HS AC
AN FFRDC OPERATED BY R A N D UNDER C O N T R ACT WITH DHS
HOMELAND SECURITY
OPERATIONAL ANALYSI S CENTER
RESEARCH REPORT
DANIEL M. GERSTEIN
Emerging
Technology and
Risk Analysis
Metaverse Concerns About Crimes That
Involve Targeting and Exploitation of Children
T
his report describes the implications that the
metaverse could have on digital crimes that
involve targeting and exploitation of children.
These digital crimes are already occurring
and have affected and endangered many victims
and families. In a potential digital space such as the
metaverse as it is envisioned by some, opportunities
for criminal activity and exploitation aimed at chil-
dren could expand even more.
The development of the early internet in 1969
launched a revolution that continues today and
permeates all manner of human interaction. The
internet, originally designed for information-sharing,
has become a new domain often called the cyber
domain or cyberspace and has led to new forms of
human interaction in communities and across the
globe. As digital capabilities mature, they facilitate
new ways of learning, engaging in work and recre-
ation, and living. Key artificial intelligence (AI)–related
technologies driving these advances involve high-
performance computing, robotics, machine learning,
natural language processing, generative AI, and
advances in semiconductors and manufacturing.
These AI technologies have provided the building
blocks for the development of immersive technolo-
gies that would be the foundation of the metaverse.
These immersive technologies fall under the cat-
egory of extended reality (XR) technology, which “is
a term for technologies that enhance or replace our
view of the world” and “encompasses augmented
reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality
(MR).”
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These immersive technologies are enabled
by converging such digital technologies as cyber,
big data solutions, ubiquitous communications, and
the Internet of Things (IoT), to name a few.
As AI systems, immersive technologies, and
enabling digital technologies continue to mature and
become more powerful, they become more available
and the number of applications for these technolo-
gies has grown. In some cases, these technologies
have already surpassed human performance and
achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI), albeit
in a very limited sense.
2
These new technologies
have allowed for creation of immersive experiences
that blur the lines between the physical and virtual
worlds, including the concept of a metaverse.
Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction
novel Snow Crash first created the term metaverse
by combining the words meta and universe to refer
to a virtual world in which users interact with each
