The Possibly Horrifying Future of Virtual Reality

Last night I watched a documentary called Video Games: The Movie on netflix. In the movie they made a point of saying how the desire for more immersive games has driven the technology to the point that it is at now. Weve gone from 8-bit video games to the visual masterpieces that come out today.

The goal of virtual reality as I understand it is to create a world that is indistinguishable from real life. We are coming close to photo realistic games as can be seen in Metro: Last Light
m.ign.com...

We now have devices like the Oculus owned by facebook
www.oculus.com...
and as this wonderful thread by NoRulesAllowed discusses the magic leap by google
www.abovetopsecret.com...
the Virtuix Omni
www.virtuix.com...
and control devices that look like the real dealwww.thedeltasix.com...

This, as previous trends with video game technology have shown will only keep the masses happy for a short time before bigger and better things come along. One day in the not so distant future someone somewhere will develop a functional brain-computer interface. We will become plugged in to the matrix so to speak.

Googles augmented reality glasses are an amazing piece of technology, the moral implications of possible uses aside. However there has already been a case of "glass addiction".
guardianlv.com...

This video www.noobie.com...
Brings up a point about the change in social dynamics that are occuring due to current technology, I wonder what the future holds for a society that will very soon have access to technology that will change a persons "reality" to a point that they dont want to come back.

How many people escape into books, movies, television and current video games. Now imagine that there are no limits to what you can do or see. There will be black market E-Drugs, prostEtution, wEapons, things that you would be put in jail for years for in the real world will occur all the time. Similar to the V-club in New Cap city from Galactica.

The ability to create any enviornment at any time could in my opinion destroy our society. The reason any of us do anything productive is to provide a better reality for ourselves, if we can subjectivly do this by simply thinking it why would anyone put in any actual physical effort. We would all spend every waking moment in a virtual world until we slowly died one by one without reproducing or eating.

Thank you for taking the time to read this ill-formatted thread for any who do. I would appreciate any thoughts that anyone has on the matter.

THIS. I have talked about this too.

I picture vid games as looking just like what you are seeing RIGHT NOW. Look around you right now. Reach out and touch your bed, chair, apple, whatever. THAT will be future games.

Yeah, it'd be difficult to leave them, especially if you have an awesome 'home' and 'lover' and 'job' and this and that or are a hero, whatever the case may be.

You make tons of valid points. I bet every kid in Japan will be living forever at those Internet Addiction places parents toss their kids into if this kind of gaming comes out. I want to say I'd be all over that kind of gaming - and I would. I'd also be one of the addicted players sadly. I'm a huge gamer and to live some of my fave games - Silent Hill, Skyrim, Fallout 3, etc., would be aaaaamaaaazing.

Yeah, my real life would take a huge back burner.
I'm 41 years old.
It won't be just kidlets getting sucked in.
Picture a geriatric 80 year old finally getting to run and stuff again.
Who'd ever want to leave that?!?!??!?

a reply to: tranquilone666

In the universe of the Shadowrun RPG games they are commonly referred to as BTLs or Better Than Life Hotsims (Hotsim means you are wired neurologically to the Net itself) and are considered drugs, HIGHLY addictive drugs, in fact Hotsimming is usually illegal.

a reply to: sarra1833

Haha I would be in the same boat as every one else. Im 24 and ive seen in my short time such an amazing advance in technology. My favorite games are also fallout and skyrim (Bethesda is an amazing studio) if you look at the Elder Scrolls:Online if I could feel like I was physically in that world and interacting in such a massive world, with all of those other people I doubt I would ever leave.

Tad Williams, "the Other Land." Iirc

Talks all about it. It's coming along just as we all knew it would. The implications aren't considered often though. S & F

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

I have never heard of any of this, do you have any links whereni could learn more? Im sure google would help but if you could recomend anything it would be appreciated.

a reply to: nukedog

Thank you I will have to look into this.

originally posted by: tranquilone666
a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

I have never heard of any of this, do you have any links whereni could learn more? Im sure google would help but if you could recomend anything it would be appreciated.

Here is the Shadowrun Wiki

BTL link

A "Better Than Life" chip (also called "DreamChips"). An illegal cyber-data chip which provides the user a combination of artificial reality coupled with direct stimulation of different centers of the brain. Though typically designed to provide a pre-programmed fantasy, the artificial reality need not be coherent, i.e. it can provide a totally hallucinatory environment. Chips are typically designed to burn out after one use, both to prevent the users brain from overloading from the sustained stimulation, and to force the user to purchase additional chips. BTL chips are psychologically addictive and repeated, frequent use causes permanent brain damage.

Keep in mind this is all fictional.

I don't like the idea, but then again sometimes I am suspicious that we are all already in such a virtual reality world.

Think about it. What would be the ultimate video game? In my mind, it would be a virtual world you are immersed into in such a way that you do not even remember the actual world. In this way, you can live any life you want and actually play the full part of the character in the game. Once the game ends (you die), someone flips a switch, you see a white light, and BANG you are back in Kansas talking to your friends about the awesome game you played, which they watched you play on some screen! And perhaps maybe those "watchers" also had some sort of ability to interfere in your game every now and again (which would explain all odd occurrences in life). I'd even be suspicious some of us have some friends with a real sense of humor!

But more to your point... If we had such virtual reality, everyone would want it and they'd never want to leave it - it would be addicting. This leaves open a huge vacuum for someone to step in and control the masses or do whatever while they are in fantasy land. On the other hand, if we were to use such technology for something bigger and better than a video game, it would have unlimited potential.

Imagine for one moment that all of these people playing such a game were not merely playing a game, but a computer were using all of the information learned by all of these people to unlock the secrets of the universe? Yes! A computer that learns not through artificial intelligence, but through human intelligence, and it also has the quality of emotion, since it is the humans behind the thinking. On a side note: some speculate the human brain is a quantum computer.

The applications could be mind blowing!

Oh, yes. A holodeck is in our future. The thing is, what if we are already in one? If we were avatars, how would we know? Would we make up religions inferring an "after life" to explain the faint shadows and hints we get that this is not all there is?

What if what we are already in a virtual reality? What we call the soul maybe the original structure behind our experience of this reality. I have often wondered if souls one day got bored and came up with a way to distract themselves by creating a matrix style world. If you dare play the Earth game you get extra points.

Here it is, the next step in video gaming

a reply to: tranquilone666

This is possible but the outcome of so many people being removed from the real world and living like techno zombies tied into a virtual reality overlay and not seeing the real world around them is something that most government's at some point will try to stop to prevent the innevitable damage it would then do to there economys.
Of course there is a vast following who want to live like this with an illusion of a better world painted in there mind's just like drug addict's run away from the real world.
There is a fantastic looking game coming out soon that makes a similar scenario and here is a intro,

It is a fantasy RPG that is in development based on the concept not of Mental integration but a addiction to artifical enhancement that caused psychosis and turns these cybernetic people into killers.

We are minds in a body, but HOW we "live out" a reality, ANY reality...does it really matter?

Why is *this* reality supposed to be "the only" reality? Because we can interact with it with our physical senses and with our body. (Short: I can touch it, I can see it, so it's real).

BUT WE ARE NOT JUST BODIES. Our bodies are only an interface for our mind.

With VR we can interact with more/other realities. With the same mind, with the same "me" and "you". It doesn't matter.
Whether such a reality by itself is "artificial", does it matter?

If you get used to the concept that we are minds with infinite power and that we are not limited to interact with one, physical reality...you might see it differently.

Of course this goes even further (I absolutely love this topic)...of course we are not limited to our body/physical persona either. I can be "playing" an avatar in a VR world, this avatar might look different...but it's still me, of course.

Good post and we actually may already be inside a simulation. Virtual reality universes vs. objective material universes just makes more sense.

On a side note, Oculus Rift is releasing it's first full length movie. It's a horror movie and you can immerse yourself into the film. The future of entertainment where the stars of films and TV shows will be the person watching.

Banshee Chapter follows a journalist investigating the disappearance of her college friend, as well as a mysterious experimental drug that ties the mystery together. Loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, it stars Sleepy Hollow's Katia Winter, Silence of the Lambs' Ted Levine and True Blood's Michael McMillian.

The film was transformed into a virtual-reality experience by studio Jamwix. Engineer Bill Booth said Banshee Chapter was adapted for the Oculus Rift by creating software that simulated placing the viewer inside the scenes. However, it isn't a 360-degree view; instead, the film wraps 120 degrees around the viewer.

"It allows you to look left and right within the scene itself, and tracks your head to display that part of the scene in full motion and depth," Booth told Mashable. "The effect is incredibly powerful and immersive as it quickly creates the sensation that you're inside the movie itself."

mashable.com...

originally posted by: sarra1833
THIS. I have talked about this too.

Yeah, my real life would take a huge back burner.
I'm 41 years old.
It won't be just kidlets getting sucked in.
Picture a geriatric 80 year old finally getting to run and stuff again.
Who'd ever want to leave that?!?!??!?

And medical technology/gene therapy will advance so that no-one gets old. We'll replace old stiff joints with long-lasting ones. Proper nutrition and exercise programs will maintain the immune system and muscle tone.

originally posted by: neoholographic
Good post and we actually may already be inside a simulation. Virtual reality universes vs. objective material universes just makes more sense.

On a side note, Oculus Rift is releasing it's first full length movie. It's a horror movie and you can immerse yourself into the film. The future of entertainment where the stars of films and TV shows will be the person watching.

Banshee Chapter follows a journalist investigating the disappearance of her college friend, as well as a mysterious experimental drug that ties the mystery together. Loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, it stars Sleepy Hollow's Katia Winter, Silence of the Lambs' Ted Levine and True Blood's Michael McMillian.

The film was transformed into a virtual-reality experience by studio Jamwix. Engineer Bill Booth said Banshee Chapter was adapted for the Oculus Rift by creating software that simulated placing the viewer inside the scenes. However, it isn't a 360-degree view; instead, the film wraps 120 degrees around the viewer.

"It allows you to look left and right within the scene itself, and tracks your head to display that part of the scene in full motion and depth," Booth told Mashable. "The effect is incredibly powerful and immersive as it quickly creates the sensation that you're inside the movie itself."

mashable.com...

Hopefully not in the DK1 or you'll get a massive headache.

>>
There will be black market E-Drugs, prostEtution, wEapons, things that you would be put in jail for years for in the real world will occur all the time. Similar to the V-club in New Cap city from Galactica.

The ability to create any enviornment at any time could in my opinion destroy our society. The reason any of us do anything productive is to provide a better reality for ourselves, if we can subjectivly do this by simply thinking it why would anyone put in any actual physical effort. We would all spend every waking moment in a virtual world until we slowly died one by one without reproducing or eating.
>>

There are e-Drugs, e-Weapons etc. in virtual world. That is correct. Just a very simplified example, playing WoW I could go out and "kill" other players. But even in a virtual world, you can have morals and ethics. You can be friends with another avatar/player...or be their enemy. You can be a "bad guy"...or a saint. Your actions will have consequences, but of course not the same as "in reality". It depends on the "rules" in this virtual world. And the same way as our reality has certain rules.

>>
We would all spend every waking moment in a virtual world
>>

We do that to a certain extent already. We LIVE in fantasy, made-up worlds. We watch sports on TV and it is important whether our team wins. We watch made-up shows and movies on TVs and "get into them", maybe dedicate a good part of our life to them. We read books. Etc..etc.. As pointed out above, since we're not only phyisical bodies, a good portion of our so called "reality" happens in our mind. Many things are subjective. Some things are not "real". Ask yourself how many people RIGHT NOW are "spending their waking moment in a virtual world"...how many are watching some soap on TV *right now*? How many are pursuing an "irrational" hobby, say, such as..collecting beer steins or...running marathons....climbing a high mountain...collecting stamps. How many spend their free time TAKING DRUGS, ranging from XYZ drugs to alcohol or whatnot? Realize we might even spend the largest part of our lives in some made-up/virtual/fake/illusory world...because that's what we do, because we're humans.

VR is "merely" extending our minds to be able to "live out" other types of realities, but ultimately it doesn't matter. EXCEPT of course, your point with reproduction : )

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

Yes, we have virtual everything I have mentioned, but they operate within a specific set of rules in our universe, in a fabricated one who will make the rules? Who will enforce the penalties? I used to play wow when the level cap was 60, I remember back then how that game could suck you into it for hours. In any game I have ever played there have been hackers and cheats. No system of ethics and procedures can be built where there is not a way around it. What happens when there is the first digital "fight"? The first digital "rape"? The first digital "murder"? I use quotes because you know that many will view the experience as not a "real" experience. Would there be punishments only in a "V-space" or in the real world too?

A good thread to read: www.abovetopsecret.com...