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.

New XRA Survey Finds 1 in 5 Teens Own a Virtual Reality Headset

 Interesting new survey out from the XR Association. Their blurb, and links,  below:

The XR Association's 2025 teen survey results give insights regarding teens' shifting opinions on the future of XR in their lives, the classroom and beyond. Titled "The Next Generation's Insights on Immersive Tech," the report found that 63% of teens express growing enthusiasm for XR technology, with VR maintaining a high level of favorability among them.

Serving as a follow-up to XRA's 2022 survey, this survey of 600 teens, ages 13 to 19, highlights the growing role of XR in their everyday lives.

View the Interactive Infographic Here

Military Metaverse Launch at DSET 2025

 

We're proud to announce that we'll be holding a physical launch for The Military Metaverse book as part of the DSET 2025 event, thanks to Tess Butler and the team at Ruddy Nice.

The first part will be Andy and David talking about the book at the DSET Industry Day on 25 Jun. And then during the physical conference and exhibition we'll be holding a prize draw for a signed copy of the book during an evening reception.

For more information and to sign up to DSET visit https://dset.co.uk/

 

Hard copies arrive!

Our author copies of the Military Metaverse arrived today! That makes #3 in the series, and I'm busy proofing what will probably be #4 or #5, we're now onto the books not written by Maggi or me.

The book is of course available from Routledge (20% discount til end Jun with code 25AFLY1), Amazon and other good booksellers.