Augmented Reality: Benefits And Challenges
A Philosophical Perspective from Leonardo Werner
Hey Phiers,
Have you ever wondered what the difference between ‘virtual reality’ and ‘augmented reality’ is? Or what we can do and achieve with AR? And what does philosophy have to say about recent developments in AR? If you’re interested in the philosophy of technology and are curious about recent technological developments, this blog post is for you. Keep on reading to find out more about AR and how Leonardo Werner, kindly interviewed by our collaborator Jennifer Waters, is incorporating technology into his philosophical studies.
Jen: What’s your background, Leonardo?
Leonardo: I am above all a very curious person interested in a wide variety of topics- my background speaks for itself! Let me start by saying that in the past couple of years, I've been doing a master's in Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society, at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
However, I have a bachelor's degree in Law and have worked in areas where Law was not my core activity. During the 2020 pandemic, I started reading a lot of books about existential and political philosophy, but also books regarding the role of modern technologies in our society. The pandemic offered that moment to pause and reflect on everything we, as individuals, and as a society, have been doing, living a frenetic and busy life. One of those readings was Homo Deus, by Yuval Harari, and I should say that, if it wasn't for this book, I wouldn't be where I am right now. The first time I heard about the term "philosophy of technology" was in his book. Suddenly, I thought that was the next thing I needed to do. I started looking for programs directly on it, and found out that only the University of Twente offered a master's degree in that precise field – here I am now!
Jen: What is the difference between augmented and virtual reality?
Leonardo: That's a good question since many people still think they are roughly the same, but augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are two distinct technologies that offer different types of user experiences.
AR involves overlaying digital content (such as images, videos, 2D or 3D models) onto the real world, typically using a smartphone, a headset with a camera, or even glasses. The digital content appears as if it is part of the physical environment, and users can interact with it in real time. For example, an AR app might allow you to point your smartphone camera at a room and see virtual furniture that appears to be sitting in the space.
On the other hand, VR is a completely immersive experience that transports users to a virtual environment. This is typically achieved through the use of a headset with a screen that completely fills the user's field of view. The user can look around and interact with the virtual environment, but they are completely cut off from the real world.
In short, AR "enhances" the real world with digital elements, while VR creates a completely virtual environment.
Jen: What are some developments in augmented reality as we speak?
Leonardo: AR technology is not something very new, but only in recent years it has gained some popularity. For example, Instagram's and TikTok camera filters use AR technology, as well as the game PokemonGO, which was launched back in 2016. However, these examples of AR applications are still limited to handheld devices, like a smartphone or a tablet.
The full potential of AR is yet to be developed, but it starts with providing a more immersive experience to the user. How will they do it? Through glasses! Large technology companies, including Meta, MagicLeap and Snap, are now investing a lot in the development of lightweight and fashionable glasses that are capable of delivering a totally new computing experience to the user.
The challenges though, are many, from technical (hardware development) to non-technical ones (are consumers willing to wear AR glasses in their daily lives?). On the technical side, however, there have been promising results in the field of computer vision (see Meta's Project Aria), which brings contextualised, real-time information to the person who is wearing the glasses. On the non-technical side, it has been surveyed, in 2022, that 93% of daily Snapchat users are interested in AR technology for immersive shopping experiences. It's important to mention that 20% of Snapchat users are aged between 13-17, and 38% are aged between 18-24 (DataReportal, 2023).
I mention these figures because they already got the attention of brands interested in advertising their products and services on Snapchat using AR technology.
Jen: What kinds of risks and benefits do you identify with such developments and with augmented reality in general?
Leonardo: AR has the potential to bring numerous benefits. For instance, it can help aid workers in rescue operations, engineers and architects to visualise new buildings, it can facilitate archaeological research, and improve medical diagnosis to mention just a few. In that respect, AR technology can truly enhance human cognitive capabilities by expanding and enriching the physical environment with overlaid digital elements in 2D or 3D.
My main concerns with the use of AR, however, are not so much related to these domain applications. The risks I envision are more closely related to a scenario where AR glasses become a mainstream consumer product, just like our smartphones. I have just mentioned the advertising market that is opening in the AR world, so we have to consider the attention economy and surveillance capitalist models that are currently predominantly in the tech industry. We know how distracting our smartphones are, calling for our attention through notifications, messages from friends, e-mails, pop-up ads, etc. Imagine wearing a pair of AR glasses that can display all that directly to our eyes.
Here, the AR features are likely to be ambiguous, bringing, of course, useful functions for the user, but also some features that may undermine (instead of enhance), the individual's natural cognitive capabilities, especially considering the attention economy and surveillance capitalist models that are currently predominant in the tech industry.
So if companies manage to sell fashionable and lightweight AR glasses to regular consumers, the power they will have to mediate what consumers are literally seeing throughout the day is unprecedented. Imagine, for example, that the eye-tracking technology embedded in AR glasses, allows these companies to understand at a whole new level what things catch your attention for longer, what things you are not interested in, etc. so that they can deliver hyper-personalised ads that match your preferences and desires that maybe even yourself were not consciously aware of.
Jen: What specific area is your research focused on?
Leonardo: I have been doing a lot of research in the fields of cognitive science, and focusing on the harms that AR glasses could bring to the user's natural cognitive capabilities. So for example, I am looking at various empirical studies that have been done in the context of smartphones and human cognition. The results are a bit scary! For instance, I can mention one study that points out the fact that our ability to sustain attention in tasks that we consider important to ourselves is diminished by the mere presence of our smartphones close to us, no matter if the device is in our pockets or with the screen facing the table.
But beyond the harms that consumer usage of AR glasses can pose to human cognition, I have also mapped out a bunch of different ethical risks that we should be concerned about, such as its potential societal impact on increasing the phenomenon of "epistemic digital filter bubbles", and issues regarding justice and the epistemic power asymmetry between the companies who develop these products and the end-users themselves, given the companies' ability to literally curate the reality that users will experience through the usage of AR glasses.
Jen: How does philosophy inform your approach to your research?
In my research, I am applying the Anticipatory Technology Ethics (ATE) approach, which is a method of technology assessment for emerging technologies that was developed by Philip Brey, one of my professors here at the University of Twente and now my supervisor.
The ATE provides a methodology to broadly map ethical risks that emerging technology may pose to individuals and society. This is done by taking into consideration ethical principles and moral values that guide a certain society (e.g. European Charter of Fundamental Rights) and future studies, which aim at anticipating the development of some technosocial trends.
I would say that Philosophy helps me in the way I think about things, as it provides me with tools to evaluate whether my arguments are strong enough, what are the potential objections, and how I would reply to them. Such a philosophical way of thinking is helping me to critically analyse and evaluate the trade-offs brought by AR glasses and their implications to humans and society since there are no right or wrong decisions to be made.
Jen: What are the next steps both for yourself and the discussion surrounding AR?
Leonardo: As of today, we can see that public scrutiny is all about AI, especially after the release of ChatGPT. We are witnessing Google, Meta and Microsoft in a race to develop generative AI tools for various consumer applications. In that sense, discussions surrounding AR glasses are in the shadows. Most people are not closely following the steps that these same companies are taking towards developing such wearables.
Of course, the avenues regarding how these devices are going to be developed and deployed remain open, and no one can predict whether AR glasses will become a mainstream consumer product just like our smartphones since this depends on a variety of technical and cultural factors. However, as Roy Amara reminds us through his famous sentence, known as Amara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run".
In that sense, we need to take into consideration the extremely fast-paced technological advancements in several areas, the arrival of younger generations as consumers, and the fact that moral and ethical values are not something static, but rather they co-evolve with material and cultural developments. With this in mind, I believe that the earlier we start looking into the potential ethical risks that AR glasses for consumers might bring the more we can try to prevent undesired and unexpected outcomes by developing precautionary measures.
Meet the author: Jennifer Waters, Writer & Collaborator @Let’s Phi, as well as a valued community member.
Huge thank you to Jen for writing the post and conducting the interview. And many thanks Leonardo for taking the time to talk to us about your research and developments in AI.
If you have questions on the topic or the Master’s programme at the University of Twente, Leonardo is very happy to chat on LinkedIn.
Don’t forget to visit Let’s Phi website to see all our upcoming career workshops. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
Best Wishes,
The Let’s Phi Team.
#technology #philosophyoftechnology #ai #ar #vr #ethicsofai #aiethics
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