Are we losing our humanity?

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Augmented Reality: the next step in human evolution? Or merely a trend that will lose credibility after the smoke clears?  Who can say for sure at this point? Although there can be many benefits to AR, I’d like us to remember one of the most potentially damaging effects it could have on us, losing our humanity. And what does ‘humanity’ really mean? As The Free Dictionary puts it, one definition of humanity is, “The quality of being humane; benevolence.” (Some other definitions here and here)

So why am I so worried that we are losing this so-called humanity? Because like many researches and developers out there have already pointed out to us, “We are only a heartbeat away from super-human” qualities, and ” augmented reality will allow us to use the best of robotics to enhance our human senses and function at a higher level” (Hazel Davis article). Everytime a development is made, we risk becoming more and more detached from one another, choosing and augmented reality over what is real. There might even come a day where we become ‘transhuman’, a collective that more closely resembles the Borg from Star Trek than what we look like today.

As Clyde DeSouza writes, having “Augmented Human Memory, Augmented Intelligence, and Quantum Archeology and Immortality” are just three out of the five ways we are becoming ‘transhuman’. Everytime we make a status update, upload files, and shop online, we are “converting a biological function into a digital one. We are digitizing our analog stream-of-consciousness”. We are going from the natural, to the unnatural, and that is a scary thought. Combining technology or implants into ourselves may seem like a good or cool idea, but what would the long term effects be like? And would what we have ever be enough? Just look at how tablets and smartphones have become a sort of commodity to us already, and we are still craving more. Have we not yet reached perfection?

The more technologies that are created, the more we change how we interact with each other, alienating ourselves from our peers.  Like Daniel Tamarian puts it, augmented reality “is like to further expand the gap between pure traditional relations and technology-based ones.” He goes on to speculate whether or not humans will actually have relationships with other humans anymore. Who needs real life friends when you can create your own? And what about creating a romantic character? Where does it stop? How far might we go?

Digital meet Print, Print meet Digital.

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newspapers are dying

 

Flipping through a magazine or a newspaper, one could wonder how the simplicity of print could ever keep up with the complexity and excitement of digital. The print world scrambles to make flashy websites and apps to keep up, some cancelling their tangible papers to invest entirely in the online world. But, what if the two did not need to be separate? Layar introduces the two.

With an average increase of one million users each month, Layar is the world’s most downloaded Augmented Reality app. The app allows you to scan a magazine or newspaper page and reveals additional layers. The app can be used on any page with their logo, any QR scanning code, and movie posters. Their website has a few testers you can scan, like a page from Elle magazine and a Crystal light advertisement. Scanning the Elle page, a video make-up tutorial appears. The Crystal light add fills with colour and allows you to decide which flavour to look at. Layar provides the happy medium for those who love the digital world but aren’t ready to stop buying newspapers or magazines. The app may ease some people stuck in their ways to try something new, as it is a blend of technology and print.

I think this app could help keep newspapers, print, alive. It helps keep them interesting, without having to actually go online to view video clips or more pictures. The app’s popularity demonstrates an unwillingness to give up on print, there is demand for a combination of the two.

The future seems to be striding towards an entirely digital reality, where augmented reality is a part of daily life. This future is both frightening and enticing. I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up on a good ol’ fashion hike or an ordinary book. Augmented reality seemingly dismisses the natural beauty, excitement of the real world. AR implies our daily lives, the natural world before us, should be enhanced and should be better. Sure, it’s intriguing, but I don’t want to forget about non-augmented reality.

The Death of Standard Written English?

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This would have been so relevant last week, but since I totally forgot, here’s a nice piece on the continually evolving relationship between language and perceived trustworthiness, particularly with respect to journalism. The author argues that using a more personal, informal style actually boosts your credibility as a writer in the eyes of contemporary, web-cultured readers.  As someone who has always taken pride in writing beautiful, flowing sentences of “Standard Written English”, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the pedantry of it all. This was an important reminder to wield my literacy with care and embrace new ways of generating meaning. Putting snobs like me in their place: One more reason to love the internet!

Through the Google Glass: What Lies On the Other Side of Augmented Reality?

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I have a confession to make: I love the internet. This love has turned my MacBook into something of a digital albatross, a ball with a chain only as long as the Wi-Fi signal’s reach. Smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices have gone some way to rectifying this problem; all those formerly pesky little wasted moments between points A and B now burst with potential! But these devices still have the same crucial design flaw as a desktop computer: They separate and compartmentalize the virtual from the physical.

Enter augmented reality (AR). Two separate realities that demand constant switching back and forth are replaced by a single integrated space that works wherever the user is, an antidote to strained eyes and lamentable posture. Beyond mere convenience, AR also allows users to both enhance physical objects with digital information and reify abstract ideas for a more intuitive learning experience. Everyone from surgeons to white people seems poised to benefit from having their world slathered in layers of data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VRFuSyzzc

Looks pretty cool and all but TBH I was praying for the spinning beach ball of death to show up and make this douche force quit his flirting.

But might this techno-infusion hasten the decline of some essential element(s) of what it means to be human? As much as it can hurt to tear myself away from tumblr and Facebook, I feel a little bit freer once I abandon my laptop. I get on the bus. Notice people. Make up stories about them. What happens when the mystery is erased, when everything we look at is mediated through a gaze of questionable benevolence? The appeal of AR lies in its capacity to create a more harmonious relationship with technology, but the prospect of having no escape from it is what makes it so terrifying. Besides, aren’t our lives overwhelming and over-saturated enough as is?

I’m confident humanity will adapt, but that’s not exactly comforting. I don’t want to live in a Shteygartian future where books are smelly artifacts, or where I’ll be nostalgic for days like this, spent happily clacking away in the jealous embrace of a machine trying to keep me tied down while it still can.

Google’s Gamechanger in AR Gaming

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Augmented Reality games are the newest interactive platform for storytelling.  I took a look at Ingress, a new game that was just realized to the public this month after a year-long beta run.  With over 1 million players worldwide since it’s release, the addictive game is exploding in popularity at a rate commensurate with the augmented reality technology that it uses.

How do I describe Ingress? The fan-created Wiki defines it as:

“This massively multiplayer augmented reality game sees players in two factions fighting for territorial control of the planet, focused around real-world monuments and landmarks designated as “portals”.

The concept behind the game is that a strange energy called Exotic Matter (XM) has started appearing in the vicinity of mysterious alien portals. These portals are located near actual well-known publicly accessible landmarks – museums, parks, sculptures, signs, etc. Players have to choose a faction at the beginning – they are either “The Enlightened” who embrace the new technology who believe that it has been placed for the benefit of humankind, or they are “The Resistance” who actively fight against the technology, believing its purpose control of the population.

This video gives a good introduction.

Like the augmented world that comes to life on the screens of players’ Androids the story skirts between reality and fiction – it’s hard to know where reality ends and the story begins and vice versa. For example, NianticLabs is, in fact, a division of Google and in the fictional story is the organization that leaks the information about XM presence. This ambiguity makes for compelling storytelling and serves as  convenient branding for the company.

Players first learn about Ingress through the story of Tycho, a seemingly angry visionary artist at Comic Con who starts giving away his paintings, claiming he knows “the truth”. Fictional Youtube videos which apparently capture his breakdown, in conjunction with a fictional tumblr site further blur the lines between reality and fiction. With pieces of the story being told through these various media, and interaction with players both in the real world and augmented reality, Ingress is truly a multimodal story.

One of the benefits of games like this is that has the appeal of Massively Mutliplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft but gets players moving outside and in their communities. Because the game requires players to “check in” with portals they have to literally walk, bike or run around. The downside of course is that if players are not willing to move around, or if it is not feasible for them for whatever reason –  eg, they live in remote communities, have physical limitations or jobs that inhibit movement – the game will not be accessible.

For some players, the game is a means of enhancing physical activity – adding a layer of fun to their workout. Blogger Chris Silver Smith had this to say in his review of the game:

“I’ve actually reached the point of taking my mobile phone with me while running in the park so I can get more points for checking into Portals, recharging them, upgrading them, and linking them to one another. It’s really added another fun dimension to my workout routine and pushed me to go greater distances than previously!” (http://searchengineland.com/author/chris-smith).

To date there are over 1 million players are engaged in the game, which certainly speaks to the game’s popularity but also it brings up the question of what other uses  Google has for all the “check in” information. It will be interesting to see how Augmented Reality games affect advertising of businesses and the tracking of player’s data. Will Augmented Reality games greatly alter the way we interact in community spaces? How will Augmented Reality technology affect city planning and architecture? How about social interactions?

With questions like this lingering I can’t help but consider the parallel divide that exists on attitudes about new technology between those who believe that games like Ingress are step towards a more enlightened society; and those who see a more sinister motive hidden in the attractive package of convenience, entertainment and games.

 

Augmented Reality my [A button] [Start] [Select]

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These pilots relied on automatic speed control…

Should I start this post like most others by saying “before this class I had never heard of AR?”  No.  Because I had heard of it.  Many summers ago I sat in a big tent at the Experimental Aviation Association’s annual AirVenture Fly-In air show watching some guy explain how pilots would soon be brought in to land by flying their planes through a series of virtual rings (think Sonic the Hedgehog type rings) whether in bad weather or just to show the novice where to go.  I was with my dad, he was nuts about this stuff.  Spoiler alert, but that didn’t happen.  That particular AR/gamification/futuristic “Flying for Dummies” idea went bust because they couldn’t populate each airport around the world with reliable software and hardware, nevermind each plane, but it showed AR is all around us in both game and non-game systems.  It was flight simulator, except you were actually flying.

The readings this week showcase some of the reasons I’m skeptical about AR taking over every aspect of our lives.  Like the airplane case, not all AR translates into actual reality for one reason or another.  The Cracked article about the 5 most insane ARGs made me laugh because the games weren’t insane, the people who played them were.  Your Halo 2 score should never stop you running from a hurricane folks…  Don’t get me wrong, the Easter Eggs these game and film companies put in are amazing and take a lot of work, but they hide the fact that our “open and free Internet” and ARGs where we enjoy all these mind-blowing experiences are really just promotions for us to buy things from corporate America.

Do I REALLY need this in my life???

The other article that struck me was the Manifesto about the 21st Century being the century of gaming.  It’s easy to see that this manifesto was written by gamers and for gamers, but it doesn’t reflect the world we live in.  I play two games in my life, Candy Crush Saga and TrainStation (both on Facebook).  They take up too much of my life, my mom says they’ll ruin my life, but they don’t define my life.  I’m more than my games, ladies I promise you!  So how can our century be defined by games?  I agree that games are much more prevalent than before, but just because Wikipedia can be edited and doesn’t fill a building on campus doesn’t mean it’s much different than a catalogue.  Our mouse has become our pneumatic tube, one isn’t more of a game than the other, it is just a new version.  The 20th Century was defined by much more than the moving picture.  First was the automobile (in the 1910’s the car was said to define that century), then the airplane (which vied with the cinema for people’s attentions) became accessible and the car was seen as so last century.  War defined the 20th Century, especially the first half, but when that was over the jet age had begun.  The golden age of flight (actually, the third golden age in six decades…) was soon forgotten by the Space Age (the entry for 20th Century on Wikipedia, that game of all encyclopedias, has a photo from space at the top).  And now?  Space is forgotten, brought to prominence only by a man with a moustache tweeting from space, not as a game, but as a reminder.  By the way, the Challenger disaster’s anniversary is today.  If space actually defined the 20th Century, why have we forgotten it so soon?  Perhaps that century (and likely this one) will be defined by change.  Not progress or advancement, but short attention spans.

I’m glad the manifesto was followed up with Heather Chaplin’s essay that does touch on the “dark side” of tech.  We don’t have jet packs.  We have sleep deprivation and repetitive stress.  Here’s an article that discusses the downside of tech in my field of study, museum work.

Technology, be it AR or soon-to-be AR, is in our lives to stay, but it doesn’t define us.  That’s my take, but maybe I don’t fully understand it yet.  After all, it comes from a guy who only ever owned Pokemon Crystal and Tetris Colour, and who was (and still is) baffled by the wide and narrow screen options of the GameBoy Advance…  Good night.