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Comment by remir | Hacker News Reader

We haven't seen nothing yet. Smartphone addiction is a thing, but at least you can put your phone in your pocket on silent and go on with your day.

But AR lenses are coming and will be the next big thing in my opinion. Imagine being immersed in this semi-virtual world all day long. Imagine being a child and grow up in a world where these things are ubiquitous. Imagine what this will do to their attention.

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Imagine the world a hundred years from now, where almost everything is presented as augmented reality, and where someone who doesn't have permanently augmented vision is seen as an outsider, much like the Amish today.

Think about nothing being sold with a color or pattern anymore, because you can just customize it to whatever you want in your AR view. Think about products not having any sort of printed imagery, because it's pointless when animated digital overlay overrides it anyway.

Think about being one of those outsiders who sees an entire world where everything you interact with is black and white and you can't hold but the lowest job, because you are literally blind to 99.9% of "reality". Think about not being able to live a middle class life without augmenting your vision.

I assume you look at that world as bad. Though that's purely assumption on my part, since you offer no value judgement.

But using that assumption and for the sake of discussion, I'll point out that your dystopian vision could be applied to most technologies. Imagine a time when anyone can get a hold of you. They no longer need to write a letter or go to a telegraph office, your voice is there, whenever they want it. They are able to invade your home with this attention seeking technology by installing a little bell. You are more and more marginalized in the workplace if you are not permanently wired to this network of contacts.

Of course, this process escalates as technology escalates, but it's not the first time that someone has looked at the future and said "think about this world that is so alien". I just wonder where we cross the line to dystopia

Yes, I'm old enough to remember how glorious it was that, as a kid, you would be unreachable most of the day without even your parents freaking out. I think smartphones are a small piece of a current dystopia.

I can turn off my phone most of the day and still interact with society, though. A ubiquitous AR has a high probability of being nightmarish ~50 years in, IMHO.

We all worry about that future, and have seen the crazy AR video about SPAM on vimeo.

But humans will constantly optimize their lives for greater happiness.

Each piece of technology that makes life better, can also be a trap of addiction. But we will figure this out.

I have access to stimulus like sugar, drugs, alcohol, and gambling, all of which are easily overindulged, but somehow most of us figure out a good balance. Those that can't get the balance right, are supported with in different ways like laws that protect the public.

The AR integration will be the same. When it gets to the point that long term suffering outweighs temporary happiness society will set up boundaries and EVERYONE will be ok with that. Maybe some people will think you are silly for not having AR lenses in all the time, but it won't be that much different from being that guy who doesn't drink at a party.

> I have access to stimulus like sugar, drugs, alcohol, and gambling,

I think the current diabetes and opioid epidemics show that a huge chunk of society is not "optimizing their lives for greater happiness".

Bingo. Some time ago, I watched a video of Mark Zuckerberg at some VR conference and he said something like "VR is not about replacing reality. It's about making it better".

I mean, imagine the quality and realism of the AR/VR tech in 10, 20 or 30 years.

You can almost see some Black Mirror-esque scenario where the earth is overpopulated, resources are diminishing, there's less and less quality jobs, so why not upload your brain into a VR world, get rid of your physical body and live in this virtual paradise forever without having to work, pay taxes, without worrying about getting physically hurt, etc... The question is: are you still alive? Is it still "you" that is in this computer?

That's the premise of one of my favorite, underrated SciFi books, Everyone in Silico[0]. It's also part of the premise of Ready Player One[1].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Silico-Jim-Munroe-2002-11-22...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0307...

There's a game exactly about this coming out soon named The Last Night, you might want to look into it

http://oddtales.net/

Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge explores this a bit. Classroom distractions become students throwing up graphics in their shared AR and the one guy in the room that doesn't know how to access it is left out of the joke. It's been a while since I read it but I think one of the big plotlines was getting one of the older characters to finally learn how to use the shared AR.

Just as you can put your phone in your pocket, you can take off your AR lens. (At least until it's surgically implanted. Even then, it should still have a silent mode, just like your phone.)

The free version will come with ads. That you can't turn off. I'm not counting on a silent mode.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Maybe you should consider building the first implantable lens, so you can shape the way that the technology develops.

I don't have the money required to be a decision maker.

I don't have to imagine, I just have to wait.

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