Abstract
As the tech world moves increasingly toward an AI-generated virtual universe — the so-called “metaverse” — new paradigms define the impacts of this technology on its human users. AI and VR, like the Internet before them, offer both remarkable opportunities and pitfalls. Virtual Reality constitutes a new kind of human environment, and experiencing it relies upon human neurological mechanisms evolved to negotiate — and survive in — our ancestral physical environments. Despite the unrestricted freedom of designing the virtual universe, interacting with it is affected strongly by the body’s built-in physiological and psychological constraints. The eventual success of the metaverse will be determined by how successfully its designers manage to accommodate unconscious mechanisms of emotional attachment and wellbeing. Some fundamental misunderstandings coming from antiquated design models have influenced virtual environmental structures. It is likely that those design decisions may be handicapping the metaverse’s ultimate appeal and utility.