Cities in the Metaverse

 

Cities in the Metaverse, the fourth book in The Metaverse Series was published on 24th October 2025. The book has been written by a team from University College London's Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) consisting of Professor Andrew Hudson-Smith, Professor Duncan Wilson and Dr Valerio Signorelli.

The book offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between urban environments and digital realms and examines:

• The size and shape of cities in the Metaverse
• Spatial computing and its impact on digital interaction
• Digital twins in urban planning and management
• Avatars and social dynamics in virtual spaces
• Economic models emerging in the Metaverse
• The influence of gaming on immersive digital landscapes
• The impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Metaverse
• Potential futures of digital habitation

Drawing from architecture, computer science, urban planning, geography, social studies, and economics, the authors provide a multidisciplinary analysis of how virtual cities are shaping our digital future. Using key case studies, they trace the evolution from early cyberspace concepts to current spatial computing technologies, offering insights into both historical context and future possibilities. The book addresses key questions about the opportunities and challenges presented by metaverse technologies, including issues of accessibility, creativity, and the future of humans and artificial intelligence co-existing, side by side, in digital spaces. It serves as a practical guide, equipping readers with the knowledge they need to navigate the future of urban life in virtual environments with a thought-provoking examination of how we might build, inhabit, and govern cities in the Metaverse.

The authors explore the concept of digital twins, demonstrating how these virtual replicas of physical spaces can revolutionise urban planning and management. They delve into the social aspects of the metaverse, examining how avatars shape our interactions and relationships in digital realms. Economic considerations are central to the book ethos, with an analysis of emerging models that often leverage blockchain technologies. The book addresses the challenges, potential pitfalls and ethical considerations in creating and inhabiting digital cities. At the same time, it takes a step back and examines already abandoned digital worlds, offering lessons from past attempts at creating virtual spaces. 

Essential reading for urban planners, geographers, economists, technologists, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of cities and digital interaction, Cities in the Metaverse provides a balanced, informed perspective on this rapidly evolving field.

The book is available from Routledge and all good booksellers.

Chatbots and Conversational AI: Past, Present and Future

 

This White Paper grew a bit as a wrote it, but it is essentially an update to my Virtual Humans book, covering and bringing together things I've learnt and thought and talked about since then, and also reflecting that we're now in the era of LLMs. 

Click here to download a free copy!

Digital Human Twins and the Military Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges (updated)

Following on from The Military Metaverse, Andy Fawkes and I have just had a paper published in Springer Nature's AI & Society on Digital Human Twins and the Military Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges. 

Behind the Springer paywall but a preview is available. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394534114_Digital_human_twins_and_the_military_metaverse_opportunities_and_challenges

[Update] I've done a short Medium post to explain more about the paper, and that also has a link to a free viewer for the whole paper.

August 2025 - Metaverse News and Links

 

Couple of interesting posts in the Guardian (and other media) this month:

- Digital resurrection: fascination and fear over the rise of the deathbot - https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/10/artificial-intellligence-avatar-death-grief-digital-resurrection-fascination-deathbot

Deathbot seems an even more perjorative term than griefbot! What interests me though is what the bot means for the person making it more than what it means for those left behind. I'm writing something long form on this but looking the for the best way to publish it in due course.

- It’s missing something’: AGI, superintelligence and a race for the future -https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/09/its-missing-something-agi-superintelligence-and-a-race-for-the-future

In which it's reported that "Google’s AI unit on Tuesday outlined its next step to AGI by announcing an unreleased model that trains AIs to interact with a convincing simulation of the real world". Whilst it's not clear if this is real embodiment as we've described in Virtual Humans it's certainly a recognition of the greater issue that an AGI needs to exist in a "place" in order to gain all the awareness that AGI may need.

- Can an AI chatbot of Dr Karl change climate sceptics’ minds? He’s willing to give it a try - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/11/digital-dr-karl-kruszelnickic-ai-chatbot

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is dealing with 100s of questions about climate change so is making a Digital Dr Karl. It is trained on 40,000 PDFs.

New book - Just War Theory and Artificial Intelligence

 

Maggi and David have a new book out - and not in the Metaverse Series! The book is on Just War Theory and Artificial Intelligence, and in edited by Maggi and her colleague Dr Maria Power. David contributes a chapter on Wargaming and Just War Theory.

The book is available from Routledge, Amazon and all usual sources.

David is doing a presentation on his chapter at Georgetown University next week - we'll add the video link here after the event.

David Interviewed on Dublin City FM

 

David was interviewed on Monday by Jillian Godsil for Dublin City FM. The talk is mainly around virtual humans and digital amortality, but also touches on some metaverse issues.

You can find a link to the radio programme, and a text version of the interview at: https://jilliangodsil.com/talking-to-virtual-barry-inside-the-digital-mind-of-david-burden/

Sensay Hackathon Launch

 

On Monday David was on the panel for the launch of Sensay's AI Chatbot Hackathon, talking about his work on virtual humans, and touching on some of the issues around digital amortality and embedding bots in the metaverse. The Hackathon details - building new bot applications with the Sensay API - are at https://dorahacks.io/hackathon/sensay-connect/detail.

One of David's (many) summer projects is to try and use the API in order to use Sensay to power chatbots within virtual worlds. Any progress will be reported here.