The Possibly Horrifying Future of Virtual Reality

a reply to: Lolliek

and reply to: nukedog

Great series and I was going to mention it, but you both beat me to it. I first read it some 12 years ago (how time flies) and it is an amazing series. I have just picked it up again today and I'm looking forward to seeing how the world has changed since then. I think we had dial up connected to our clunky tower PC at home and now we have wireless broadband and ipads.

I remember the series well because at work they were sorting out their website and the guys that were doing it were involved in setting up a new community website too (I will have to check that out). I was very buzzed by the whole thing and imagined the sprawling VR Malls in Otherland being the internet of he future. It is hard to believe that my first computer encounters as a child was with a ZX Spectrum! Do you remember those bright keyboards and programmes that were on cassettes (another thing of the past) that made those funny noises when you loaded them up? Cool. Anyway, I would recommend Otherland as a possisble glimpse of the future.

I can see reports in the news where people have died in house fires because they were so immersed in sims, even whole blocks of people dying, one way to bring down the population, I have tried one online game, once, long ago, never bothered since, must be my age.

People go around all the time raving about virtual worlds, but nobody actually comes to the realization that we're living in one. What is virtual reality besides a complete negation of nature? Not waterfalls, trees, or grasslands. Roads, buildings, and cars.

As a member of a conspiracy website, I'd assume that everyone would be able to distinguish this easily. This is what they don't want you to know. Your living in a VR right now, but they sugar coat it with descriptions of culture and money and jobs. This type of social system we live in today wouldn't even be possible without the lower class working their ass off to give into the demands of the higher class.

Expand your mind.

a reply to: tranquilone666

I would like to amend the part that you said about coming close to photo realistic games. Unfortunately this is not true.
Such goal is currently limited by processing capabilities of computer tech right now. Take a look at games like Crysis 3. Most of the game is passable, but character models with the human faces are superb. Everything else is made to look good at distance, if you look closely at any surface, you shall see a distorted visage. Even if you just keep looking at the character model, while it can blink, it cannot yet perspire believably, nor breathe. If you take off that armor mesh from the model, you find the rest of the body (if it has one) would have been created with as much quality as the terrain. (up close)

That being said. Technology is going FAST, Ricky Bobby Fast, mom. Techs i see on the internet is so delicious i want to lick the screen. When science comes through and gets us the Graphene chips for the market this will open doors VR. If i remember correctly they clocked the CPU at 400+ mghz in a basic test. I will assume the end result will be at least 200Mghz chip which is already 20 times the speed of current processors. After upgrades and miniaturization we might end up with chips 800 MHZ+ in speed. ( i dont care how much i get from cpu, i will never say no to a GPU)

Software technology will catchup, utilizing that power to create proceduraly generated realistic bodies and faces. There will be enough power to properly display objects and buildings. Next big hurdle is voice, as right now anytime you need voice for your game or VR experience you need actors or Vocaloid. (Second one does not seem a good option).

Let us use the latest 3D hit, Frozen as example. Even if you have the 3D model and actress for Elsa there is no way you can force the combination to express same emotions as in the movie, because after recording and rigging. Every shot, every motion goes through hours and hours of refinement (frame by frame) to evoke some feels from the audience.

I want this VR, everyone else wants this VR, but science and technology still needs time. I hope no more than 10 years.

a reply to: tranquilone666
I've thought about this subject now and then. My feeling is humanity will control the tech enough to exploit and to also prevent it from destroying us. If you read science fiction from the 19th and early 20th century what you see is a common topic: machines will destroy us! Did that happen? Not really. Why? Because humans aren't given enough credit. It's also tied to how writers and marketers create sensationalist things to increase sales. Earthlings are far more capable and responsible than that, and all those people 100+ years ago who feared machines ensured we would never allow them to destroy us too. Have machines impacted us in negative ways? Almost certainly, but they failed to destroy us. We learned - and perhaps are still learning - how to exploit them effectively.

Life is never completely safe. It's always a risk. Everything in our envrionment can potentially destroy us. We learn how to control the risks to leverage the danger in favor of some amount of survival.

The people who say virtual worlds will lead to our ruin compensate for the people who would otherwise be destroyed by them.

And there's no doubt in my mind VR can be a drug. Games and/or VR definitely leech the reward region of our brain, but they do not also supply us with real world survival advantages. It's the same with drugs, except VR/Games can reach some people drugs wouldn't reach. You get the bang but you don't get the buck.

The future of VR is I think in assisting the real world. The military and police use VR to help train their members. Doctors use it to simulate surgeries and to view body tissues. VR is used in all variety of business to create models of a product. Simulations are used in science to model natural phenomenon. Government even use "people" simulators to improve emergency preparedness.

The question in my mind is whether VR has any value in social circles? Can VR be an acceptable social place? I think the consensus is generally NO. However, because of conveneience and even addiction, youth do increasingly use texting and mobile phones to communicate. The thought is since they're not using active eye contact and body gestures, it might have a detrimental effect to social development. This of course would have started 100+ years ago when the first phones started appearing.

Ray Bradbury commented about the above on many ocassions in his life. He recalled one instance in the 1950's when he was on a walk and a couple were passing him. The lady had a radio to her ear and was oblivious to almost everything around her. He remembered turning this around in his mind. That theme continued. He says that memory and others are what he's reminded of when he sees people using computers or phones or walkmen. In Fahrenheit 451 he touches this topic when he writes how the citizens of the city are always watching the TV on the wall and they rarely step out of that trance to the realization of the deteriorating world around them.

Ironically, I believe Ray Bradbury was an unwitting participant in the erecting and establishment of VR. Books are themselves a shutting out of the world around us. They too are part of it.

you know whats really worrying?
that in games we do sick & evil
that we would never do in reality.

so are we good or evil?

originally posted by: buddha
you know whats really worrying?
that in games we do sick & evil
that we would never do in reality.

so are we good or evil?

Totally depends on the person. I remember playing a Star Wars rpg game and getting to choose between doing bad things or good things and ultimately becoming a dark side Jedi or a normal Jedi. I tried a few times to make a dark side Jedi character but even though I knew it was just a stupid game I could never bring myself to do dark side quests.

a reply to: jonnywhite

I meet Ray Bradbury a few times when he was alive. He was very much a "live in the real world" person.
Just read his stories and they are all about tactical and sensory impressions.
I would say his short story "The Veldt" was about VR going to far.
Pretty much an Anti VR-technolgy story.

People are already too engrossed in their technology with out VR.
I know people that I have stopped talking to because they were always buried in their cell phones.
Want to impress a date, take out your cell phone and turn it off.

I think that technology is an age thing. I am 24, I have grown up in two decades that saw more technological innovations then id imagine at least the last century or two combined. I dont say this in a boastful way at all and hope it is not perceived as such, I simply mean that the technology gap of older people may be due to it simply not being surrounded by it almost from birth. This is not saying that older people are unable to adapt, my father taught himself HTML at 50+ and my grandmother learned to use a PC at 87 and used it until about two years before her death at 93.

I think if the technology evolves to the point that we are discussing then it will in all likelyhood eventually become used by the majority of the worlds population to one degree or another. Cellphones were once only used by a small subset of the population, the same with the internet and video games. I can almost see a dystopian future where the population slaves away in real time for SimCreds to spend in a virtual world. Kept alive on a Corporately provided diet and housing, constantly working for a doubly fabricated reward, currency and virtual currency at that.

My biggest concern is when VR and AI merge as will inevitably happen. Many of todays computer systems incorporate some form of basic AI or another. If and when we reach the level where AI is as intelligent as a human and sentience is achieved. Then we will in essence become gods to a people. If this happens wouldnt we be morally responsible for their well beings? If we were to have a game such as Skyrim, or even more so a Call of Duty type game, and you killed a character would you be guilty of manslaughter or murder? Both of which legally are done by one Human to another Human?

1 word...."holodeck"...!

Nope Nope, Nope, this is very wrong. At least in my opinion.

I have played video-games constantly for over 12 years of my life, i played from the first enerations of consoles (Mega Drive and N64) to the moder nera. In fact, there's already a ton of simulators like these ones around:

-TV simulator.
-Sitting simulator.
-Petting a rock simulator.
-Taking a bus simulator.

And these games don't sell at all, dou you no why? Because no one wants to play what you can do everyday. Games just like movies were made to be totally away from reality giving you the experience you could never have in the real life, making you feel joy, pain and other stuff.

Games are walking towards the way of insane ammount of conten. Backthen, games wouldn't least 2 minutes. Now you have video-games ike Skyrin which can give the player over 500 hours of unreleated content. The virtual reality is a consequence of the technology avalalible for the devs, which not only makes game more easier to create, but it also gives them the abiility to make them look less depressing.

There's smething called ESRB, which is the insituition which are responible for games rating for the market. It'`s very rare, but some games will never hit the market depending on it' contents.

a reply to: Frocharocha

I agree that no form of "rock sim" unless you mean guitar hero or the like. However a game that is realistic like the new GTA:V would be a huge hit, as it already is.

The ESRB cannot stop any game from coming out on its own. The lack of a rating could cause the game developer to not release it due to the fact that no store would stock it. But a game with no rating could be independently released as many are.

Umm... we already ARE avatars in a game.

You think that your body is who you really are?

Here is the next big thing it would seem. Google and other companies have given this company over 500 million to develop it:

www.magicleap.com...

Pretty cool stuff..

a reply to: fleabit
Augmented reality, if I'm not mistaken. Ya, it's a blending of the virtual and the real. It's a good idea because the virtual can give us information more naturally and quickly. This is especially true for something like the google glasses, except they're not ready. Last I read, they're too expensive, too underfeatured, too inconvenient and can't run for more than about an hour or less.

a reply to: Frocharocha
I don't tink anyone is saying we'll live in simulators. I think what they're saying is we'll live more frequently in a virtual or augmented reality. The virtual reality doesn't have to include hte painful traits of the real one. I imagine it could bve something like Second Life, where you can find almost anything, but greatly advanced and merged more with hte real world via augmented reality.

It's the merging of the virtual and the real which will catapult the enabling technologies far into teh future, ensuring their survival.

I think the same holds true for AI. It'll merge with us and this will make it an ally as opposed to our most feared enemy.

a reply to: tranquilone666


VR is not a new concept. Just look at the holodeck, todays SciFi tomrorows technology. We have it with Oculus Rift for PC and the project Morpheus for PS4. The XBOX Kinnect is another instance of it with a VR head set in dev. Actually I have found myself doing more retro gaming as of late on emulators. When I own every console even the newer ones. It just seems i am playing a interactive movie these days with the PS4 and such. And the old consoles that are bare bones require more of a technique ( with a crappy analog controller ) imo poses more of a challenge to me. There is a certain simplicity to the old Artari, NES roms that i still enjoy where most modern titles i get ADD with. Maybe im getting too old and cant keep up. I am a Skyrim fanatic too lol, still quite good in Halo. Perhaps I will return to Skyrim for a sweet roll in the near future.

I dunno, I do not see anything terrifying about the advancement of technology in this instance. I think it hinders motivation for younger people to do other things though. And I too am 41, one thing i will say though is that modern technology especially video gaming has made our youth and shaped them to be anti social , lazy , home bodys. Reflecting on my youth I feel kids are missing out on so many things and this may very well have a negative effect on them when they grow in to adults lacking real life social interaction as opposed to a head set and talking smack to strangers online. I have also read studies that claim video games make you smarter through stimulus and dexterity. I guess take the bad with the good. Technology can be a great thing or a terrible thing just as with the internet. It's not much different than making life choices.

I've been keeping an eye on this thread and I'm sickened and saddened by the sheeple mentality, and I don't mean that in a mean way but it's amazing how many here are willing......no not willing, anxiously awaiting or already embedded with a VR lifestyle and would want this 24/7. The excuse of it just being another form of VR than the one we are supposedly in is pitiable. Think of the all the people who are addicted to gaming already. They are socially inept. It is an addiction that causes the same effects as drugs or alcohol. I have seen friends and family members divorce and become completely anti social yet throngs of people will happily immerse themselves. The cultured wealthy nations will become VR zombies and willingly so. People here talk a lot about the government this and that but this will be something we do to ourselves. You would think that those who are so anti government and for their constitutional rights would want to be more alert and grounded with this reality, involved with world and social matters in the here and now, living and loving. I can see it now, people on conspiracy sites - all 8 of them, discussing how VR was a government plan to control the sheeple. I hope people will stay strong and find more purpose than a computer VR life.

Edited:

There is always going to be a risk of how those who already favor being socially-inactive will adapt to a wholly immersive video game world. However the majority of people who play social multiplayer games are not actually the ones who will be a problem, at least not in my opinion. These people, like myself, are long used to balancing their real lives with the "online social world."

Some are better at it than others. I too know people who's entire lives revolve around their gaming. Mine certainly doesn't, but I have put long hours in plenty of times before in MMOs. The thing is: they aren't hurting anyone.

Every single person described is still going to have to log out at some point, bathe and take care of personal needs and then go to work. Where they will be forced to interact with people.

Someday that may all be virtualized too...but at that point it's still just society interacting. Different method, same venue.

As for the concerns of rape and murdering...the companies that will be getting these things to market will NEVER put out a game that allows it's virtual players or avatars to rape and murder. It would run them into all sorts of legal issues that they know would undoubtedly crop up. There will likely be underground servers that have gameframes running such options - but like anything illegal everyone there would knowingly be participating in something they know is illegal...so, in a perverse way, it would all be consensual.

Prostitution, drugs, and all that exist now in the real world. If it makes it to the cyber world...it's also no different than now. I'm not saying that's a good thing, just that it's being sensationalized like it isn't already a problem now.

I think the reality is that you and I, and even our children growing up right now, are not going to have issues when this new age of digitization hits. It will be the kids that grow up after it is out that we will have to concern ourselves with. We'll need to make sure as many of the risks are gone, and as much of it that can be regulated is, so that the enter into a solid framework.

I'm personally looking forward to the early years of it - it will be a real cyberworld wild west as the laws and are drawn and precedents are set.

For what it's worth I'm -not- some anti-social person who can't wait for this tech. I make a comfortable 70k a year in a field that rocks, and that's on a lower paying job that I took for it's security and retirement rather than the higher paying options I was being offered. I just recognize how awesome this has, potential wise, and that many of the challenges brought up are no different than the ones we currently face in life. Life is gonna continue on regardless.

I can't wait for virtual reality personally, not so much for gaming reasons, but other uses and experiences VR can offer people.

I think it will close the gap between rich and poor even more, watched a video of a 3D cinema through the rift, put the goggles on and *bam* you are in a separate room, own cinema and a massive screen infront of you in your own home, a privilege only the rich enjoy at present.

I'd also like to think i could come home after a # day at work, put on the goggles and maybe go to another country or be on a beach somewhere to chill out.

Care homes, where people are too ill/old to travel could have some new experiences through virtual reality.

The positives of VR is endless, the negatives is few.