But of course, everything was unreal and at some point, after spending several hours a day in there, your reality was changing little by little to the point it can end up fooling you.
I never played any of these, or WoW or anything. But, I have a friend who got divorced because of WoW, as he was spending all his waking hours on it, rather than with his wife, who was also a friend of mine, gorgeous, fit and intelligent. He was fooled into thinking what he was doing mattered, while what mattered walked away.
The problem today is AI is everywhere, not just inside a "closed platform" as Second Life, and sometimes you don't even realize you may be interacting with AI.
This is why I question marked "research" because even though I am generally aware, when the result is generated from a database somewhere, it is likely using AI anyway. It is opaque to me though, and I worked in an AI-driven information management company :)
I am sure, little by little scientist and experts will learn how to use data sources with caution, making a difference from those supported by AI and those directly from real sources,
Only at the level of the pusher, not the consumer. I reckon this is where blockchain should be used to ensure original information is verified.
The next generations will have a wild world to live in as "fake" unreal world grows bigger and bigger compared to "real" one
Every dystopian movie and book come to life....