The one limitation I can’t figure out how any sort of augmented reality (and all the realities that require a headset) will surpass is purely biological. That the brain registers something as being at a distance while it is actually less than an inch away from the eye. This can’t be sustained for long hours the same way people spend in front of screens I think without causing serious physical discomfort. Unless humans evolve into that through extended usage and we start introducing babies to it
You are not! Many people seem to find it unsettling; I think the appearance of the device is so strange that that alone would be sufficient to unnerve folks, but adding in the anxiety we all have about these abstracting / separating technologies and I think there’s ample concern!
I’m not sure how much this category of concern affects anything, though. Lots of people are very worried about smartphones, the internet, etc. When I was growing up, everyone was freaked about the television; I used to see “KILL YOUR TV” bumper stickers! I don’t dispute that all these things do what critics say: TV, smartphones, etc. all seem to me to make us dumber / more reactive / less capable of paying attention in lots of ways. But so far it seems like most people find the trade-offs worth it somehow?! Not sure.
Could be dystopian! If I had to predict, I’d guess it won’t be, but one never knows!!!
I recently heard Tom Bilyeu (on his podcast, Impact Theory) discussing the dangers of AI with an AI expert. They did paint the possibility of a rather dystopian future. If that happ
ens, the good news is that the human race won't exist any more, so no worries for us! But they were both actually optimistic that we can find a way to work *with* the AI rather than have it work against us. The wild card, as always, will be humans and the human ego.
And wow, those bumper stickers! I bet those are a coveted collector's item at the moment.
The part about “nice shit is better than not-nice shit” really hits home.
I’m always amazed how many strategies businesses can cook up that have fully zero to do with making a good thing (and are actively harmful to it).
I’m told that as a designer I should learn more about business but whenever I start to think about it my brain goes: “People like good things. They pay you. More good. More pay.”
Also, I’m pretty excited to try out Apple’s eye barnacles.
Replacing the smartphone screen with a wearable is the dream of course. But, in the interim, I strongly suspect with your 'shoes' use case example, an AR app will first scan a user's existing wardrobe/shoe rack/hallway floor etc to determine their footwear preferences. So such devices will ramp up intrusiveness to a new level of privacy destruction. Walking down a street with any later AR wearable iterations will become a tedious exercise in pop-up advertising nullification. I can't wait.
I am DREADING the pop-up situation; it's going to be so gnarly. Curious how well Apple will hold the line on that; I saw e.g. that apps have some kind of limited / abstracted access to data about your room. iOS is soon to start stripping params from URLs, they crushed pixel tracking in email, etc. Could go either way, seems like!
I'm not an iOS user (my kids deprived me of the necessary $$ by deciding they absolutely had to be🤔! ), but if anyone could curtail the privacy eating ad-beast, then I guess it's Apple. But it will come at a consumer pricing cost.
Good analysis. One relevant thought experiment: Can you imagine a world in which Vision makes reading better? After considering this for a few minutes I think it might be a category error - reading itself is a technology for transmitting information and/or experiencing narrative. Both can be done via Vision, but it probably won’t look like scanning horizontal lines of text. I wonder how well-trodden categories like news, opinion, and documentary journalism will evolve.
This is going to be our goddamn job, sadly!!! Should Substack be... like, an app with big windows? Or should the pubs be books that appear on a cool bookshelf in your room? Or should it look like a newspaper stand? Should we do a billboard-sized 100' book like they do with movies?
I am SO MAD at how obviously necessary 3D is for all this. Goddamnit.
"3D" as we currently understand it will become irrelevant once eyeballs are longer necessary after skull-tight neurocaps take precedence as a virtual form factor.
Clunky headsets will never catch on. Just like shutter glasses from the 90s. A novelty, it will wear off fast. Once you shrink it down to contact lenses for display and separate processing units as attachable explants (everyone will have at least one implant that serves as a BMI) and attach said explants outside your skull, head, wherever to interface with the BMI and the contact lenses... welcome to the future. Sounds like Neuromancer?
Nobody's gonna need shoes anymore! :D
The one limitation I can’t figure out how any sort of augmented reality (and all the realities that require a headset) will surpass is purely biological. That the brain registers something as being at a distance while it is actually less than an inch away from the eye. This can’t be sustained for long hours the same way people spend in front of screens I think without causing serious physical discomfort. Unless humans evolve into that through extended usage and we start introducing babies to it
Actually, the creation of distance and perspective is an entirely brain-contrived illusion and has its own in-built features and faults. A great introduction to this topic is Brian Rogers' 'Perception' notebook (one of OUP's excellent 'Very Short Introduction' series). See https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/perception-a-very-short-introduction-9780198791003?cc=dk&lang=en&
I am the only one who finds this all extremely unsettling? Never mind how it will dumb down society! Yikes.
You are not! Many people seem to find it unsettling; I think the appearance of the device is so strange that that alone would be sufficient to unnerve folks, but adding in the anxiety we all have about these abstracting / separating technologies and I think there’s ample concern!
I’m not sure how much this category of concern affects anything, though. Lots of people are very worried about smartphones, the internet, etc. When I was growing up, everyone was freaked about the television; I used to see “KILL YOUR TV” bumper stickers! I don’t dispute that all these things do what critics say: TV, smartphones, etc. all seem to me to make us dumber / more reactive / less capable of paying attention in lots of ways. But so far it seems like most people find the trade-offs worth it somehow?! Not sure.
Could be dystopian! If I had to predict, I’d guess it won’t be, but one never knows!!!
I recently heard Tom Bilyeu (on his podcast, Impact Theory) discussing the dangers of AI with an AI expert. They did paint the possibility of a rather dystopian future. If that happ
ens, the good news is that the human race won't exist any more, so no worries for us! But they were both actually optimistic that we can find a way to work *with* the AI rather than have it work against us. The wild card, as always, will be humans and the human ego.
And wow, those bumper stickers! I bet those are a coveted collector's item at the moment.
The part about “nice shit is better than not-nice shit” really hits home.
I’m always amazed how many strategies businesses can cook up that have fully zero to do with making a good thing (and are actively harmful to it).
I’m told that as a designer I should learn more about business but whenever I start to think about it my brain goes: “People like good things. They pay you. More good. More pay.”
Also, I’m pretty excited to try out Apple’s eye barnacles.
Replacing the smartphone screen with a wearable is the dream of course. But, in the interim, I strongly suspect with your 'shoes' use case example, an AR app will first scan a user's existing wardrobe/shoe rack/hallway floor etc to determine their footwear preferences. So such devices will ramp up intrusiveness to a new level of privacy destruction. Walking down a street with any later AR wearable iterations will become a tedious exercise in pop-up advertising nullification. I can't wait.
I am DREADING the pop-up situation; it's going to be so gnarly. Curious how well Apple will hold the line on that; I saw e.g. that apps have some kind of limited / abstracted access to data about your room. iOS is soon to start stripping params from URLs, they crushed pixel tracking in email, etc. Could go either way, seems like!
I'm not an iOS user (my kids deprived me of the necessary $$ by deciding they absolutely had to be🤔! ), but if anyone could curtail the privacy eating ad-beast, then I guess it's Apple. But it will come at a consumer pricing cost.
Good analysis. One relevant thought experiment: Can you imagine a world in which Vision makes reading better? After considering this for a few minutes I think it might be a category error - reading itself is a technology for transmitting information and/or experiencing narrative. Both can be done via Vision, but it probably won’t look like scanning horizontal lines of text. I wonder how well-trodden categories like news, opinion, and documentary journalism will evolve.
This is going to be our goddamn job, sadly!!! Should Substack be... like, an app with big windows? Or should the pubs be books that appear on a cool bookshelf in your room? Or should it look like a newspaper stand? Should we do a billboard-sized 100' book like they do with movies?
I am SO MAD at how obviously necessary 3D is for all this. Goddamnit.
"3D" as we currently understand it will become irrelevant once eyeballs are longer necessary after skull-tight neurocaps take precedence as a virtual form factor.
All great art divides the audience. This is no different.
ColdFusion brought a good technical analysis and your piece points me back to John Palmers two spatial interfaces and software pieces
Clunky headsets will never catch on. Just like shutter glasses from the 90s. A novelty, it will wear off fast. Once you shrink it down to contact lenses for display and separate processing units as attachable explants (everyone will have at least one implant that serves as a BMI) and attach said explants outside your skull, head, wherever to interface with the BMI and the contact lenses... welcome to the future. Sounds like Neuromancer?