years, the maturation of emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality, Digital twins, and Blockchain has accelerated the realization of the metaverse. As a virtual world independent of the real world, the metaverse will provide users with a variety of virtual activities that bring great convenience to society. In addition, the metaverse can facilitate digital twins, which offers transformative possibilities for the industry. Thus, the metaverse has attracted the attention of the industry, and a huge amount of capital is about to be invested. However, the development of the metaverse is still in its infancy and little research has been undertaken so far. We describe the development of the metaverse. Next, we introduce the architecture of the socially beneficial metaverse (SB-Metaverse) and we focus on the technologies that support the operation of SB-Metaverse. In addition, we also present the applications of SB-Metaverse. Finally, we discuss several challenges faced by SB-Metaverse which must be addressed in the future.