AR pioneer warns that metaverse could make “reality disappear”

&quot;You have violated the terms of service and your account has been suspended. You no longer have access to Reality.&quot;<p>You know you&#x27;re going in the wrong direction as a species if a corporation can have control of your every interaction, and they can take that access away if they so wish. They do it today, why should it be any different when the metaverse exists?

Rosenberg contends AR will be practically impossible to live without [1], and that its most obvious use case is labeling persons in your environment — and labeling them in a way they have zero control over, and limited ability to opt out of. Rosenberg hints this may exacerbate interpersonal conflict, and that removing the shroud of anonymity from public spaces could make the metaverse difficult to escape from.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bigthink.com&#x2F;the-future&#x2F;metaverse-augmented-reality-danger&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bigthink.com&#x2F;the-future&#x2F;metaverse-augmented-reality-...</a>

I play a concerning amount of VR Chat because it helped me greatly during COVID while I was single. It is an amazing experience, but I find it very dangerous for society in some ways. It has improved my mental health I think, but it&#x27;s limiting my real world socialization so I don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s that healthy.<p>You can very easily replace your real life with it outside of work and bills, and get all of your social needs from it. As someone with crippling social anxiety, it removes something that triggers my social anxiety and I&#x27;m able to easily make friends. People are more open, identity just isn&#x27;t a thing because everyone is anything they want to be, people are more open to being &#x27;close&#x27; to other people and forming relationships with them. I&#x27;ve been comparing it to the early internet in the 90&#x27;s and 2000&#x27;s, especially since the entire game outside of the base code is something like 99% community created by artists with great creativity.<p>I dance a lot in VR in EDM clubs which I have never done in real life. The other night I went to a real world concert and I danced for the first time in my life. I felt confident and knew other people didn&#x27;t care, finally. People started talking to me, they were interested in me. I honestly didn&#x27;t even know how to process it until the show was over, but it was definitely because of my gained confidence in VR.<p>It&#x27;s the bleeding edge of the metaverse: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R1wUg9HCODU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R1wUg9HCODU</a>

Dystopian maybe, but think of the great ROI.

Eh, I think of what Jaron Lanier said years ago about how VR is more ethical when it&#x27;s time-limited and kinda clunky: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aDRN_dZNJUM&amp;t=1935s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aDRN_dZNJUM&amp;t=1935s</a>

I&#x27;m already inundated with endless popups, advertisements, surveys, and other requests when I browse the web on my mobile device.<p>I don&#x27;t want to have to do that for everyday living too.

I can’t help but draw a comparison between metaverse, and meta as is used describe an optimal play strategy in competitive games. In the latter, the meta is controlled by the company pushing out new content. In the former, I imagine the company formerly known as Facebook will have control over the metaverse in a similar way. The difference being one is an entertaining game and the other will have real effects on the real world.

Somewhat ironic is that lots of people are looking forward to virtual worlds where they can explore without reality getting in the way.<p>Slowly at first, in fits and starts, but likely people will get ensnared into it and like social media, find it difficult to live without.<p>Then, the company, or whoever controls it will become pretty powerful not only in this synthetic realm but also in reality as the barrier from one to another is blurred.

It feels like many of us are already living in a dystopian nightmare, even without the metaverse. Day-after-day of mentally draining video calls, constant slack notifications...

That trend had been going on for quite a while now. When you consider the amount of time people are spending on TV, gaming, movies and social networks it’s pretty clear that people are already spending a lot of time in virtual reality and prefer it that way. And I see that trend continuing.<p>What’s scary is that if this reality is controlled by large companies with profit motives. They already manipulate us a lot all kinds of media.

This Japanese&#x2F;Colombian short film on that theme from a few years ago has really stuck with me<p>&gt;HYPER-REALITY <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;YJg02ivYzSs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;YJg02ivYzSs</a>

It&#x27;s dystopian, but maybe inevitable? It might be the only way for economic growth and standard of livings (or some dystopian version of these standards) to continue increasing globally without the human ecological footprint becoming even more disastrous than it currently is. People&#x27;s lives becoming more virtual may be a (sad) way to use a smaller amount of real world resources and stop trampling the planet.

So more of the same.<p>Lifecycle of medias is immutable. IIRC, the stages are something like pioneers, settlers, robber barons, wasteland, rediscovery by hipsters, etc.

yeah black mirror is a horror series about technology going in the wrong direction. it was entertainment, not a documentary

If the people addicted to social media disappear behind VR headsets, that will be <i>so</i> nice.

Well we are getting <i>a</i> metaverse, just like we are getting <i>a</i> crypto economy. Our choices are around the form it takes, not if it will happen. If good people sit idly by, or dismiss it, we will get the worst versions of both.

Isn&#x27;t that the whole point? We get somewhere to escape the real world and Big Company get their own world without existing regulation and oversight.

1996 is calling: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crockford.com&#x2F;living.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crockford.com&#x2F;living.html</a>

Let&#x27;s all love Lain.

we haven&#x27;t seen this level of product hype since the Segway....remember that hypestorm?

It feels like different people have a different understanding what the Metaverse is[1]. Is it Microsoft Chat[2] but in 3D and VR and Zuck spying on you? Is it reality but with augmented data on top of it (I just gave the definition of AR)?<p>We already have technology modifying reality, like how you can be in the middle of Mongolia and still be in constant contact with your friends in San Francisco. I&#x27;ve had friends meeting in real life and laughing about the funny post someone made on FB (when FB was still a thing...).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;gaming&#x2F;2021&#x2F;11&#x2F;everyone-pitching-the-metaverse-has-a-different-idea-of-what-it-is&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;gaming&#x2F;2021&#x2F;11&#x2F;everyone-pitching-the...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=goEqyQgWIe4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=goEqyQgWIe4</a>