This article goes on a rant about AR and how it will be used for more spying, emotional manipulation, etc that social media has perpetrated. Then defends VR as somehow shielded from these things:
"Most of us don’t have a healthy relationship with technology, and AR as currently thought of, will just exacerbate that. It’s why I really like VR more than AR, because VR is a separate world that you consciously decide to be in for a time."
And yet the author fails to mention that a good chunk of the VR market is dominated by Facebook, one of the very companies doing the things he railed against. Already they force Facebook login with Oculus. So much for your imagined separation of virtual and real life.
Nobody checks constant notifications on their VR headset; few people mindlessly flip through content streams or empty games on it. The fact that VR is so cumbersome means it gravitates towards more intentional experiences. You decide you want to do X, so you set up your headset and do it. I say this as an owner of one myself.
Of course the more the technology improves the less true this becomes. But for now there's a meaningful difference.
The entire Oculus experience is being mined for data. From what you look at to how violent you are in a game to what sites you visit in-app browsers. Your mannerisms. Your voice. Your movement and reflexes.
You think you decide, but you are more impressionable than you think. Your emotions will be exploited in this new medium even more effectively than the rectangular screen, because you will feel embedded in whatever experience they pull you towards. Sure, it's cute gaming experiences now, just as Farmville was 11 years ago, but the nature of Facebook as a company (and the forced FB login means everything is 1:1 traceable with social network identity), means you and everyone else are going to be manipulated in these worlds. And they'll even be able to measure the effect on your social network activity.
It seems weird to state these as dangers of AR, when they're already so completely encompassed by "having a phone and a lack of critical thinking skills".
There's a strong trend of assuming that "new thing" is going to be "existing problem but worse" without much justification - AR isn't exactly going to do anything which isn't already being done. People are already signed up to constant news alerts, and depending which service you pick, that projects a very specific and effective psychological profile.
Like, by far the most common desire I see from people wanting some heralded perfect AR system is the ability to just ad-block real life. Imagine a world where all billboards, bus adverts, bus stop adverts etc. are just being replaced by white squares - where you are not being driven to subtly filter that out every moment of every day. I mean, the whiplash I get now when I don't have uBlock Origin in a web browser is incredible - all that visual noise is genuinely stressful to deal with.
For my part I don't really care about "AR" as it actually applies to augmenting reality, and in fact I'm pretty sure that if I got such a device I'd have most of the functionality like that turned off, the same way I have most location-aware app functionality disabled on my phone and most notifications turned off on my smartwatch. I just like the idea of having a screen in my glasses that can replace carrying around a Kindle / iPad for reading and other light media consumption.
Seems like this takes a very narrow view of AR and just focuses on every possible negative aspect and for every possible branch only considers the worst case scenario.
Poor quality article.
AR is merely a tool, how we as individuals chose to use it will define what impact is has on each of our lives.
VR will be terrible because, yes, people will be manipulated through virtual realities made up for them to achieve different things. Some options will undoubtedly be good (learning and so on), Others will be worse than any FaceBook bubble + gaming/gambling + video games combined could ever be. Imagine the "re-educational" possibilities here for a sec.
You get to plug in to any reality you want or someone wants for you and you get manipulated through these realities and you no longer live in actual reality but live in a virtual one fabricated for you and people like you and you get manipulated any which way the powers that be want you to be. Gamification will be rampant and will absorb people in to it. They will have little need for actual reality, be it relationships or much else.
> Gamification will be rampant and will absorb people in to it.
When I see how much mundane grinding people are willing to do for video game rewards, it makes me wonder if status or cosmetics in a virtual world will ever be used in place of real compensation for work. Maybe as a gig economy thing? That would effectively give the world controllers the ability to create currency. Virtual economics are already huge and people work in them for fun.
There is so much abuse potential here. Psychologically, it has the potential to change what people are. They will be able to shape people as they see fit --just gamify to achieve whatever goal.
There is no need to confront all the blemishes and warts of actual reality when you can have a perfect universe customized to you pleasing all your psychological needs. Everyone can have their own reality they live in. You can live your life within VR. The more you live in VR, the less you need from actual reality. It's a perfect way to indoctrinate and manipulate people however you wish.
Anyone working on this should understand the consequences of their work down the road and get out and not contribute to this.
Imagine that Openwater.cc is successful, and we have the ability to extract and replay memories in full “lived experience” resolution. How many people might choose to spend their ~75 years “living” in the peak experiences of mankind rather than the mundane struggle of real life? Would that be a social paradigm we want to support, to allow?
You're still ultimately stating an intent to limit other people's freedom of thought and leisure "for their own good" - it's baked right into this idea.
If people choose to spend more time in the virtual then the physical, then that's a pretty good sign you've setup your society wrong and need to work on fixing that.
I don't think that's an apt conclusion. If you addict people to something psychologically it does not imply that thing is better than reality. You can get addicted mice to consume themselves to death via addition, is that better than whatever mouse reality is?
Conversely, an individual in an uncontacted tribe, do they miss out on this? Do they feel left out of anything modern? No. What about most people if they were dropped into an isolated tribe, how would they feel. Why so? Point is, you can deal with reality just fine, you don't need distraction. Distraction is a distraction from reality but is unnecessary and completely disconnects people from their selves.
Could we get a regular uncontacted tribesperson hooked on a VR future, you bet, even if they were living out their lives just fine before ---just as they could get addicted to hard drugs even if they did not need that before.
“ You're still ultimately stating an intent to limit other people's freedom of thought and leisure "for their own good" - it's baked right into this idea.”
Where does free will absolutism end? The tip of my nose. Truthfully, I couldn’t care less on an individual level, so the concern is not “their own good”. Such a system would be the ultimate drug. The concern is species level. For instance, physical reproduction would be a dim, depressing shadow compared to the heights of ecstasy the system can produce on tap. Better ramp up that robot womb research...
But VR could also help people achieve maximum hedonic satisfaction at minimal cost and carbon footprint. Your one bedroom apartment could look like Versailles (until you step on a Lego). Your spouse could look like your celebrity sex fantasy. You could simulate any experience that few can afford, like driving a Lamborghini or visiting the Taj Mahal or even visiting the Moon. With VR that goes beyond vision, your healthy vegetarian food could taste like a bacon cheeseburger.
Yes but that’s precisely the scary part. Nothing has consequences. Your psychological profile is completely overturned AND it can be gamified to change to accommodate whatever the powers that be want whoever they are.
At that point people become an illusion a strange simulation of themselves.
Between my hobbies and sports, something that has been driven home for me over the last 5-10 years is that there is so much going on around us that we never see.
If we use AR to see things that are already there, that will be one thing. But odds are that we will instead use it to see things that aren't there.
Came here to post the same video, but I was coming from a positive viewpoint. Can't wait to get an interface like this, but have it open source so I can customise it however I want.
Augmented reality is the only thing I am excited for, more so than virtual reality is right now (and I say that as someone who has a couple of VR headsets around the house, the Reverb G2 and Valve Index). To me, VR will always be relegated to gaming and solo interactive experiences, augmented reality has already proven itself in fields such as medical and training purposes. Microsoft Hololens has been widely successful in the avenues they have pursued and deployed in, going as far back as 2016. I know some plants are using them for maintenance, if I recall elevator techs using them to repair elevators more efficiently, vehicle mechanics and more.
The positives outweigh the negatives and it is sad to see the article only focuses on the downsides. Find me a technology that doesn't have a negative?
I disagree that positives will outweigh the negatives. AR and VR are more invasive* than mobile phones. If the ubiquity of mobile phones has taught us anything, it's that tech companies will gain even more access to your personal lives. I certainly see a point where tech companies will know you better than you and can predict your behavior with a fair margin of accuracy. I do agree that most technologies have downsides. Having said that, you do need to realize that we're biochemical beings and we are affected more by certain phenomena than others. I am pretty sure most people check their phones first thing after waking up and cell phones for all intents and purposes were virtually non-existent just 20 years ago. AR and VR will only amplify the dopamine hits which rewire our brains into performing certain actions. This will mean more leverage for the tech companies to influence you into doing things you wouldn't have otherwise. Remember that thing from Amazon you bought which you didn't really need? It's only going to become worse.
TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE ASPIRATION FOR FREEDOM
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, “OK, let’s compromise. Give me half of what I asked.” The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages.
other people's augmented realities will be awful. an augmented reality we can holistically build our of pieces ourselves will be at fantastic deep frontier where countless people can define & shape themselves & their views.
good of luck escaping out into a real metaverse, planet earth. few large participants on your planet will shoot for that greater good.
Pokemon Go is fully 5 years old. It's AR feature was a decent gimmick but pretty basic and a bit buggy. In the subsequent 5 years there's been nothing to equal it. I won't say AR is "dead" but it seems unlikely to reach mainstream adoption any time soon.
The hardware for wearable AR isn't main stream yet. Handset AR doesn't have the same wow factor. We're only now coming to a self sustaining VR industry but things are still progressing.
The mistake being made is that audio based AR is here and practical, if underutilized. Apple’s transparency mode (and competitor equivalents) is a critical innovation both on usability and social acceptance levels. It supports the blending of digital augmentations on the real world. Audio based AR is also free of many social signs that visual AR systems have struggle with. In particular, I work with teenagers and there seems to be little stigma around holding a conversation with earbuds in place.
> there seems to be little stigma around holding a conversation with earbuds in place
Maybe it's a generational or cultural thing, but I find that kind of thing incredibly rude. But I'm also the kind of person who takes my sunglasses off when I'm talking face-to-face with other people.
Is there one killer app for the iPhone? The cumulative experience is the killer app. Likewise, the persistent AR environment will also show us value from the collective, incremental improvements over non-augmented experiences: the sidewalk up ahead has a splash of black ice, the pollen count is high by the creek so cycle on the main road today, etc.
I’d argue that a good mobile browser was the killer app that brought the iPhone to the forefront. It differentiated it from what else was available at the time. It’s hard to pinpoint a killer app now because the ecosystem is mature, but a killer app is often what gets a platform off the ground in the first place.
I always figured AR would be a replacement for my monitor(s) allowing cool new applications with space and wouldn't leave my workspace. Obviously, there are lots of applications when walking around, but not a whole lot I'd want (given that they can't come up with much that isn't Apple Watch/iPhone strapped to face). Maybe I'll never get my dream of carrying a pair of goggles in my backpack that can let me spread out my work beyond the laptop screen in a hotel room or on a plane.
52 comments
[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 90.2 ms ] thread"Most of us don’t have a healthy relationship with technology, and AR as currently thought of, will just exacerbate that. It’s why I really like VR more than AR, because VR is a separate world that you consciously decide to be in for a time."
And yet the author fails to mention that a good chunk of the VR market is dominated by Facebook, one of the very companies doing the things he railed against. Already they force Facebook login with Oculus. So much for your imagined separation of virtual and real life.
Of course the more the technology improves the less true this becomes. But for now there's a meaningful difference.
You think you decide, but you are more impressionable than you think. Your emotions will be exploited in this new medium even more effectively than the rectangular screen, because you will feel embedded in whatever experience they pull you towards. Sure, it's cute gaming experiences now, just as Farmville was 11 years ago, but the nature of Facebook as a company (and the forced FB login means everything is 1:1 traceable with social network identity), means you and everyone else are going to be manipulated in these worlds. And they'll even be able to measure the effect on your social network activity.
There's a strong trend of assuming that "new thing" is going to be "existing problem but worse" without much justification - AR isn't exactly going to do anything which isn't already being done. People are already signed up to constant news alerts, and depending which service you pick, that projects a very specific and effective psychological profile.
Like, by far the most common desire I see from people wanting some heralded perfect AR system is the ability to just ad-block real life. Imagine a world where all billboards, bus adverts, bus stop adverts etc. are just being replaced by white squares - where you are not being driven to subtly filter that out every moment of every day. I mean, the whiplash I get now when I don't have uBlock Origin in a web browser is incredible - all that visual noise is genuinely stressful to deal with.
Poor quality article.
AR is merely a tool, how we as individuals chose to use it will define what impact is has on each of our lives.
You get to plug in to any reality you want or someone wants for you and you get manipulated through these realities and you no longer live in actual reality but live in a virtual one fabricated for you and people like you and you get manipulated any which way the powers that be want you to be. Gamification will be rampant and will absorb people in to it. They will have little need for actual reality, be it relationships or much else.
When I see how much mundane grinding people are willing to do for video game rewards, it makes me wonder if status or cosmetics in a virtual world will ever be used in place of real compensation for work. Maybe as a gig economy thing? That would effectively give the world controllers the ability to create currency. Virtual economics are already huge and people work in them for fun.
There is no need to confront all the blemishes and warts of actual reality when you can have a perfect universe customized to you pleasing all your psychological needs. Everyone can have their own reality they live in. You can live your life within VR. The more you live in VR, the less you need from actual reality. It's a perfect way to indoctrinate and manipulate people however you wish.
Anyone working on this should understand the consequences of their work down the road and get out and not contribute to this.
This whole post is just a statement of intent to manipulate people through other means "for their own good".
If people choose to spend more time in the virtual then the physical, then that's a pretty good sign you've setup your society wrong and need to work on fixing that.
Conversely, an individual in an uncontacted tribe, do they miss out on this? Do they feel left out of anything modern? No. What about most people if they were dropped into an isolated tribe, how would they feel. Why so? Point is, you can deal with reality just fine, you don't need distraction. Distraction is a distraction from reality but is unnecessary and completely disconnects people from their selves.
Could we get a regular uncontacted tribesperson hooked on a VR future, you bet, even if they were living out their lives just fine before ---just as they could get addicted to hard drugs even if they did not need that before.
Where does free will absolutism end? The tip of my nose. Truthfully, I couldn’t care less on an individual level, so the concern is not “their own good”. Such a system would be the ultimate drug. The concern is species level. For instance, physical reproduction would be a dim, depressing shadow compared to the heights of ecstasy the system can produce on tap. Better ramp up that robot womb research...
That already exists, unsurprisingly from Amazon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/21/mission...
At that point people become an illusion a strange simulation of themselves.
If we use AR to see things that are already there, that will be one thing. But odds are that we will instead use it to see things that aren't there.
The positives outweigh the negatives and it is sad to see the article only focuses on the downsides. Find me a technology that doesn't have a negative?
What? No they aren't... There's probably 10x more mobile phones than XR headsets... Did you mean invasive?
Also, I really love that thing I bought from Amazon that I don't need so don't knock it!
Smartphones, yes, but cell phones were pretty common in the 90s.
In the western world maybe, but not if you consider the entire world.
125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, “OK, let’s compromise. Give me half of what I asked.” The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.
126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages.
good of luck escaping out into a real metaverse, planet earth. few large participants on your planet will shoot for that greater good.
Maybe it's a generational or cultural thing, but I find that kind of thing incredibly rude. But I'm also the kind of person who takes my sunglasses off when I'm talking face-to-face with other people.
Even in the movies all they can come up with is ads.
Anything useful it might be able to do makes the task redundant.
It can tell you how to put together your IKEA furniture, then it could tell a robot what to do.
You can program robots to build furniture, but programming them to build furniture from a box in my house is not going to be worth the effort.
You'd need close to general AI, when we can do that we'll probably have general purpose robots in the home also.
https://www.oursainsburys.biz/
No, we evolved to jump sharks. Just like that straying into purpose-driven evolution and just so stories did. Motivated reasoning.
He had me until then, though.