Colombia became the first country to hold a trial in the metaverse. According to Reuters, judges and participants in the traffic dispute attended the two-hour hearing.
The hearings will continue to be held partly real, partly in the metaverse, according to Kiones.
While lawsuits are moving towards Zoom and Google Meet, few have explored the metaverse. Early examples of interviews and encounters in the metaverse were derided due to the often uninteresting cartoonish renderings.
The February 15 trial in Colombia was streamed on Youtube and went without much trouble, except for a few shocking camera turns and garbled movements. Kiones admitted that the experiment caused discontent among 70% of viewers.
Juan David Gutierrez, a professor of public policy at the University of Rosario, has noted that litigation using the metaverse has a long way to go.
Quiones agreed that costs and accessibility should be discussed, but stressed that the virtual process is useful in situations where parties to a disagreement do not want to meet each other in real life.
Gutiérrez said that this is how Colombian judges are looking for solutions to help their overburdened judiciary:
Reality Labs lost a whopping $4.3 billion in the fourth quarter and almost $14 billion for the whole year, but Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised to invest even more in the metaverse.
