The Ethics of Immersive Technology: with a Focus on AR and VR

I am very excited by the potential of immersive technologies, such as VR and AR headsets as well as spatial computers, however, I can't help but worry about the ethics behind them, what will happen when the wall between the real world and the virtual world is completely broken down.

As previously stated, Virtual Reality allows us to experience empathy on a new level, we get to experience life through someone else's shoes - like The Guardian's 360 story, 'The Party', which offers viewers the chance to step into the life of 16-year-old Layla, a young girl with autism, as she attends a birthday party. You experience the party as she does, and see first hand how a number of overwhelming triggers affect Layla's state of mind. It's an insightful short film that raises awareness and understanding. Furthermore, the development in AR and spatial computing suggests that we will one day no longer need screens. It will also drastically change how different experts and industries work. For example, in health care AR can help doctors visualise surgeries, both as a teaching tool and in the operating room (Willis, 2018). Furthermore, Electronic Caregiver, who design and develop digital health products (Electronic Caregiver, 2021) have been working on a virtual caregiver called Addison Care who is a " 3D animated, connected caregiver designed to transform a residence into a digital Smart Health Home, providing chronic care management, rehabilitation, ageing in place, behavioural health and care coordination, for patients of all ages."(Addison Care, 2017).

This technology will also offer new ways for people to interact with the real world. Writer and technical evangelist, Robert Scoble, talks about how this kind of Immersive technology will positively change the way his son, who is autistic, "communicates, read social cues...and do other tasks." (Scoble, 2019).

However, it is also important to be aware of the risks it poses to our society - how it will affect our relationships, mental health and commercial marketing.

The most common commercial AR applications that we use today are those found on social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram. These platforms allow us to be anyone we want to be, but at what cost? In 2017 the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) released a report revealing the effects of social media on young people's mental health. The identified rates of depression and anxiety have gone up by 70% in the last 25 years. The 14-24-year olds surveyed for this study said that Instagram, Snapchat exacerbated feelings of anxiety (RSPH, 2017 pg 18). This is because those using social media are, for the most part, carefully curating their image, only posting 'the best of' their life, so a lot of young people are comparing themselves against those who seem to be living a perfect life of exciting holidays, parties with friends and romantic dates with partners. On top of this, people often edit their photos before sharing, so now these young people are comparing themselves against unrealistic 'ideals' that are impossible to reach. Filters on our phones make it possible to edit your face and body in realtime, affecting young people's sense of self-worth and identity as they start comparing their own life and image against these artificial versions of themselves. Furthermore, the reason this new species of power and influence is so dangerous is that it is being spearheaded by technology that is advancing at an incredible rate. According to a report from communications firm Edelman, 66% of respondents worry technology will make it impossible to know if what people are seeing or hearing is real and 61% worry that the pace of change in technology is too fast and that governments do not understand emerging technologies enough to regulate them effectively (Edelman, 2020). In 2020 the White House announced that they will design their principles to drive innovation and limit regulatory overreach (Hodge, 2020).

Furthermore, when thinking about the future of this technology it is difficult to ignore the world of Disney Pixar's movie 'WALL-E'. The humans we meet in this story are all overweight, unable to stand on their own feet, endlessly consuming food and content, scrolling and swiping, unable to look away from their 'screens'. Overuse of technology is already leading to increased feelings of isolation (AJPM, 2017), digital eyestrain (Johnson, 2020), poor posture (Elsevier, 2017), Sleep problems (PNAS, 2014) and reduced physical activity (BMC, 2017). Another aspect of 'WALL-E' that we see increasing in our society is our exposure to marketing. In 2013 there were one million advertisers on Facebook, in 2016 there were three million advertisers (Tait, 2016), in early 2020 there were 8 million, there are now more than 10 million active advertisers across Facebook services (Schiff, 2020). The recent rise will have something to do with the fact that the Coronavirus pandemic has meant that more people are spending time indoors and having to find new ways to connect with friends and family, so are turning to online platforms. Therefore there is a wider market available for online advertisers.

“The acceleration in revenue growth from Q2 to Q3 is largely driven by strong advertiser demand and the accelerating shift from offline to online commerce that we saw in connection with the pandemic,” Dave Wehner, Facebook’s CFO (Schiff, 2020)

Digital marketing experts estimate that the average American is exposed to around 4,000 and 10,000 ads a day (Simpson, 2017). This number will only rise with Facebook developing their first pair of smart glasses(Rodriguez, 2020). Advertisers are always looking to monetize new technology, and when we have a permanent screen over our eyes, what is to stop advertisers from creating a world where we have a permanent stream of adverts, distracting us and manipulating us. However, there ways you can lower the number of ads you see per day yourself. AdBlockers are browser extensions that can detect when something is an ad and simply block it from appearing on your screen. Unfortunately, they are not perfect, some sites, like Facebook, use coding tricks to fool AdBlocker(BBC News, 2018). Furthermore, some plugins, like AdBlocker Plus, accept payments from large advertisers to 'whitelist' their ads, defeating the entire point of an AdBlocker (Palant, 2011)

I am not saying that we should fear the development of technology or avoid it, as previously stated, there are so many ways in which we can benefit from immersive technology, we just need to make sure we embrace it with regulations that protect us. For example, taxing corporation and businesses on the number of data assets that they have. The Center for Humane Technology is a company committed to changing our digital infrastructure, and they have been working to drive a shift towards "humane technology that supports our well-being, democracy, and shared information environment" (CHT a, 2021 ). They do this by educating the public with media campaigns and documentaries, training and education technologists and tech leaders with online courses and resources and informing policy change, for example, at Senate hearings. Their documentary, 'The Social Dilemma', had tech designers from the inside the industry reveal hard truths about the way technology has a hold over our lives and how it has reached this point. It has already been seen by an estimate of 100 million people, streaming in 190 countries in 30 languages (CHT b, 2021). As long as we are aware of the dark side of technology and demand regulations for these tech companies, we can fully embrace new and exciting tech that make our world better.

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