This document calls for participation in developing an XR Ethics white paper for IEEE. It outlines 12 domains of human experience that could be covered as chapters, including self/identity, resources/economy, education/communication, home/family, entertainment, medicine, relationships with others, death, career/institutions, friends/community, hidden/excluded groups, and accessibility. Each domain lists several ethics issues that could be discussed in the corresponding chapter. The document proposes splitting into subcommittees to draft each chapter, with a first draft due by April 30, 2021 and presentations planned for a symposium on March 5, 2021. Interested participants are invited to email the listed address.

1. Help Write an
XR Ethics White Paper:
Call for Participation in IEEE's Global
Initiative on the Ethics of Extended Reality

4. Highlights of XR Ethics Issues

5. Biometric Data

6. Volumetric Privacy

7. Consent to Augment

8. Virtual Violence

9. Healing PTSD

10. Virtual Harassment

11. Algorithmic Bias

12. Accessibility

13. My Journey into XR Ethics

14. UploadVR’s April 2016 Article on Oculus’ Privacy
Policy Catches the Attention of Senator Franken

15. Voices of VR Privacy Coverage Starts May 2016

16. Photo by
Laval Virtual Visionaries Think Tank 2019
Brainstorm on XR Ethics

17. Photo by

19. Photo by

21. XR Ethics Manifesto

32. Proposed starting point for splitting into
chapters, but ultimately decided by community

36. Expression of Identity

37. Biometric Data

38. Consciousness Hacking

39. Sensory Substitution

40. Self-Sovereign Identity

41. ● Psychological Impacts
● Embodiment
● Avatar Representation
● Body Perception
● Identity
● Self-Model Changes
● Sensory Experience
● Long-Term Impacts
● Virtual Body Ownership
● Self-Determination
● Context Sensitivity
I. Self / Biometric Data / Identity
● Cybersickness
● Biometrically-Inferred Data
● Agency
● Suggested Memories
● Proteus Effect
● Planting Memories
● Modulating Memories
● Affective Computing
● Body Swap
● Mind Plasticity
● Epigenetic Traits

45. Virtual Gift Economies

46. ● Virtual Commerce
● Virtual Goods
● Virtual Economy
● Business Models
○ Surveillance Capitalism
○ Subscription Models
● Who owns data?
● Exporting data
● Pay for Privacy?
● Closed vs Open Ecosystem
II. Resources / Money / Values
● Anti-Money Laundering
● Cryptocurrency
● Blockchain
● Digital Divide
● Economic Disparities
● Neuromarketing
● Advertising as Behavioral
Modification
● Attention Economy
● Homomorphic encryption
● Lobbyist Influence of Policy

48. Early Education

49. Telepresence

50. Data Visualization

51. Spatial Language

52. ● Minimum Age for VR
● Negative Transference
● Personalized Education
● Family Educational
Rights & Privacy Act
● Ability to Mute Others
● Mitigating & Moderating
Hate/Dangerous Speech
● Telepresence Fidelity
III. Early Education / Communication / Local Travel
● Broadcasting Biometrics
● Non-verbal comm norms
● Recording Conversations
● Automatic Audio
Transcripts
● BCI Reading Thoughts
● End-to-End Encryption
● Geolocation Tracking
● Navigation Distractions

54. Home & Family

55. Volumetric Memories

56. Consent to Augment

57. ● Privacy of volumetric
scans of your home
● Collective privacy of
family in your home
● Spatial doxxing
● Fourth Amendment
defines public vs private
spaces
○ All of cyberspace is “public”
○ Third-Party Doctrine
IV. Home & Family / Private Property / Earth
● Who can augment?
○ Property rights
● Context of places
○ (e.g. Pokémon at
Holocaust Museum)
● Control & modulate
perception of environment
● Data security
● Ecological Impact

59. Entertainment

60. Immersive Storytelling

61. Creativity & Art

62. Virtual Violence

63. Sexually-Explicit Content

64. ● Virtual Violence
● Addictive Entertainment
● Hijacking Attention
● The Dopamine Economy
● Escapism
● Game Ratings
● Content Warnings
● Content Moderation
● Children's Online Privacy
Protection Rule (COPPA)
● Undermining User Agency
V. Entertainment / Content Creation / Sex
● Media Ethics
● Psychographic profiling
of entertainment
preferences
● Undermine User Agency
● XR Porn Implications
● Dystopia Narratives
● New forms of immersive
storytelling

66. Medicine

67. Healing Trauma

68. ● Do Not Harm
● Detecting Medical Conditions
● Triggering Seizures
● Harm to Mental Health
● Depersonalization /
Derealization Disorder
● Out-of-Body Disassociation
● PTSD Treatment/triggering
● Biometrically-inferred info
● Telemedicine privacy
● Health Insurance Portability
& Accountability Act
VI. Medicine / Healing
● Autonomy of Healing
● Public health
● Recovered memories of abuse
● XR as a medical device
● False hope of XR’s promise
● Mandatory treatments
● Body dysmorphic disorder
● Virtual therapeutics
● Well-being applications
● VR rehabilitation
● VR exercise
● Physiological reactions to
Sexual Assault

70. The Other: Hostile Context

71. Virtual Harassment

72. Empathy + Truth &
Reconciliation

73. ● Harassment Prevention
○ Personal Space Bubble
● Assault
● Hostile Conflict Zone
● Information Warfare
● Disinformation
● Deep Fakes
● Identity Theft
● Nudging Behaviors
● Deception
VII. Other / Partnerships
● Virtual Beings
○ Dangers of
Anthropomorphic AI
○ Dangers of Synthetic
Phenomenology
○ Relationships with AI
● Super Intelligence
● Empathy Machine &
Technological Determinism
● Ethics Washing

76. Grief Rituals

77. Bringing Deceased Back to Life

78. Image Rights After Death

79. Virtual
Torture

80. ● Virtual resurrections
● Image rights after death
● Account blocks &
permanent bans
● Right to be forgotten
○ Account/data erasure
● Violence & killing in VR
○ Humanoid vs
non-humanoid NPCs
● Filtering violent or
terrorist content
VIII. Death
● Military dual use
● Using VR for torture
● Experiential Warfare
● Autonomous weapons
systems & drones
○ Virtual suicide
bombing
○ Virtually-mediated
extrajudicial killings
● Life-threatening
security vulnerabilities

83. Breaking Down Academic Silos

84. Comprehend Complexity

85. ● Philosophical implications
○ What is reality?
○ What is truth?
○ The virtual vs the real
● Filter bubbles of reality
● Religious manipulation
● XR ethics & design
● Philosophy of privacy
● Neuroethics
● Ethics of human
augmentation
● Workforce skills training
IX. Philosophy / Higher Education / Law
● XR’s impact on law
● XR as judicial evidence
● What content is illegal?
● Future risks of XR tech
● Terms of conditions
● Algorithmic oversight
● Institutional Review Boards
● International Law
● Human Rights Law
● Longitudinal studies
● Beneficence vs autonomy
● Informed consent

88. Spatial Design

89. Virtual Screens for Productivity

90. ● Enterprise XR Ethics
● Remote work
● Using XR for hiring decisions
● Automation & job displacement
● Conflicts of interest between
academia & industry
X. Career / Government / Institutions
● Governmental surveillance
● Fourth Amendment
○ Third-Party Doctrine
● Governmental loyalty tests
● Governmental nudging
● Governmental propaganda
● Future of online public space
● Right to augment public space

92. Community

93. Hanging Out with Friends

94. Algorithmic Bias

95. ● Diversity & inclusion
● Cultural differences
● Cultural norm conflicts
● Algorithmic bias
● Code of Conduct
● Elements of culture
● Trust & safety social scores
● Harms to society
● Changing social norms
● Social hallucinations
● Weaken implicit racism
● Sustainable communities
● Reducing inequalities
XI. Friends / Community / Culture
● Social anxiety
● Augmenting other people
● Sharing public sphere
● Context-blind tech
● Stakeholder deliberations
● Data during humanitarian
crises.
● Extremist indoctrination
● Japanese “hikikomori” &
acute social withdrawal
● Sharing biometric data as a
part of identity expression

97. Combating Isolation

98. Accessibility

99. ● Accessibility
○ Render content
depending on ability
● Inclusive design
● Truly anonymized avatars
● Re-identifying
de-identified PII data
● Combating social isolation
XII. Hidden / Exiled / Accessibility
● Temporary & permanent
exile of user suspensions
● Prisoner rehabilitation
● Addictive escapism
● Dark spatial web
● Closing technology gap
for older generations

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103. Split into chapters &
subcommittees
Aim to give talks on an XR Ethics
Symposium on Fri, March 5, 2021
First Draft Due April 30, 2021

104. Interested in Collaborating?
Send an e-mail to
XR-ETHICS@ieee.org
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