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Black Mirror/White Mirror: A Look at Our Dystopic and Utopic AR Futures
- 2. BLACK MIRROR / WHITE MIRROR: A LOOK AT OUR DYSTOPIC AND UTOPIC AR FUTURES Tom Emrich Partner, Super Ventures @tomemrich #AWE2017
- 3. BLACK MIRROR / WHITE MIRROR: A LOOK AT OUR DYSTOPIC AND UTOPIC AR FUTURES @TOMEMRICH
- 5. TOOLS
- 6. GOOD
- 7. BAD
- 8. UTOPIA
- 9. EMPATHY
- 10. ABILITY
- 11. TRAINING
- 12. MEMORY
- 13. TRUTH
- 14. FANTASY
- 15. CONNECTION
- 16. IMMORTALITY
- 17. ENLIGHTENMENT
- 18. DYSTOPIA
- 19. ISOLATION
- 20. LIES
- 21. CENSORSHIP
- 22. CONDITIONING
- 23. DENY
- 25. YOU CHOOSE
Editor's Notes
- Hi Everyone For the past 5 years I have dedicated my life to wearable technology and what really drives me is in how this technology will impact humanity
- For many, technology and humanity are at odds Many of my friends see technology as taking us further and further from being human But my view is that we would not be human without the technology that we have today Or at least not the humans that we see around us today We have been augmenting ourselves as far back as our caveman days with fire to keep us warm, daggers to kill and cook our food and clothing to protect us from the elements
- These tools have helped our species evolve and change into the technologically advanced society that we are today Of course the tools are much more sophisticated since our caveman days Smartphones, tablets and computers have replaced torches, spearheads and loin clothes And this next wave – the internet of things and in it wearable tech, AR+VR will be the next set of tools that push our species forward
- But with all tools, they can be used for good
- Or they can be used for evil It is up to us to choose how we want to use this technology And for this reason I wanted to extrapolate the possible utopic and dystopic futures which AR+VR currently promise to achieve How these Superpowers will change the world
- Because our mind quickly wants to cut to the bad part I thought I would start off with the glass half full perspective How will AR+VR realize our dream of utopia
- VR has been labelled the empathy machine and its because it is a tool that allows us to literally be another person In Barcelona’s BeAnother Lab this meant to switch gender But with VR we will have the ability to experience being another gender, sexuality, race and even another species entirely How can you live a day as a Syrian Refugee as was the case in Within’s Clouds Over Sidra and not leave that experience with greater compassion and understanding They say that you don’t know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes Well VR gives us those shoes And it has the potential to transform us into a highly empathic society and could possible be a critical tool in what is already the unravelling of stereotypes and stories we have told each other about ourselves VR’s empathy machine will be key to breaking down barriers between each other, and cause us to question our own identities which could leave us as a much more connected and compassionate society
- But as much as these devices can advance us on the inside They are also equipping us with super human abilities David Eaglman’s sensory vest which translates eSight and ODG working on solutions that enable the nearly blind to see ReWalk and Ekso Bionics creating wearable robots to help parapeligics walk These technologies are creating a superhuman class - starting with people with disabilities And it is just a matter of time that we will be swapping our body parts for new upgraded ones at Best Buy in order to walk faster, see better, see more, and beyond We will no longer live in a world limited by the abilities we are born with but rather the ones that are available for us to purchase
- AR+VR technology will also equip us with new skills Like Neo learning karate in the Matrix We will plug ourselves into these devices to get training from Football (like StriVR) to how to better handle situations of racial and sexual discrimation (such as the simulations done by Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction lab) And while VR will place us in situations we would never actually be able to train in without risk, like Military, Police, Firefighters and so on – AR will provide us with remote assistance like that offered by Scope AR which not only provides training on the spot but can immediately turn an amateur user into a pro with nothing more than putting on a headset This is another way AR+VR will create limitless possibilities for future generations – accelerating what has already begun with the availability of the internet
- This availability of information is not just useful in a work situation Having knowledge about the world around you as part of your eyesight changes your entire experience, giving you context which can heighten and improve all real life interactions Take for example meeting a stranger or even just someone you met briefly at another event, with smart glasses you can be presented with information about that person that can help you break the ice quickly or remind you of previous shared interests that allow you both to have a much more meaningful conversation than the ones that we are having now In this future, AR will provide us with a universal memory - removing the notion of “strangers” which will help us form personal connections much more quickly and much deeper and facilitate business much more efficiently than ever before
- But apart from just providing us with information on who the person is Wearable technology will also be able to tell us how people are feeling and in turn how we are making them feel Right now we use body language and guesswork to try to get inside the hearts of others and because of that we often don’t take their feelings in consideration But what if the clothing we wore could tell the outside world how we are feeling This is exactly what Sensoree is doing in California with the GER mood sweater which uses GSR sensors attached to a sweater filled with LEDs to color code the users emotions Not only can this tech hold a deeper level of accountability for the actions and words that we say to one another But it could also be used as another bridge of empathy to understand how that someone so different from you could be feeling the same way about something shared This type of technology act as tools to create a much more vulnerable and emotional intelligent society
- But it is not all serious AR+VR will unleash our innate need to create, story tell, play and personalize Its already happening with Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Snow with stickers, World Lenses and Face Filters We are bringing magic to the real world Soon we will be able to walk around the world and see it the way we want – its raining IRL who cares I want to see sunshine and rainbows, don’t like the lights and chairs in this conference room, no problem just bloom up a menu and change it in an instant AR gives us the power to make the real world less shitty VR provides us with a way to escape it entirely into a perfect utopia unscathed by the existing world around us
- Of course as social creatures we crave connection We continue to debate whether our existing technology tools are bringing us together or moving us further apart This same debate will continue in this next wave But the launch of Facebook Spaces shows a future without borders where we can be together in the same space and interact with me in China and you here in California Both Microsoft and Meta have shown how AR headsets can teleport users from one room to another allowing us to interact with holograms And its just a matter of time until we move from cartoon characters to a time when our AR+VR experience feels, smells, sounds and looks just as real as the experience that you are having now
- But it doesn’t stop there …. with AR+VR we can also cross time too Death may no longer be a thing in our near future With AI + Virtual Humans like those from Quantum Capture we could continue to chat with Grandma long after she is gone Or become great friends with scientists, pop stars and other figures that have had their consciousness uploaded to the cloud and their likeness
- But what I find most interesting is how this shift from 2D computing to 3D computing may be key to our spiritual enlightenment As we spend more and more time in other AR+VR realities Or playing god in personalizing and creating new ones And as we begin to tear ourselves away from this material world to play in a mixed reality made mostly out of vaporware and simulation How do we return not questioning how real this “real” reality is? What is this life? Which is the simulation? As AR+VR strips away the layers of our identity, ability, skills, mental and emotional capacity and even mortality – where does that leave God Our AR+VR future, could elevate our society spirituality ultimately being the tool that finally unlocks our ascension to a higher power
- Excited! Good! Now let me tear it all down And show you how these same tools we saw make our dreams come true Turn our world into our worst nightmare
- Where we saw the ability to connect with Facebook Spaces, AltSpace, High Fidelity and other social enablers in the AR+VR space, we could just as easily argue these experiences leaving us devoid of physical “real world” contact Like mobile is blamed from distracting us from having meaningful dinner table conversations, AR+VR will come under fire for taking away the “human” element in relating And its easy to see why Go into the expo and watch someone interact in VR To the outside world they are alone Is this our future?
- In AR+VR we are able to be anyone, anything but where does that leave integrity and truth to who we “really” are? We are already seeing trolling and harassment issues in VR as users hide behind avatars that are not really them As we being to take on other identities, will this give us permission to pretend at all times Will the world become one never ending Instagram feed of perfect coffees and beachy smiles while the actual users are miserable, sad, alone and angry plugged in at home?
- While VR may be an empathy machine allowing us to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes And AR provide us with a tool that can make everyone a friend These tools can just as easily help us creating stronger filter bubbles, echo chambers and facilitate discimination and hate If you are a fan of the Black Mirror TV series, the UK Christmas special with John Hamm eluded to this type of future where AR glasses or contact lenses could allow us to literally censor people we don’t want to see out of our life – friends, co-workers, races, genders, sexualities and so on And the same filters and lenses that made the world filled with rainbows on Snapchat, could be used to turn men into women, blue eyes into brown, black into white and so on We have already seen what happens when our digital world is one-sided, just imagine what happens when we bring this out into the real world around us
- And where VR is the perfect tool to train firefighters to save lives We are already seeing gamers shoot guns and kill other players in more immersive gaming environments than ever before When I play The Climb I leave seriously feeling like I could rock climb so could these same players be conditioning themselves to create muscle memory in violence As these experiences feel more real, we may well see violent acts occur because folks are confused what reality they are in or because they were prepared in a simulation And as we move from Pokemon Go to Grand Theft Auto Go we have to be careful The American Psychological Association observed that research demonstrated a link "between violent video game use and both increases in aggressive behavior ... and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and moral engagement.” The AR+VR experiences we create will shape the citizens of tomorrow – who will they be
- And while AR+VR could turn amateur workers into pros, give us super human abilities, make us more emotionally intelligent All of these tools are currently available for sale This means that this utopic future is only available to those that can afford it Access to tools may well be the new disability of our time This was the future depicted in the Matt Damon movie Elysium and it’s a very real outcome AR+VR is currently out of reach for most consumers and even as the cost comes down with scale we should still expect issues unless the economic models change We are still seeing today, on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, a global divide in smartphone use – smartphone use in Canada, US, UK, Australia and South Korea is 60% or more of the adult population while Ethopia, Uganda, Pakistan all sit at 11% of below But it isn’t just access to devices or even the internet which could create a dystopic outcome, but government or corporate control of the metaverses that come with AR+VR which could see users blocked from other worlds, access to content or more This was depicted in Ready Player One where there were public zones everyone could visit in the OASIS versus other zones that needed credits or money to get you there Right now we are debating net neutrality, what is the net neutrality of the near future?
- Finally as AR+VR unravel the layers of humanity getting us closer and closer to god What will we find? In Utopia we were one step closer to Buddha Bliss But as we find ourselves with the same power to create & destroy As we begin to question this reality We could end up finding no meaning in it at all Leaving us empty and devoid of purpose
- It is up to you how AR and VR will be used as a tool. Will you cut an onion or go all psycho? As you begin to help shape this new wave of computing be sure that you realize that you have a voice in the direction this technology can be used to help bring us together. Choose wisely Thank you