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Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

danielsisson.com

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Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#41

Post by chadash »

germinalphrase wrote: post #37
lostgame wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occlusion has gotten significantly better, for sure. That being said; there's still no 'killer app'.

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.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#42

Post by droopyEyelids »

hinkley wrote: post #9

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.

or to hide the unpleasant stuff that is there.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#43

Post by psychomugs »

germinalphrase wrote: post #37
lostgame wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occlusion has gotten significantly better, for sure. That being said; there's still no 'killer app'.

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 the killer app is more of a killer feature: internet connectivity.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#45

Post by XorNot »

germinalphrase wrote: post #30
XorNot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should someone like you get to decide how anyone else chooses to spend their ~75 years of existence though? This whole post is just a statement of intent to manipulate people through other means "for their own good".

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.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#46

Post by mc32 »

XorNot wrote: post #45
germinalphrase wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#47

Post by chrisco255 »

brundolf wrote: post #14
chrisco255 wrote: post #3

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…

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…

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.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#48

Post by toomanybeersies »

DC1350 wrote: post #10
mc32 wrote: post #8

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 yo…

> 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…

> it makes me wonder if status or cosmetics in a virtual world will ever be used in place of real compensation for work

That already exists, unsurprisingly from Amazon: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/21/mission...

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#49

Post by toomanybeersies »

germinalphrase wrote: post #21
tootie wrote: post #16

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 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 the…

> 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.

Re: Augmented reality will exacerbate our unhealthy relationship with technology

#50

Post by germinalphrase »

XorNot wrote: post #45
germinalphrase wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“ 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...

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