Over the past few decades, technological advancements have accelerated at an unprecedented rate. With the access to information made possible by the internet, we are now more connected than ever. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed several aspects of life. Machines equipped with sensors, software, and other technologies have reduced the need for human labor across professions. These machines can better anticipate events, make suggestions about possibilities that exist between “if A, then B” cause and effect, and in some cases even learn new outcomes. These and other factors provide a platform for providing suggestions to people, generating tailored store products or entertainment choices, findings in cases involving big data, or in a specialist discipline in industry or profession.

Simultaneously, inconceivable developments in technology, engineering, computer science, and information technology have allowed for such new and sophisticated innovations as the metaverse. The metaverse is the next great evolution of the internet, an immersive world that combines the internet, console games, entertainment, art, animation, sound, social networks, video, virtual and augmented reality, communication tools, and everything else (and more) that the internet currently hosts. Immersive experiences are created with the aid of cutting-edge technology such as robotics, 3D printing, virtual and augmented reality, as well as artificial intelligence. A key benefit of the metaverse will be all-day learning and studying in an attention-getting, interesting, interactive, engaging, imaginative, creative, and motion-based way to deliver information or ideas to consumers and audiences, greater permitting the ability to precision it to human learning and teaching styles.

1.1. Background and Significance

Artificial intelligence, or AI, describes the practice of developing computer systems that are able to perform tasks that require human intelligence. Examples of this range from playing chess to translating between languages, recognizing emotion and mood from text and voice, and driving. For the past few years, businesses have been trying to define AI for their operations and either develop or buy AI tools that provide few specific and new capabilities. Another term, metaverse, describes a 3D digital virtual environment where people can interact with each other and computer systems as a more or less real place. Most people’s vision of a metaverse would be the sort of reality depicted in movies such as ‘The Matrix’, ‘Ready Player One’, or ‘Surrogates’, and books such as ‘Neuromancer’.

It is crucial for educationalists to develop an understanding of AI because an ever-increasing range of AI tools is emerging. They may not be perfect in the sense of being able to do a particular task for which they have been designed in most or all conditions, and they often have some less sophisticated parts also used by educational technologists. However, they have considerable potential. Metaverses may also start to have a similar impact on education in the next few years. Many believe that the metaverse will have significant impacts on society over the next decade. The basic enabling technologies are internet-based, 3D graphics, and game engines. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, much of the focus for educationalists was on the use of such environments in serious games. The COVID-19 lockdown has changed perceptions though.

2. Understanding Artificial Intelligence

Over the past couple of years, there has been an evolution in the way that companies and individuals present their information to others. AI has impacted what information is presented and how it is consumed. Artificial intelligence, also known as machine intelligence, refers to the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems. This includes learning, reasoning, and self-correction. AI brings the capability of imitating the cognitive functions of the human brain, from which it can also learn from and react as a human would. AI comes from the broader field of computer science and was created as a fast, efficient and cost-effective tool to carry out tasks normally requiring human intelligence.

Machine learning is one application related to AI. It is the study of computer algorithms which improve automatically through experience. These algorithms build a model based on sample (or “training”) data in order to make decisions and predictions. The usual goal of ML is to turn a function that defines potential patterns in data in order to make decisions based on those patterns. Deep learning (or neural networks) have been trained to identify objects and engage in conversational speech. It’s a form of machine learning that involves training artificial neural networks to perform specific tasks, such as speech recognition, object recognition, translation, and decision and action taking. In recent years, machine learning and deep learning on graphs have gained much attention to solve a wide range of problems such as fraud detection, link prediction, and many more.

2.1. Definition and Basics

Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. A system can mimic human cognitive function – learning from experience and interacting with the environment – to accomplish specific tasks. The fundamental goal of the progression of AI as a science is to reveal intelligence.

The application of AI in education is broad, and the use of AI-assisted technologies in education helps to optimize management, reform teaching, reduce cost, improve quality-oriented education, and carry out personalized learning. Other studies emphasized the impact of AI and ML for the new form or genre of social life and activity called metaverse. Some research noted the many expected contributions of AI in metaverse including increasing learning effectiveness through personalized learning and instructional delivery, real-time and realistic converse AI, better learning games, local community-based learning communities and education associations, conceptual models, network-based reasoning and rapport interface technologies, authoring tools, and software agents. Discriminant reasons between education in metaverse and virtual also have been described including user participation, content, communication, customization, and price.

A special issue of the Journal of Educational Technology and Society was dedicated to forecasting education 3-10 years into the future. Other studies have considered the blurred lines between virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and metaverse in educational spaces. Included in these studies have been predictions about the ubiquitous use of wireless telephony for computer-mediated reality systems, distributed games, and immersive, affordable, wireless-wearable products that create environments like theatrical spaces with pervasive sensing.

In general, AI is the dominant concern of two-dimensional educational systems, and metaverse is the dominant concern of three-dimensional educational systems. These systems constitute a natural in-depth concern of educational technologies. Advanced intelligent systems include ALs, DLs, VRs, metaverse, virtual humans, two-subject pedagogy, instructional interface agents, tutoring systems, collaborative systems as AI systems, transformative AI systems, computer-based educational management systems (CBEMS), and big data techniques. Personalized learning, AI-modeling of expert intelligent human teaching agents, OpenAI, Reinforcement Learning, Emotion AI, Cheating AI, AI public institutions as educational systems, and AI assessment systems are classified as subsets of these systems.

3. The Metaverse: Definition and Applications

The so-called metaverse has become a hot topic in recent years. The following is a concise explanation of what it is and how it is used in various fields. In general, the metaverse refers to a virtual space consisting of a digital or virtual reality environment that is both time and space independent. Eras of development in the metaverse can be categorized into desktop computer metaverses, 3D Internet on Web and game console metaverses, 4D physical virtual worlds, virtual reality-based 3D, and the combination of 4th and 5th generative, physical and digital, virtual and augmented reality and based on the application of artificial intelligence. Also, the metaverse can be described as a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically immersive virtual reality, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.

Recently, there has been a gradual expansion of the common features of the metaverse with the use of real-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a virtual environment that enables interactive content with user experience. It is expected to offer new ways to connect the world both socially and knowledge-based by creating digital places to gather and learn in real-time by a communal effort of participants. Today, the metaverse is used in practice in many areas such as advertising, arts and fashion, business, e-commerce, learning and meeting, natural sci-fi stories, conferencing, remote interaction, socializing, designing and building, engineering, gaming, identity representation, interactive cinema, marketing, mixed reality, modeling more on Web 3, recreational, role-playing, social participation opportunity (SPO), team sports, text-based role-playing, virtual reality, and visual simulation. In this work, we take a fundamental look at the metaverse, which has a larger scope and applications and try to give oxygen to the field for potential utilization of the metaverse in educational systems.

3.1. Key Concepts and Components

In order to understand the educational implications, the concept of the metaverse must first be dissected into a myriad of key components. Traditional or web 2.0 encompasses platforms such as AR, VR, mobile and wearable technology, or QQ. It is considered a synchronous interactive multimedia mode, as the entities (human actors) are still operating in real time with material limitations of location and time. Riaza and Ripollés argue that “The main technological base of this current model is the digital transmedia of the web 2.0 model in which there is co-creation through social networks and platforms that are multi-device”.

This paper refers to the physical and immersive internet as a virtual world. A virtual environment is a three-dimensional environment which is normally categorized into a mirror world, virtual reality technology, and gaming environment. The Hall of Acoustics at IRCAM is an accurate reflection of the real world; the architecture beyond the room is realistic and buildings in the background resemble those of Paris. This allows the inhabitants of the real world to identify with the virtual object – this is a picture of the Hall in Paris. This is not to be confused with augmented reality – a real image with virtual elements “projected” onto it. The virtual world refers to social spaces entirely created by developers. Chayko explains that it differs from the World Wide Web as ‘a defined spatial context’ that is ‘not defined by initial, visited sites’.

4. AI and the Metaverse in Education

The implementation of artificial intelligence and the metaverse in education goes to show how technology has taken over the educational sector in the past years with new trends such as blended learning and implementation of AR and VR in learning practices. It is projected that these trends will become the norm in educational practices.

Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is learning from students. Artificial intelligence is learning and understanding the learning patterns of the students, depending on which AI interacts with students and provides them with detailed feedback, even if they make mistakes. AI mainly focuses on the adoption and personalization of each student’s learning ability.

The metaverse is a blend of the real world (reality) and the virtual world (virtuality). It’s a collective virtual shared space, which is created by the convergence of VR, AR, AI, 5G, gaming, blockchain, etc. It will bring the ‘physical’ and ‘virtual’ worlds together, creating a digital universe that will reshape the global economy and way of life across industries. The confluence of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality services will create myriad interactions across the global economy, from virtual work and learning spaces to concerts, sports events, and entertainment.

The metaverse, like social media platforms, will be used to supplement all types of physical-world activities, making it an ideal platform to accelerate educational reinvention. As before, this doesn’t let us remove the current educational system, but the process and teaching criteria are MAD (Mechanical, Automatic, and Digital). These teaching methods are brainless and boring. The implementation of gaming, simulation, and AI training, making learning easy and enjoyable, is what this concept shows in the paper.

4.1. Current Trends and Implementations

One specific six-page scoping review (Paper No. 2 Supplementary materials) looks at a few current trends and examples where AI has become the solution of the moment, and where the Metaverse is rapidly being adopted when increasingly gaming principles and AI are combined. They note that AI is increasingly influencing what teachers are doing, supporting tasks they want to do, and driving some of the assessment tasks they have to perform. This study also shows that the Metaverse is enhancing existing e-learning experiences by making them more engaging. For instance, document work in the Metaverse can be done that feels not much different to doing it in the ‘real world’, such as assignments that are done collaboratively and are stored in hyperlinks to ‘real’ documents.

Example 4 (Supplementary Materials) describes some work in a large undergraduate course where mini lectures were transferred to virtual reality. So, people might understand AI or the Metaverse as the difference between a linear shaping of a student’s path and shaking that path out and discovering new ways that the student might themselves want to go using user behavior data to provide guidance. Machine Learning (ML) can be regarded in the same way. One way in which AI is influencing education is in helping autistic children and their teachers improve communication, although this is more of an Intelligent Tutoring System rather than an MMORPG to which AI has been added. In another example where AI-driven MMORPGs exist, a massive parallel architecture allowing access to millions and millions of sentences has been set up in our determination system.

5. Benefits and Challenges

Artificial Intelligence and the metaverse have the potential to make education more intuitive, engaging, and enriched with educational resources. Until recently, the drawbacks have been the challenges of integrating and understanding AI, as well as privacy concerns and other ethical issues. These are complex, and while addressing these challenges is necessary, we can be more optimistic about the potential of AI and the metaverse in education.

However, we need not adopt an overly optimistic attitude towards AI education. Some people think that children will develop a deep-seated fear of technology if they try to use AI in education when they are not yet familiar with AI. Even children are dynamic, creative, and curious, and they are keen to explore the world around them. While we discuss the potential benefits of using AI and the metaverse as education tools, this chapter also pays attention to the challenges associated with using AI and the metaverse in the classrooms.

The ease and speed of developing sophisticated computer programs that will help students learn led to concerns about a lack of protection from privacy violations. Activity tracked data has the potential to be used for something, such as targeting service offers, discriminating against students in decisions about them, or denying access to services. Other concerns include legal and compensatory responsibilities, including the ability of the public and injured sources to effectively implement and hold wrongdoers accountable.

However, questions about the choice of “fit for purpose” re-emerged when the classification and the gap between different roles were expressed. The public expressed a clear need for clear rules and policies to protect privacy and respond to real-world use-cases, while some demonstrated an implicit focus on privacy protection, viewing it as a trade-off or way of establishing trust.

5.1. Advantages of AI and the Metaverse in Education

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse offer new opportunities for innovation in education. Both technologies enhance lessons with multimedia, including 3D animations, holograms, VR, and multi-user collaboration. AI also enables automation of repetitive, time-consuming tasks, educational recommendations, and tutoring. In general, both teaching and learning seem to be enhanced by emotionally engaged multimodal teaching applications, for example, using lifelike agents, either in physical or in metaverse-based educational settings. Besides the high level of immersion and involvement perceived when learning in a metaverse, one basic motivational key factor consists of the new virtual reality (VR) technology tools, including 3D animations or holograms that immerse the user visually into a synthetic world.

AI is used intensively to enable in-lecture participation: chatbots assist with administrative questions, and conversation agents enrich real-time teaching. AI-powered language models can even pre-empt students’ questions before they verbalize them. Also, AI-based recommenders guide students in their learning by suggesting what to read next, based on the learning path chosen so far. In VR or the metaverse, AI tutors can support learning micro-processes contextually (e.g., while working with a 3D model). AI tutors monitor all students in a class, checking performance data in real-time and sending hints and tips based on a student’s most recent engagement. The AI tutors can be designed for various purposes, such as fostering proficiency, individualizing instruction, or promoting enjoyment, and across various subject domains. By turning data into actionable intelligence, AI can help create an engaging and effective environment for human interactions and learning.

6. Ethical and Privacy Considerations

6.1. Data privacy and security. As explained, AI analytics process huge volumes of data, including personal student and educator information. The same is valid for the metaverse, as it collects information (like biometric data, voice, face, and other bodily data, but also personal preferences, activities, etc.). In addition, VR devices and metaverse applications operate different types of information not only during the application runtime but also while the system finds out what setting to use in the beginning. This raises some major ethical as well as security and privacy issues when it comes to publishing apps or devices used in education. As the security risk is particularly high in VR technology and metaverse, it is problematic, especially in educational environments when children are involved. From early on, children must be learned about the usage of web technologies and necessary security issues. However, turning this ethical and privacy aspect to the actual users, the students, it must be mentioned what privacy and security aspects are essential. Privacy risk refers to the possibility that sensitive information may be disclosed to an unauthorized person or may be used in an unauthorized way. This could, in turn, entail consequences both for those students or professionals and the companies that produce these technologies.

6.2. Other. Besides the aforementioned problems, there are many social acceptability and right issues. The very idea of observing humans for feedback to improve AI or robotic services is often questioned. However, as these services will assist in education and the work environment, it is important to focus more on issues such as security and privacy. By doing so, it is not just focusing around ethical behavioral rules as given by philosophers and respect codes but mainly around protection. We allege that the practical usage of AI, robotics, VR technology, and metaverse technology in the field of education and work should at all times be fully scrutinized towards the ethical and safety rules that are needed. Regarding legal and other as well as cost aspects, we claim that any IT application has to regard these. It is only when all input aspects coincide that an essential application for education and learning can be used.

6.1. Data Privacy and Security

6.1. Data Privacy and Security

It is clear that integrating AI and the metaverse into education will make diverse ranges of educational datasets available within the virtual environment. These datasets may include a person’s learning habits, preferences, physical location, visual and auditory information, skeletal movement, and speech. However, the privacy and safety concerns associated with this integration are especially high and may increase significantly due to the following reasons:

1) Companies may turn themselves into data-harvesting companies, making them targets for data breaches. 2) Users may lack the necessary skills to handle their data properly, leading to a mismatch with available data management and ethical guidelines. 3) There is a risk of unethical uses of educational data, particularly in the form of predictive and punitive assessments. This can result in increased surveillance, interrogations, and the development of totalitarian cultures.

Ethical considerations are crucial in this context, as there is a tension between using the data for educational purposes and approaching educational scenarios and learners in empathetic and caring ways. The degradation of the ethical and empathetic dimension in human-to-human interactions contradicts the fundamental principles of education, which include providing care, compassion, and ethical responsibility for students.

In this mode of integration of AI and education, both parents and children are exposed to various data breaches. Betsy Davies, the executive director of “Digital Defence Australia” – a data privacy expert specializing in identifying and highlighting vulnerabilities in home and mobile devices used by children – emphasizes the importance of considering the parent’s role in data privacy. She states, “We talk about the child, but we’ve got to remember that the parent holds a lot of important information as well, such as bank details and personal intimate conversations between partners” (quoted in The Guardian). While discussions about metaverse ethics often focus on business or adult interactions, it is evident that there are significant vulnerabilities that need to be addressed among children and their parents.

7. Future Directions and Emerging Technologies

Future Directions and Emerging Technologies

The ability of the population to construct their own platforms and courses allows them to escape the stifling effects of the curriculum policy, or so it is held by the mainline proponents of new-style learning. The establishment of a school in a 3D virtual gaming environment, mentioned earlier, allowed teachers and students to create their own games rather than be restricted by software providers. An extension of this is what is commonly called the metaverse, which is increasingly mentioned as the latest ‘big thing’ and is gathering widespread interest in the worlds of business as well as education.

According to some commentators, the key enabling technology in the metaverse is AI, and it has the potential to enable students to produce near-professional-quality simulation output using a very unobtrusive user interface. AI-based systems could also adapt to the needs of individual students and according to the classroom dynamic, leading to more ‘informalized’ teaching and learning and, it is claimed, a better match with the world of gaming and social networking that is a major feature of modern life. It is also suggested that virtual worlds should now be taking a back seat to AI, which is emerging as the real driver of modern businesses, and that even game designers, as we have seen, are being snapped up by industry. AI systems are increasingly being used by companies in decision-support systems to forecast areas of growth, such as handling phone calls in a call center, selling groceries or handling search inquiries. In education, Korn Ferry suggests that technology innovators will include AI into game design in ways that will enable games-based and game-like simulations to further develop in the field of executive development.

7.1. Potential Innovations

While the potential role that AI may have to play in the educational sector is quite practical and useful, it still needs to be developed and executed for real-life uses. However, the metaverse is likely to impact the educational system more by bringing more innovative changes. Educational technology experts have expressed different views concerning the role the metaverse will play. The views vary from a very optimistic one that anticipates the enhanced promotion of a robust and equitable educational system to a rather pessimistic one that dreads broadening educational and technological inequalities. Chief among the optimists is the CEO of Meta who sees a future with learning embodied in a 3D metaverse. At the same time, a careful stance suggests that if we focus on enhancing individuals’ social and technological capabilities rather than offer them the ‘metaverse’ as a rod and carrot, we would not have promoted societal progress significantly.

For many years, technologies that are being employed in educational systems can be identified according to four generations at least. If such a classification is to be made now, it seems triangulations of a third generation of technology with a fourth generation of artificial intelligence after a period of them being intertwined and transformational. Bearing in mind continuous development and innovations in these technologies, it is anticipated that there will be no significant changes in the near future. Rather, new possibilities and a shift in emphasis can be anticipated. Some of the innovations that will be anticipated in the near future based on a mixture of the two technologies driving this educational system are outlined. Some of the potential innovations in AI under the heading of Technology or Techniques Innovations include insight into the use of AI to push new thinking.

8. Conclusion

In this essay, each chapter took different positions in relation to their positions on the potential and possibilities of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the metaverse in the field of education. Finally, the potential and possibility of artificial intelligence in the field of education were discussed. For example, it is possible to use artificial intelligence in the learning process immediately, directly, without postponing or without waiting for a scoring time by fixing their responses/solutions and evaluating them on the road. In summary, these new innovative technologies do not only provide the creation of an effective learner profile in light of actually existing personal, cognitive, emotional, and psychomotor data of the person in the field of education, but they can also help in the learning and teaching process directly as learning companions by making themselves compulsory for students directly in cognitive fields in education.

In addition, as we can see in this essay, they can be presented to the European Society as a scientific journal in the field of technology-oriented education, especially for readers of computer-based education. This research is involving very current research data in the related technology field and is aiming to make the society debates its importance and raise awareness about the seriousness of the needs and opportunities in current research in this area. On the other hand, the metaverse and the advantages it can provide for the education sector were discussed in detail. It was stated that the most critical advantage of the metaverse for the education sector is that it can create a student-centered and student-engaged environment. The section addressed by stating that the metaverse also has some disadvantages. With a study by taking these advantages in the education sector has been shared. Both of these subjects conclude that the essay shed light on the idea that they can include the future a couple of retirement education. Also, with the results, the thesis has included the areas within which these new technologies will be evaluated in the future. In the case of the adoption of the metaverse within the education sector, the data provided has stated that the benefits of this technology outweigh current difficulties posed by this emerging technology.