I have seen Ready One Player movie five times, but this weekend, the feeling after I finished was different and sad.
Last week, my teacher’s daughter had an accident; she is a lovely old Latin American lady; fortunately, she is OK with no significant injury; the car was not so lucky, though; it was destroyed.
The hitter was an older adult who sorrowfully admitted to watching YouTube while driving. She then discovered this when talking with the insurance company.
People are so distracted today that it is not hard to find cars turning left or crossing the street in a red-light intersection.
We are already immersed in a world like OASIS, and it is not 2045 yet; neither has Vision Pro been released.
Spatial computing is going to make things much worse or better?
More screens, more pixels, more beautiful and exciting worlds, and distinct ways of interaction will create a new reality that will augment human cognition or not at all.
Different types of notifications will be created; adrenaline will continue at all-time highs, and life for most people will continue to be dissolved by reels and false information; life will continue to disappear fast in front of their eyes without us even noticing it for most of us.
We are already attached to apps and phones, consumed by a distinct world that we call Social Media.
A world where lies override the magic of actual existence, false news hides the beauty of reality, and super-authentic marketers call the attention of a generation that seems to have forgotten that facts can be only discovered through scientific knowledge; by the way, this knowledge is highly probable was not created and published a few seconds ago.
Scientists and Engineers built Vision Pro (read this spectacular article by one of them here), and others will build the OASIS, but unfortunately, they are not the ones who decide how this new technology will be used.
Technology enriches us now more than ever, but I’m worried about the imminent distracted life ahead of us; I’m concerned about our kids and the new science that has not been discovered yet.
Even when we know there are no positive returns on being a pessimistic scientist, should we remain optimistic?