Shaping The Future: Developing Principles for Policy Recommendations for Responsible Innovation in Virtual Worlds

As Extended Reality (XR) technologies continue to evolve at a rapid pace, they hold the promise of transforming the way we interact both with digital information and the physical world. Whilst Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies offer unbridled opportunities for social connections, productivity, and play, these rapid technological advancements also pose critical challenges to ethics, privacy, accessibility, and safety. At present, there is little policy documentation that directly addresses the novel affordances posed by XR technologies, leading to a ‘policy void’ in this space. Having clear and effective policy frameworks prior to the widespread adoption of technology encourages and enables responsible and ethical innovation of XR technologies. This workshop is therefore dedicated to developing forward-thinking principles to guide policy recommendations that address potential future vulnerabilities posed by the widespread adoption of XR technologies whilst simultaneously encouraging the responsible innovation of new advancements within XR. To ensure these policy recommendations promote responsible innovation, the workshop will assemble multidisciplinary academics, industry developers and international policymakers. Our goal is to ensure that all perspectives are considered such that we can collaboratively chart a responsible and sustainable course for the XR landscape.