«Virtuality: tomorrow's reality?»
Jean Peeters, Chairholder, took part in the workshop PhilosoFIC, organised on 8 June by the EOGN Research Centre (CREOGN) as part of FIC 2022.
«Virtuality: the reality of tomorrow? This theme, introduced by the general Marc Watin-Augouard, The three speakers were:
- Françoise Longy, a lecturer at the University of Strasbourg and former head of the philosophy department,
- Cécile Doutriaux, The French Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the European Commission's proposal for a Directive on the protection of intellectual property rights in the European Union (ECHR), and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR),
- Hervé Le Jouan, founder of new technology companies and managing director of Hervé Le Jouan Advisory.
Jean Peeters concluded the discussions by proposing a summary and perspective.
The subject was approached from a number of different angles. Françoise Longy took a philosophical view of virtuality, while Cécile Doutriaux looked at the law applied to avatars and metaverses, and Hervé Le Jouan focused on the changes brought about by Web3.
The key points to emerge from these presentations are virtuality is part of the very nature of humanity since language enabled the emergence of fiction. However, virtual reality, like a new technological and human revolution, goes beyond mere simulation of reality.
This is not without echoes in the use of avatars, by which we embody ourselves in a virtual character. However, only the natural or legal person is subject to the law. Therefore, what stance to adopt when offences are committed by avatars in the metaverse? Because obviously, what happens in a virtual reality has tangible repercussions on people's physical and social reality. So the law, which is based on texts, must be able to protect people in any place, whether real or virtual. The law therefore needs to be rapidly adapted to this new situation, and all spaces need to be regulated.
However, the digital revolution is moving fast, very fast. Like smartphones, which have become indispensable to our daily lives since they first appeared less than 15 years ago, to the point of creating real dependency situations, virtual reality is already plunging us into a new technological breakthrough, aided by the rapid emergence of Web3. This new revolution may seem frightening, given the extent to which it challenges our reference points and our need to control our environment.
It gives rise to many questions :
- Economic: will we have to resign ourselves to remaining dependent on technologies held exclusively by the few major American and Chinese digital players, or can we and do we want to give ourselves the means to allow French and European players to emerge and create value?
- Politics: will we continue to let these companies suck up our data and erode our sovereignty?
- Ethical and cultural: will we accept that the values of these companies impose themselves on us and govern future social standards?
Ultimately, virtual reality questions our humanity as much as our social regulation, our system of values, our ownership and our ability to decide for ourselves.
In this sense, securing the various dimensions of virtual reality has a lot to do with cyber security.
