The metaverse as workplace. Configuration and regulatory issues

Abstract

A new technological phenomenon capable of affecting the way work is performed has recently emerged in the area of interest of labour law. It seems that work, like many other human activities, can now be performed by an avatar in a metaverse, i.e. a virtual double of the worker within a three-dimensional virtual universe. Despite the uncertainty regarding the evolutions that will affect this socio-technical phenomenon, the essay tries to establish whether in the metaverse some activities can be configured as “work” from a legal point of view, or whether instead the virtual worlds are animated exclusively by digital “objects”, possibly regulated by other legal disciplines.

The analysis carried out leads to the exclusion that the metaverse constitutes a parallel reality completely detached from the space-time coordinates of the physical universe. Moreover, the use of a visor that provides three-dimensional images does not always imply the performance of work in the metaverse: in some hypotheses, wearable technologies and equipment provide a technological tool for work, while in others they insert virtual images (e.g. through holograms) into physical reality. In a more limited - but more interesting because of its extreme characteristics - group of hypotheses, the worker perceives a virtual universe in which he or she can feel completely immersed. In the latter, the metaverse can resemble an extension of the physical workplace in which the worker is placed. The final part of the contribution deals with identifying the main labour disciplines applicable to cases in which work takes place in virtual environments or physical environments enhanced by virtual projections.