Empowering Metaverse Through Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

New technologies have made it a necessity for virtual worlds to be a part of the real world. Online actions that started with COVID-19 are increasing the demand for virtual reality worldwide. Metaverse, popular with web 3.0, is a digital world where users interact as a combination of the physical and digital worlds, and it works with a blockchain-based system. Many advantages can be achieved in various sectors by integrating new technologies into this digital world. As a result of the integration of blockchain technology with artificial intelligence (AI), conventional business models can radically change, and a transformative result could be achieved in society. In this study, the literature that brings together the cyber world in Metaverse and the blockchain technology developed with artificial intelligence has been examined and the potentials that can be used in the future have been determined. The contribution of blockchain technology to Metaverse, by strengthening it with artificial intelligence, has been examined. There are many scientific studies dealing with the integration of AI and blockchain technologies. On the other hand, there are very few studies dealing with the use of these technologies in the Metaverse environment. For this reason, our aim is to provide a background for the research to be made to realize the potential of the mentioned technologies in the Metaverse environment.

Full text

2nd International Conference on Engineering and
Applied Natural Sciences
https://www.iceans.org/
October 15-18, 2022, Konya, Turkey
225
Empowering Metaverse Through Artificial Intelligence
İlkim Güven *, Osman Balli 2
1Architecture, Malatya Turgut Ozal University, Turkey
2Computer Engineering, Malatya Turgut Ozal University, Turkey
*(ilkim.guven@ozal.edu.tr) Email of the corresponding author
Abstract – New technologies have made it a necessity for virtual worlds to be a part of the real world.
Online actions that started with COVID-19 are increasing the demand for virtual reality worldwide.
Metaverse, popular with web 3.0, is a digital world where users interact as a combination of the physical
and digital worlds, and it works with a blockchain-based system. Many advantages can be achieved in
various sectors by integrating new technologies into this digital world.
As a result of the integration of blockchain technology with artificial intelligence (AI), conventional
business models can radically change, and a transformative result could be achieved in society. In this
study, the literature that brings together the cyber world in Metaverse and the blockchain technology
developed with artificial intelligence has been examined and the potentials that can be used in the future
have been determined. The contribution of blockchain technology to Metaverse, by strengthening it with
artificial intelligence, has been examined.
There are many scientific studies dealing with the integration of AI and blockchain technologies. On the
other hand, there are very few studies dealing with the use of these technologies in the Metaverse
environment. For this reason, our aim is to provide a background for the research to be made to realize the
potential of the mentioned technologies in the Metaverse environment.
Keywords – Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Literature review, Metaverse
I. INTRODUCTION
New concepts such as artificial intelligence,
machine learning, virtual reality, and blockchain
have entered our lives with the use of technological
advances for commercial purposes. One of the new
concepts brought about by this process is Metaverse
[1]. The Metaverse is a kind of imaginary world that
offers more interaction than the familiar internet.
Users here communicate with each other
simultaneously [2]. It represents a digital universe
accessible through virtual environments. It is a
world established by combining the physical
universe and digital reality [3]. Metaverse provides
its users with an endless space where they can spend
their time, shop, have fun, meet new people, and
create their avatars [4]. Leading technology
companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Apple,
Google and many game companies have ambitious
plans for Metaverse use [5].
The Metaverse ecosystem relies on the blockchain
to ensure user integrity, confidentiality, and
accounting for their content and transactions [6].
Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger
technology that stores, validates, and transmits
network data through its own distributed nodes
without relying on third parties [7]. Blockchain data
does not need any center or authority. It is very
important for Metaverse that it is a recording
technology that is stored on network systems in a
distributed manner.
Another topic that has become an important issue
in the use of the metaverse and blockchain is
artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is
defined as performing tasks related to the higher
logic processes of a computer or computer-assisted

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machine (such as human-specific qualities, finding
solutions, understanding, inferring, generalizing,
and learning from past experiences) [8]. Artificial
intelligence is used in many areas such as education,
entertainment, and security. The work of Metaverse
in these areas, as in the real world, has allowed
artificial intelligence to be used in Metaverse.
In this study, the features that enable both
technologies to solve their problems have been
determined by supporting blockchain technology,
which forms the basis of Metaverse, with artificial
intelligence technology. It is in question whether
this integration solves the problems in the
Metaverse and carries the potential for various
industries. With the literature review, the potential
of the use of AI-supported blockchain in the
Metaverse has been determined.
II. MATERIALS AND METHOD
The literature review was conducted using
prestigious databases to determine the potential for
use of artificial intelligence-supported blockchain
technology in the Metaverse. The words “Artificial
intelligence” AND “Metaverse” were searched in
IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and ScienceDirect databases.
3 of the 42 results in the IEEE Xplore database
addressed the integration of artificial intelligence
with Metaverse technology. 2 of the 57 documents
in the Scopus database were selected. Of the 109
results encountered in the Science Direct database,
3 of them were found to be worth examining
specifically for the selected keywords and topics.
A. Literature Review
A.1. BLOCKCHAIN AND AI
Artificial intelligence, which is the core of
Industry 4.0, can be integrated in terms of its
development and powering the blockchain [9].
Artificial intelligence and blockchain will work
together to have industrial and academic benefits for
development, implementation, and business. [10].
Because of the integration of blockchain and
artificial intelligence, they produce a technology
that will revolutionize by complementing each other
in many areas [11].
Blockchain offers opportunities in identity,
communication, contracting, interoperability,
governance, security, and privacy without a central
administrator [12]. The integration of AI and
blockchain will provide reliable analysis and
decision-making environments without the
influence of third parties, as it will establish a
decentralized artificial intelligence system [11].
While AI and blockchain are used together with
various applications, while providing the unique
immutability and traceability features of the
blockchain, some systems identify patterns and
anomalies of artificial intelligence, which are useful
in detecting frauds and delays [13]. With the
implementation of artificial intelligence and
blockchain, there are integrated systems that
provide the immutability and traceability features of
the blockchain, while at the same time identifying
patterns and anomalies of artificial intelligence,
detecting frauds, revealing delays, and detecting
other events [13]. Decisions can be made by
analyzing large amounts of data [9]. Sharing the
data model is a problem for machine learning
developers who have difficulty controlling data
ownership and artificial intelligence training
models. Blockchain has the potential to solve these
problems as it has built-in security [14,15]. Thanks
to the immutability feature of the blockchain,
records can be recorded without manipulation [16].
In addition, it can close the security and privacy
gaps of artificial intelligence with its encryption
techniques [16].
Ethereum blockchain platforms define smart
contracts with a set of rules that must be followed
before transactions are made. These rules are
usually static. But modern applications need
dynamism and automation. With the integration of
blockchain and artificial intelligence, application
predictions will become reliable and will end
manipulations with the elimination of third parties
[17]. Blockchain provides a secure sharing
environment for artificial intelligence. It produces a
decentralized computing mechanism. It clarifies the
process and coordinates untrusted devices by
making explainable moves [11]. Decentralization
has been proposed as a solution to the problems
created by business items that require methodology,
knowledge, and talent in artificial intelligence [12].
With the decentralization brought by blockchain
technology, the personalized, privacy-protecting,
problem-solving evolution of artificial intelligence
is supported [12].
Understanding the behavior of AI algorithms is
difficult, although a clear understanding of decision-
making processes is required in systems where
decisions from AI are used. With the use of
blockchain, the decision chain could be followed by

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monitoring the training data. It is important to
determine whether the problem is caused by the
machine or humans by the errors that occur [13].
New technologies shifting from centralization to
decentralization; it has overcome many problems in
social sciences, management sciences, decision
sciences, economics, and information processing.
Decentralization, when used with artificial
intelligence; management, governance, and
economic research are gaining increasing attention
[12]. Customized services can be provided on
private information recorded on the blockchain with
artificial intelligence. Permitted analyses can be
performed by obtaining permission from the users.
It supports “decentralization”, one of the basic
principles of blockchain, by enabling users to have
control over personal information [18]. Since the
blockchain cannot make decisions, thanks to its
integration with artificial intelligence, this gap is
closed, and a more secure and dynamic system is
provided [10]. The size of the distributed ledger
grows when data entry is large in blockchains.
That's why the files get heavy. With machine
learning, the burden of notebooks can be alleviated
by data normalization and cleaning methods [14].
Artificial intelligence technology provides
security and scalability for the blockchain. It offers
a customization facility that helps protect privacy. It
also provides automatic execution of transactions
and management [11]. Current blockchain
technologies focus on the smartness of smart
contracts. With AI, secure, risk-tolerant, auto-
coded, auto-audited smart contracts can be written
[12]. Artificial intelligence solves the problems
between incentive, consensus, security, and other
aspects that need to be balanced during the design
phase of the blockchain and helps to achieve higher
performance from blockchain systems [19].
A.2.BLOCKCHAIN AND AI FOR METAVERSE
Blockchain is one of the core infrastructures of
Metaverse. It can connect isolated small systems
and create a transparent, open, efficient, and secure
economic system for the Metaverse [19]. Without
blockchain technology, it is difficult to recognize
the values of resources or goods in the Metaverse or
have equivalent interactions in the real economy
[20]. Without the support of this technology, it will
be difficult to determine the commercial values of
resources and goods in cases where virtual elements
in the Metaverse interact with the real-world
economy [19].
The Metaverse is a cyber world where social and
economic activities can be carried out freely. In this
world, the application of Metaverse technology is
accelerated by the use of artificial intelligence and
blockchain technology [5]. Since the Metaverse
works by following the rules determined by its
designer, the existence of artificial intelligence is a
technology that will ensure the correct application
of the rules determined by this designer [21]. AI will
increase Metaverse's operational efficiency and
intelligence. For example, with smart voice
services, technical support such as voice recognition
and communication can be provided for Metaverse
users [19].
Recently, city designs using virtual and
augmented reality based on large-scale data-driven
artificial intelligence systems in Metaverse have
become a trend in data-driven smart urbanism [22].
Artificial intelligence technologies—especially
deep learning—have great potential for the
Metaverse in terms of automated operations and
design. For this reason, it performs better than
traditional approaches [19].
Big data is produced in Metaverse, which is
thought to be used by a large number of users in the
future. For this reason, security issues are at the
forefront. Since the actions of the users affect
another user, a stable security strategy is needed in
the Metaverse [23]. Artificial intelligence and
machine learning provide technical support to
Metaverse systems by aiming to reach or even
exceed the learning level of humans [19].
III. DISCUSSION
With the development of the cyber economy, it
has become difficult to manage large-scale assets
and detect fraudulent transactions. At this point,
artificial intelligence creates and manages digital
assets and controls transactions between giant
databases [24]. Artificial intelligence provides
privacy protection with algorithms that
automatically detect the privacy preferences of
users in Metaverse. In this way, a Metaverse and AI-
supported security system are formed [24].
When used with Metaverse deep learning, it
offers a high recognition performance and a more
natural generation model [25]. Artificial
intelligence can work in the background of the
Metaverse to generate improvements from the

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actions and user interactions of digital twins [26].
The next step in the use of artificial intelligence in
Metaverse is the transformation of Metaverse,
which has become smart with artificial intelligence
algorithms, into Metaverse, which builds smart
hardware with AI algorithms [24].
Overall, the articles covered suggest that the main
benefit of blockchain and AI integration, in general,
is solving security issues. Details of the reviewed
literature are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Sum of literature review
#
Name
Database
Author/s
Year
Main Point
1
Making Smart Contracts Smarter
IEEE
Badruddoja
vd.
2021
AI solves
Blockchain's
problems.
2
Overview: Technology Roadmap of the Future
Trend of Metaverse based on IoT, Blockchain,
AI Technique, and Medical Domain Metaverse
Activity
IEEE
Mozumder
2022
The use of AI
and blockchain
technologies in
the Metaverse
has potential in
many ways.
3
AI-Enabled Grouping Bridgehead to Secure
Penetration Topics of Metaverse
Scopus
Park et al.
2022
Artificial
intelligence
minimizes the
security risks in
the system.
4
Definition, Roles, and Potential Research Issues
of the Metaverse in Education: An Artificial
Intelligence Perspective
Scopus
Hwang and
Chien
2022
AI is essential
as a regulator
and controller.
5
Roadmap Toward the Metaverse: An AI
Perspective
Science
Direct
Cheng et al.
2022
Artificial
intelligence
solves many
problems in the
system.
6
Challenges and Research Directions for
Blockchains in the Internet of Things.
IEEE
Golatowski
et al.
2018
Artificial
intelligence
solves the
security
problems in the
system.
7
When Deep Learning Meets Smart Contracts
IEEE
Gao
2020
AI blocks
security issues
in the
blockchain.
IV. CONCLUSION
Metaverse is a new Internet age that takes the
physical world to a different dimension. It is a
technology that will bring new perspectives and
opportunities to the sectors it is connected to. For
this reason, the opportunities it creates and the
potentials it has for the future are very high. The fact
that the Metaverse universe works with the
blockchain takes it to the next level in terms of
technology, while the problems brought by the
blockchain are solved by artificial intelligence (AI).
Moreover, this is not a one-sided benefit.
Blockchain, with its features, provides solutions to
the dilemmas of AI. In this case, the integration of
Metaverse, blockchain, and AI creates solid
potential in terms of technology. In this study,
positive and negative situations that will be
encountered when Metaverse technology is
integrated with blockchain, and AI are discussed.
The potential of this integrated technology was
evaluated.
Since Metaverse technology is new and open to
development technology, research topics for future
studies are quite wide. However, there are
deficiencies in the application point. Our suggestion
for future studies is to determine the advantages of
artificial intelligence use by making a case analysis
on the examples where Metaverse and AI have been
applied.

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