OMG, am I ever happy to
finally start seeing articles like
this one, from VentureBeat:
Virtual reality (VR) has a great deal of potential for the betterment of society – whether it be inspiring social change or training surgeons for delicate medical procedures.
But as with all new technologies, we should also be aware of any
potential ethical concerns that could emerge as social problems further
down the line. Here I list just a few issues that should undoubtedly be
considered before we forge ahead in optimism.
Preach, sister!
Now, some of the list are (IMHO) relatively minor things that should not be as highly ranked as they are (e.g. #6, "Unpalatable fantasies," or #9,"Appropriate roaming and re-creation," which both feel like first-world, corporate-boardroom concerns even in a world where VR porn already exists), and others (e.g. #10, "Privacy and data") are not unique to VR, but some of them are very much VR-specific and definitely concerns that I've written about before,
including:
1) Sensory vulnerability
When we think of virtual reality, we automatically conjure images of clunky headsets covering the eyes — and often the ears — of users in order to create a fully immersive experience. There are also VR gloves and a growing range of other accessories and attachments. Though the resultant feel might be hyper-realistic, we should also be concerned for people using these in the home — especially alone. Having limited access to sense data leaves users vulnerable to accidents, home invasions, and any other misfortunes that can come of being totally distracted.
Remember when BestBuy closed down their Oculus Rift demo stations after discovering that their customers didn't really want to strap on a VR headset and leave themselves feeling horribly vulnerable in the middle of a public space? With "VR 2.0" apologists pushing portable VR as the natural next phase of the industry, this one has obvious relevance.
And then there's:
2) Social isolation
There’s a lot of debate around whether VR is socially isolating. On the one hand, the whole experience takes place within a single user’s field-of-vision, excluding others from physically participating alongside them. On the other hand, developers like Facebook have been busy inventing communal meeting places like Spaces, which help VR users meet and interact in a virtual social environment. Though, as argued, the latter could be helpfully utilized by the introverted and lonely (such as seniors), there’s also a danger that it could become the lazy and dismissive way of dealing with these issues.
There is also the question of whether forums like Spaces may even end-up “detaching” users by leading them to neglect their real-world social connections. Studies have already demonstrated that our existing social media consumption is making many of us feel socially isolated, as well as guilty and depressed. There’s also plenty of evidence to show that real face-to-face interactions are a crucial factor in maintaining good mental health. Substituting them with VR without further study would be ill-advised.
With
Colorado already running VR experiments on inmates, this sort of thing is an obvious concern. Granted, Colorado is starting small, testing the usefulness of VR in acclimating possibly-institutionalized prison inmates to the outside world prior to release, but the potential for "VR solitary," and the permanent neurological damage that can result, has to loom large over any prison-system application of this technology.
Which leads us to:
5) Psychiatric
There could also be more profound and dangerous psychological effects on some users (although clearly there are currently a lot of unknowns). Experts in neuroscience and the human mind have spoken of “depersonalization”, which can result in a user believing their own physical body is an avatar. There is also a pertinent worry that VR might be swift to expose psychiatric vulnerabilities in some users, and spark psychotic episodes. One investor has even warned that virtual reality gaming could cause real-life post-traumatic stress disorder.
Needless to say, we must identify the psychological risks and symptoms ahead of market saturation, if that is an inevitability.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there's a reason why new therapeutic devices are generally required to prove themselves both effective
and safe before being approved for widespread use on patients. It's unlikely that a device as human-centric as VR will ever have an animal testing phase, but closely-controlled and -supervised, double-blind human trials should definitely be done before we start prescribing VR for mental illness. Yes, there's potential application here, but there's also a strong whiff of snake oil about it all, and no data yet to show that VR does more good than harm as a therapeutic tool.
The list also includes at least one item that I hadn't considered before:
8) Manipulation
Attempts at consumer manipulation via advertising trickery are not new, but up until now they’ve been 2-dimensional. As such, they’ve had to work hard compete with our distracted focus. Phones ringing, babies crying, traffic, conversations, music, noisy neighbors, interesting reads, and all the rest. With VR, commercial advertisers will have access to our entire surrounding environment (which some psychologists argue has the power to control our behavior). This will ramp up revenue opportunities for developers, who now have (literally) whole new worlds of blank space upon which they can sell advertising.
Commentators are already warning that this could lead to new, covert tactics involving product placement, brand integration and subliminal advertising.
Again, this may be more of a first-world, corporate-boardroom concern at the moment;
consumers are mostly kicking advertising's ass right now, and there's no data yet to suggest that VR ads will be any more effective, or that consumers won't quickly find (and adopt) VR ad-blocking even before VR manages to achieve widespread adoption. It's probably still worth keeping an eye on, though, and it's heartening to see articles in VentureBeat (which is aimed at potential VR investors, remember) that are exploring issues like this one.
And that's my take on the entire piece: a heartening dose of sober self-reflection for an industry that's seemingly built entirely out of hype. The entire article is worth a read, and well worth supporting just on principle, so go
give them some clicks.