Augmented reality inventor warns it could be far worse than social media | Hacker News Reader

Augmented reality inventor warns it could be far worse than social media

bigthink.com

18 pointsbonkerbits6 comments

All of the AR/VR/metaverse talk has given me a bit better understanding of my dad, who had no interest in even learning how to use a PC ca. 2000 and still has no desire to use the internet, and my mother-in-law, who has a deep skepticism of the internet.

“But Mom! You studied computer science in university and have worked in IT your whole career! Why do you keep on using old fashioned keyboards and screens?” - my kid to me in 10-15 years, probably.

I wonder if pulling a smartphone out of your pocket to do something on the screen will look like an old man pulling out a pocket watch to check the time did to people in the 90s with digital watches…

I think VR is far worse than AR. VR is pure imagination and can be more addictive than augmenting real life with additional information. At least AR has a foot in real world.

Maybe. I think that AR has the potential to be far more pervasive and unescapable. AR makes the entire world a canvas, and the possibilities of public ridicule and negativity are endless. Especially if we as a society embrace and then “require” AR devices like we did with cell phones—-required not so much by law or policy but by societal norms and expectations. Imagine growing up as a child in an AR environment. Imagine what bullying could look like then—nobody would need to look at their phones to see the gossip about you, they could just look at you and see it painted all over you. This is going to fracture us completely as we begin to paint our internal filter bubbles onto the real world around us building deeper feedback loops. People will look at things and truly see different realities. Perhaps the dystopian AR reality will actually drive more VR addiction as people try to escape their shitty realities.

There's also potential for new heights of coordination and togetherness. It's the same battle for our soul that's going on now, with the internet.

If development in this space is driven only by the same unregulated, profit-motivated organizations that have created our current social media status-quo, what’s to make that utopian outcome any more likely than it was for the current Internet?

We lost that battle. Now we're in a fight for our lives against disinformation and AR can only make it worse, judging by what facebook has done to most communities.

Worst part of it is that you won't be able to opt out, because your behaviours, likes and friends are being tracked whether you like it or not.

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