Offstone JANUARY 2024 EDITION

30 into our moral and ethical cores. The recent Palestine-Israel war is an example of how AI position or posture communications of the masses through the manipulation of information and served as tools to emancipate or disseminate propaganda. In the metaverse, we discuss three issues related to AI: gender swapping, language used to communicate gender identity, and Islamic position regarding gender swapping in this space. Gender-Swapping in Metaverse Gender swapping is defined as using an avatar that is different from the biological gender of the user. The usage of avatars is fast becoming mainstream and has created an immersive, creative, and imaginative environment for users. Users can create their own avatars from many choices given to them and change their gender at a whim. Some games even allow for more than one avatar in the gamer’s portfolio. The effect of gender swapping is of great interest as it may reflect a change in a gamer's behaviour, communication, and decision-making. The Language Used to Communicate Gender Identity in the Metaverse Language use has been shown to shape how gender identities are communicated in the metaverse. There is a strong alignment between the physical and demographic characteristics of avatars, actual selves, and ideal selves. However, they also highlighted that the choices of avatars portrayed idealised personality traits. Additionally, the variability in avatar personality traits suggested a link between avatar creation and social norms. The avatars were also influenced by the specific online activity context. For example, if the avatars are used for battle-type games, the avatars’ clothing would match the male-dominated characteristics of the games. Similarly, Bredikhina and Giard highlighted that when Japanese male YouTubers swapped genders to cute females, they fantasised about how feminine avatars should act and interact for online entertainment. These findings offer valuable insights for understanding avatar creation in diverse contexts and have implications for AI and virtual world content developers and designers. In addition, Palomares and colleagues reported that when participants had avatars that matched their true gender (gender-matched avatars), they were more likely to use gender-typical language, including references to emotion, apologies, and tentative language. Conversely, when participants had gender-mismatched avatars, they used counter-typical language. This phenomenon is especially observable among women. These findings align with the self-categorisation theory's explanation of gender-based language use, emphasising the importance of true gender identity and gender salience in online communication. Communication by users would directly influence the language of the avatar in the metaverse. With multiple interactions with other users, the metaverse environment would conversely influence the users with increasing immersions.