The digital Wild West: on social entrepreneurship in extended reality

Abstract

Augmented and virtual reality, whose ubiquitous convergence is known as extended reality (XR), are technologies that imbue a user’s apparent surroundings with some degree of sensory virtuality. In this article, we are interested in how social entrepreneurs might utilize innovative methods in XR to solve social problems. Social entrepreneurship in XR presents novel challenges and opportunities not present in traditional regulatory spaces, as XR changes the environment in which choices are made. The complex and fast-changing nature of XR requires agile and context-sensitive governance to address these issues. Thus, we expect social entrepreneurs to create a new regulatory infrastructure to address challenges and opportunities presented by XR. My central thesis is that the dynamic, immersive, and agile nature of XR provides a fertile ground for the development of alternative forms of governance and incentivizes this development in contrast to relatively inagile, context-insensitive institutions of public governance.