An Augmented World (1)
Do we really need to be even more connected?
Understanding how augmented reality works is not so complicated, it is though, if what we are trying to explain is what is it good for. In this series of articles I will try to put in writing what I think about a technology that will take us to a next level, that may or may not make us better, but it will definitely come to stay for good amongst us. Let’s see what an Augmented World has to offer.
Let’s become Digital
We are hyperconnected and our brain sometimes feels like imploding as a galaxy full of overcrowded worlds, our ability to absorb so much useless information has a limit, and such limit is reaching a critical mass these days.
We are trying to read, write, capture, create and accummulate information Gigabytes at a pace we are definitely not designed for, we are living in a digital reality hard to reach but, ubiquitous at the same time. We have all the information right there, but there is so much of it, it becomes useless.
What if I go Augmented?
Wow, I can now go away from my tablet, smartphone, laptop, I can see and interact with whatever and whoever I want just by looking through a device, am I augmented now? I don’t think so.
You don’t see whatever, you see a selection of what you want to see according to your taste, your location and your habits, some one must create that augmented world around you, some one must teach your device to recognize the objets, places, faces and paintings, some one who is not you, who may be good and eager to share for the sake of sharing, or may be someone not so nice, someone who wants you to know a very special version of that information, a different way to use that object, a biased interpretation of that painting, a specifiv direction to a given place so you walk through a certain area. Well, yes, you’ve given away so much information about yourself your device knows you better that your own mother, you are offered information according to the places you usually walk through, the ones you are near, the ones that sells batteries for the device you bought 3 months ago, and they are due to changing, you are exposed to policemen who will knowthe things you look at, the way your pupils expand when you like something you’re looking at… so are you augmented yet? I don’t think so.
We will be augmented when we create an augmented world to live in, a digital representation of what’s there for us to understand it better, whe we create virtual tools to help us interact with what suround us, to learn from it and to help us keep it there, in the real world. We are not and will never be augmented. We will be better digitally, we will recognize objets, places and concepts just by looking at them. But that won’t make us augmented. We are and allway be humans, with our limitations, we will probably download a game on our device rather than an Art or Arqutechture encylopaedia. We will rather use a full time augmented social network than Go closer to a person who we don’t know and activate the voice recognicion for translation on our device. Oh! no! that would be a human interaction after all! no, we will not be augmented till we are human again. In any case we will be living in the wrong augmented world.
Living in the wrong augmented world
I am looking right now througn a device which reminds me my duties by the minute, recognizes what I am looking at and where I am. I don’t talk, I don’t type, I just watch, stare at all this endless flow of information scrolling past my eyes, trying to get hold of it, some of it, I can’t I am frustrated. My Augmented Reality has augmented to a size I can’t take it anymore. What is so important about our thousand followers or friends or people we friend or follow that make our own life so empty?
Do we really need this stuff?
No, we don’t, we can and must be able to separate trash from our mum’s birthday, what? don’t we even remember our Mom’s birthday anymore? well, that’s one of the side effects of a hyperconnected world. Our brain is just able to process so much information, but we keep giving it more of it, we want to keep it coming in, we are literally forcing our brain to absorb information it doesn’t need, it’s not vital, and is not useful, it’s only images and people’s thoughts and jokes, but it still takes place.
Our brain’s hard drive is full, we can’t remember the important, we don’t separate the ethically correct from the politically right, we see so much pain and guts spread everywhere we are numb, we socialize but don’t organize, we have friends but don’t have dinners or parties with them, we chat in the classroom with our next seat mate, we are digital.
If we are digital, if we don’t really need the world we live in, then we may aswell make some room for those who want and need that space we are using. Le’ts make ourselves completely digital and live in a memory stick. Let’s augment the world’s reality by desappearing from it and begin another live where the food we eat and the energy we waste can be used by people who are starving and cold, who laugh and talk to each other, who fall in love, live, learn, procreate and die, people like we used to be, like we should have been before we dissapeared into the digital world of the numb, blind and deaf to the surounding reality.
When will we be ready for an Augmented World?
My augmented world is waiting for me, is a place where I am able to reach the information when and where I need it, information that is there either commercially available or open for everyone. Information not biased, not corrupted and not directed to me using any form of data collection. Information as information, where I can choose sources and take what I consider better. Clean information.
We will be ready for an Augmented World only when we’ve learnt to be digital, when we have adapted ourselves to live without billions of Gigabytes of useles information around us, when we learn to erase and delete, when we add information freely for use of others, when we give, share, put and take what we need with honesty and humbleness. Only then will we be ready for an Augmented World.
