The Augmented World Experience 4
June 4, 2013, Augmented World Expo, Santa Clara, CA—Tish Shute from Syntertainment and augmentedreality.org elucidated the nature of the AR industry. The ability to change thoughts into some form of reality is likely to change the nature of human interactions.
The technology cycles continue to accelerate to the point where a nominal 10-year cycle for new products and technology is now down to only two or three years. Wearable computers are new becoming the latest trend, and will require a new ecosystem. For the developers, new forms of financing like Kickstarter are creating stores of potential devices and users, even before the device exists.
The eidos, the distinctive expression of the cognitive or intellectual character of a culture or a social group, is now showing both sides of the masks, of superpowers for good or evil. One question is whether virtual superpowers will lead to greater altruism.
The history of humans is always about seeing and understanding more about our world and ourselves. We have always tried to see more, consider eyeglasses, magnifiers, microscopes, telescopes, and other visual aids. Now, Google Glass is offering a mediated reality that can also block out some parts of that existing visual reality.
The ability to add or subtract visual content is a new paradigm. The ongoing challenges are related to the mediated aspects of the devices. Who gets to decide what we will see or not see at any time is something we as people have never addressed. There have been efforts to censor content in books and other media, which have always failed. But now the controller professes to be benign, and impartial.
The new devices will allow AR to be used in many more way in our lives. We can work on habit design to benefit humanity through AR an AI. A fully equipped sensor array and AR could tell you not only to chew more before swallowing, but could also direct your choices for what to swallow. Other behavioral interventions are possible and easily discernable. The “Big Brother” aspects of these tools raises the good-evil aspects of the technology.
AR systems will evolve to make the user interface less intrusive. The cycle of trigger, to action, to variable and valuable rewards, and to commitment will be fairly easy when the wearable computer can sense relative emotional states. The psychological communities will need to get focused on the motivational issues and will have to work with gamification and user interface designers to make everything work.
