Only 3 Types of People in The Coming AR/VR/AI Hellscape
Will you join in, drop out, or fight back?
NOT ANOTHER LUDDITE RANT BUT A MANIFESTO
I get why you might think this.
Content abounds on why you should give up any form of technology going back to Plato who had Socrates rant against books in his dialogues (more on him later).
Instead, this isn’t a call to turn off or a prophesy. It’s much too late for that.
This is a call-to-arms.
APPLE FINALLY SOLVED THE PROBLEM OF AR/VR ADOPTION.
For decades, the tech industry has been trying to get us to adopt augmented or virtual reality. The issue with headsets up until now have been that they were largely trivial creations, toys for uber nerds and shut-ins.
In other words, like early computers, they didn’t really have many use cases that pertained to the average person, and they carried the stigma that niche products often did.
But this is no longer the case.
Once given the “Apple treatment”, VR/AR headsets now have the mass media support, high fidelity graphics, and professional use cases that they seriously lacked until now.
There are several reasons why the Apple’s trailer for the future far surpassed Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta sales pitch, but the main two were that you could look cool using this thing and that you would be using this thing to get work done.
Like the iPad, we all secretly knew that we were going to be using this device to consume more than create, but the idea is enough to overcome the initial hesitation to owning one.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF AI COMBINING WITH AR/VR ARE TERRIFYING
Think AI-generated stories, comics, movies that function like dreams. Tracking your facial expressions and eye movements to bring you more of what you like and toning down what you dislike, anything streamed can be created on the fly to conform to them.
Each experience takes you further and further down the rabbit hole of your own desires and fascinations, and further and further away from reality and your ability to relate to other people.
Already, games are designed to become easier the more you fail, or more frustrating the more you succeed. Even non-casino games employ gambling tricks to keep your attention for as long as possible and build addiction. Imagine one that can gauge micro-reactions in your face.
Hook that up to your Apple watch and it can monitor heart rates and blood pressure. Pair that with your noise-cancelling headphones and it can totally tune out external reality. Take some alcohol or legalized drugs and you can literally trip while you virtually trip.
It costs $3500 today, but someday in the future it may even be state mandated:
At least the Apple version can be counted on to work beyond what we imagine to be humanly possible. The model you get for your job likely won’t be made by Apple but whoever can deliver at scale for cheap. Google, Meta, Samsung, Microsoft, Haier, or some other entrant we have het to hear about likely won’t have the same sense of taste or humanity.
SADLY, NOT OWNING ONE WILL SOON BE EVEN HARDER THAN NOT OWNING A SMART PHONE
By then, an old-fashioned tablet or laptop will be obsolete because all the other moving parts of keyboards, mouses, monitors, and big computer boxes will eventually be phased out and to demand manual inputs will brand you as an unproductive troglodyte.
THERE ARE ONLY TWO REAL CHOICES LEFT: CONSUME OR CREATE
There will be the people who insist on dropping out who will largely be left behind with the people who still watch CNN religiously or insist on owning brick phones.
Most people will have to participate on some level just as even the dumb phone enjoyers wouldn’t dream of owning no phone at all.
The question then becomes, how will you participate–will you go along and become a drone or fight the system with its own weapons?
Just as all technology can be set up to totally absorb and ruin lives, it will also contain the keys to escaping all materialism.
Games to teach empathy and build discipline.
Soundscapes to deepen one’s appreciation for true music.
Meditations to train concentration, enhance our mindfulness, and achieve more profound states of consciousness.
Courses that train us to see truth and arm us against political deception.
Movies that impart wisdom viscerally and spur viewers to take action.
What all these future works need are creators. People to dream them up and make them come true.
FORTUNATELY, WE HAVE A LITTLE TIME
At present, the Apple Vision Pro isn’t set to release for at least another year, and it bears the unfathomable price tag for most people of $3500. It also lacks much of the software we use day-to-day (how many people actually use the default apps Apple products come equipped with?)
But the first iPhone was also way too expensive and underpowered.
Still, this means we have time to get acquainted with the tools, to learn the new languages, draw up plans of attack, meet likeminded souls yearning for a future dedicated to our development rather than our sabotage.
I’M ABOUT THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO CREATE
Always have been.
Email or comment below if you’d like to discuss how to start making the future we actually want.
Also, apologies this one is so late. Will be aiming to return to our usual Tuesday morning time slot unless anybody prefers receiving these on another day of the week?
I will probably resist, like I always do with most new technology. I usually succumb, due to the practicality of of not accepting the new device, as opposed to feeling ostersized or left out. Last summer, I finally bought my first smartphone.
Those Apple headsets remind me of Star Treks "Borg Collective."