The article “AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call It Mirrorworld” by Kevin Kelly explores an exciting future where the whole world is digitalized and we can manipulate reality as how we want. Yet despite its optimistic view of digitalized clone’s functions, the article also did not address several severe weaknesses. From my point of view, I think the article overestimated the fundamental function of Augmented Reality and thus shared a naïve vision.
Kenvin Kelly claimed that digitalization of objects is inevitable and serves a big benefit to the society. However, the benefits described in the passage is mainly entertainment orientated, with some application in repairment and education. Many examples are drawn from huge companies such as Tesla and NASA, and elaborated to our daily lives. In my opinions, AR is still developing and it’s a bit early to dream too big. In theory many ideas listed in the article can be built in reality, such as AR workspace, AR furniture preview, or AR social media, but these functions may not come as useful. Take the example of online classes: with a laptop and internet students are able to reach any university and organization on the planet, thus saving tremendous amount of finance on travelling, accommodations, even teaching resources. Yet with the 2020 incident many of us has come to the realization that online classes maybe more convenient at first glance, some of in-person class’ seemingly tedious works are actually helping students to memorize and concentrate. The human brain has various ways to store memory and one important element is location. That’s one of many reasons why online classes doesn’t work as well as it’s intentions. Similarly, only if AR’s simulation capable to fool human’s brain to think that one is in a particular location can its application in education and training prove somewhat useful. The fact that Tesla is using AR to save training resources doesn’t mean it does a great job. Nevertheless, with many skeptics, AR’s potential is still yet to be explored in arts and entertainment, which led to my second argument that how such potential is inflated and AR technology maybe never enter our daily lives.
While VR and AR technology are blooming in the game industry, little is heard elsewhere. It’s clear that entertainment has found its new media. What’s so fascinating about these games is that they bring new senses into parts that interacts with the environment. However, despite its success in entertainments, AR is still not capable of competing with real life experiences. While entertainment is evolving from single scratches, humans have lived with all of their senses activated for centuries. For example, AR may simulate a piece of furniture, but how close can it resemble its texture, appearance under different lighting and more? It is not too pessimistic to assume that, with expenses of AR technology and its actual applications, it may exist just as a luxury entertainment, just like PlayStation.
Furthermore, Kelly continues to address a world where there will be millions of micro-cameras to “keep a record”. The idea is not only threatening but also hard to maintain. With such enormous amount of data made online, it is not only safety our first measure, storing these data will also be a problem. However, it is quite plausible to assume in another decades time storage will upgrade to the point that it can store all the data in the world. It’s simply not unneccessary to keep the “mirror world” for “bath towel transforms into a magic cape” at the cost of privacy and safety. Kelly did mention a few safety protocols, yet apparently he underrestimated hackers. The cost of information breach is no longer scam calls and credit card theft, but personal safety. It’s hard to imagine people would willingly sacrifice their information for just entertainment purposes.
In conclusion, even though the article shared a futuristic view of AR technology, it dwelled on imaginations. However, with technology blasting its way in the recent decades, we could assume that, someday, this dream is not too big.
Leave a Reply