Augmented Reality is going to be awful
Augmented Reality is going to be awful
Welcome to a new level of hell
Apple, Google and who knows who else are readying themselves to release AR headsets that promise to change the way we do computing forever.
It’s going to be awful.
The problem is human connection. We all know that connecting with others is one of the most reliable ways to improve personal happiness. Real-life friends keep us afloat. We are sometimes afraid to admit it, but most of us want flesh and blood human beings around us, not virtual followers. Yet we are suffering an epidemic of loneliness. Half of all Americans admit to feeling lonely and in the UK the number of people who describe themselves as ‘often’ or ‘always’ lonely rose from 2.6 million in 2020 to 3.3 million in 2022. In TWO years. We are social creatures and the web was supposed to bring us closer together but it seems the more connected we become, the further away from each other we drift.
Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.
But the situation today isn’t as bad as it will be when AR hits the mainstream. It doesn’t matter who *gets there first* and it doesn’t matter who *does it right*. The problem is not a technological hurdle; the problem is the core of the product.
Right now, if I have something on a screen before me, then at least you can still see it. Want to see this chart for work? Take a look at my monitor. Want to see this snap I took of my ugly children? Here, take my phone.
The standard of technology is that the device itself, with all its virtual contents, is still bound within a hardware we can all see and share. My phone might put the infinite expanse of the interwebs at my fingertips, but it’s still displayed on something I can hold in my hand. And if I can hold it in my hand, that means you can hold it in yours and that way we can both share in the wonder of the latest Lord of the Rings meme (or whatever else the cool kids are watching these days).
Together. At the same time. Experiencing the same thing. On the same screen.
It’s not going to be like that with AR.
With AR, I’m going to have a headset on and I’m going to have that picture of Samwise Gangee screaming something about potatoes hovering in the air before my very eyes and you are going to see nothing except me with a pair of cumbersome glasses giggling to myself like a fruitcake.
You are going to slap me. I mean it. I’m going to be so annoying to you, chortling away in my own little world that you will literally slap me. The headset will fall off my head, smash on the floor and you will owe me three thousand quid.
I am going to see the meme and you are not. Whatever goodies I bring up in front of me are going to be completely cut off from you. You are not going to see it. You will not know what I am laughing about.
We will live in siloed worlds.
There’s a reason comedy shows traditionally use canned laughter: because it’s easier to laugh if someone else is laughing with us. We like the feeling of connection with others. That’s what makes it fun. Even if you don’t actually ‘lol’, there’s still a sense that if you did then you wouldn’t be alone.
In AR you are always alone.
Oh, I hear you cry, but what about shared experiences in AR? Can’t we both watch the same Netflix show at the same time, streamed individually to our separate devices? If we both set the headset to simulate a huge fifty foot screen then wouldn’t that feel just like we were at the movies together?
Wouldn’t that be great?
Yeah, I say. Sure. The movies. That famously social environment where everyone stays still, keeps quiet and stares straight ahead. But even in the movie theatre, I can walk in half-way through and still catch a glimpse of what you were watching before the ushers courageously tackle me to the ground for not buying a ticket. For just that moment we would have a shared experience. We would connect.
Not so in AR. I’d need a headset of my own tuned to exactly the same stream at exactly the same time by sheer chance.
But more than this, a movie theatre is a place where we are able to share the same experience with strangers. In fact, it’s one of the final places we might engage with people we don’t know. We might make a friendly comment about the film as we exit the room or maybe later to break the tension when we end up standing next to each other awkwardly at the urinals. With AR this wouldn’t happen — because we would have been watching entirely different films. Instead we would merely stand there silently, watching the holographic adverts flick by, wondering if the size of the other guy’s member is just a glitch in the software.
And then there’s the actual useful, *productive* stuff. Every time we want to show someone something at work, we’re going to have to pair our headsets in some way so we can both see the same thing. Every time. We’ll be ‘knocking heads’ or ‘winking to pair’ or whatever other nonsense is required for us to see the same thing at the same time in the same place when previously we would have just had a cheap VDU to point at.
What happens if your headset breaks? Or if you forget it? Or, God forbid, if you can’t afford one. You are going to be cut off from every experience. You can’t share a headset. It’s going to be one person at a time, passing the thing back and forth. At least with a phone I can suddenly leer over your shoulder and prod unexpectantly at whatever it is your Great Aunt Harriet has posted on Facebook. How am I supposed to tell you how wrong she is if I can’t see the screen? Think of all those lovely political discussions we will miss out on. Instead you will just have to carry on scrolling on your own without my well intentioned interference. Hellish, isn’t it?
Physical proximity will no longer binds us. We will be cut loose from the most fundamental shared experience of reality.
We already have an example of this: headphones.
Headphones provide a solo listening experience (except if you are a brutes who passes an AirPod to your best mate expecting them to insert your dried-on earwax into their canal). You cannot hear what I am listening to. I cannot hear you. You can talk and I will just ignore you. That’s how it works. Ask my wife.
And, more to the point, I don’t even need to be listening to anything for the effect to work. I can just clamp my headphones over my ears and the message comes across loud and clear: don’t talk to me. My headphones are my cones of silence; my champions protecting me from unwanted interaction. You want to avoid getting mugged? Just ensure you always walk with earphones glued to the side of your head and you can pretend your wannabe assailant was just asking you for the time. Trust me, I have the stitches to prove it.
Wear a set of headphones and you are instantly cut off from the world around you and everyone else knows it. A set of ear cans is the universal symbol for ‘leave me alone’.
How much more so when you’re wearing an AR headset?
My world is not your world. My experience is not your experience. We become cut off. Separate. Disunited. Each one of us becomes an island and you know what? At some point the seas are going to rise.