We present a computational modelling approach which targets capturing the specifics on how to virtually augment a Metaverse user's available social time capacity via using an independent and autonomous version of her digital representation in the Metaverse. We motivate why this is a fundamental building block to model large-scale social networks in the Metaverse, and emerging properties herein. We envision a Metaverse-focused extension of the traditional avatar concept: An avatar can be as well programmed to operate independently when its user is not controlling it directly, thus turning it into an agent-based digital human representation. This way, we highlight how such an independent avatar could help its user to better navigate their social relationships and optimize their socializing time in the Metaverse by (partly) offloading some interactions to the avatar. We model the setting and identify the characteristic variables by using selected concepts from social sciences: ego networks, social presence, and social cues. Then, we formulate the problem of maximizing the user's non-avatar-mediated spare time as a linear optimization. Finally, we analyze the feasible region of the problem and we present some initial insights on the spare time that can be achieved for different parameter values of the avatar-mediated interactions.

翻译：我们提出了一种计算建模方法，旨在阐明如何通过元宇宙中用户数字表征的独立自主版本，虚拟扩展其可用社交时间容量。我们论证了为何这是建模元宇宙大规模社交网络及其涌现特性的基础构建模块。我们设想对传统虚拟化身概念进行元宇宙导向的延伸：当用户未直接操控时，虚拟化身也可被编程为自主运行，从而转化为基于智能体的数字人类表征。通过这种方式，我们揭示了此类独立虚拟化身如何通过（部分）转移交互任务至虚拟化身，帮助用户更好地管理社交关系并优化其在元宇宙中的社交时间效率。我们利用社会科学中的核心概念（自我中心网络、社交存在感与社交线索）对场景进行建模并识别特征变量，继而将用户非虚拟化身中介空闲时间最大化问题表述为线性优化模型。最后，我们分析了该问题的可行域，并就不同虚拟化身中介交互参数值下可获得的空闲时间提供了初步见解。