Be Your Own Robot — ✋🎤💥 MicDrop #7 by Sander Veenhof
This is a transcript of the speech given by Sander Veenhof, Augmented reality artist and Ambassador of the Digital Society School, during MicDrop#7 ‘Be Your Own Robot’ on October 17th, 2018, Digital Society School in Amsterdam.
Sander: “We are expressing a fear of robots taking over. Can we still be useful? What should we do? What is our purpose in the society of the future?”
Rather than focussing on us adapting to technology, Sander argues that we will become the robots. And we are going to be very, very busy. The reason? Augmented Reality Glasses. After the Google Glass and its unsuccessful debut, tech companies are trying it again. There is a bigger emergence in other glasses. AR glasses such as the Hololens and Magic Leap are the next step in placing the normal consumer in Augmented Reality and as opposed to Google Glasses, people seem to be seeing the benefits now.
Augmented Reality can be used to address issues in the physical world, such as virtually setting a stoplight on a bike lane. This stoplight is non-material as we speak, however, in a nearby future where AR is fully implemented, commuters might use the virtual stoplights to regulate their journey in traffic. Virtual reality aims to have a real impact on the physical realm. QR codes were around for quite a while, but no one really used them anymore after a short time. As an artistic experiment, Sander created a rotating and therefore, elusive QR code to demonstrate its obsolescence.
As it stands AR glasses are almost certainly going to increasingly feature in our everyday lives in the near future, primarily in the working environment. Day-to-day tasks will become labels on the locations where they need to be completed. By simply looking around, one will be able to receive prompts and guidelines about how to act in specific situations. And this could also be the shopping experience of the future. A 2016 short film called ‘HyperReality’ shows what the future could look like when wearing Augmented Reality devices.
As a result of this shift, technology will probably force its way into our lives in unprecedented ways and volume.
Supermarkets are already giving customers instructions on how to pay and implementing self-checkout facilities, reducing the need for human intervention in this process. Soon, perhaps, no more store assistants will be around to help us with transactions. As alarming as it might sound at first, these new solutions can potentially help tackle the current issue of hyper-consumerism. For instance, by virtualising the process of trying on an outfit in a store, fast fashion could reduce its production and optimise it more according to demand. AR also presents more marketing opportunities for the fashion industry, for instance, the possibility to create clothing in augmented reality in real-time. The big question is who is going to provide these AR Glasses and the apps that support them.
As the market goes, there will be a war between tech companies who battle to win over customers and provide the best service.
But can we, as customers, really trust the big tech giants to deliver a product with our best interest in mind? Is it not too tempting for these companies to find ways to use this type of product to subliminally direct their customers towards other products or services that they want us to use?
An interesting aspect of this AR movement is that a lot of the ideas being discussed and the potential apps that could be developed are already patented. There is a wide range of entities that are documenting their processes and inventions with AR and making sure that they can own and profit from their creations later on. And the ideas are endless and sometimes amusingly surprising. For example, there is a patent for an AR cutting board that gives instructions about how to cut a cucumber.
There will be a new digital divide; one that will exclude certain groups of people in virtual society.
We should not only look at AR from the perspective of consumerism, but another solution could also be that AR glasses help us in our daily tasks. Instant feedback can infiltrate any area and while it will help us with problem shooting and errors within the system, it will also define how you react to things. When your AR device tells you how to react or feel about a certain event, are you really in control about your actions?
There will be a new digital divide; one that will exclude certain groups of people in society. The patent to keep you safe in traffic might not be widely available across competing brands. Former public knowledge or sightseeing can be filtered and only available when using a certain type of paid software. The amount of App Store guidelines who are not giving the right information is worrying. There are too many rules that can result in a conflict in development, for instance: “You may not include some hidden or undocumented features in your app.” That excludes all possibility of including a subtle protest or critique in Augmented Reality. When you start being a part of the whole system, the rules that apply in there are also going to be applicable to us, because Augmented Reality is about us. We are the ones who are going to be augmented. We should be able to configure ourselves towards our guidelines.
When you start being a part of the whole system, the rules that apply in there are also going to be applicable to us, because Augmented Reaility is about us.
Why are we the ones configuring and adapting to these apps? Should these apps auto-configure to us? In Second Life, you can buy behaviours for your avatar, which allow you to become a better dancer. In a future where you will get controlled by algorithms, there could be an App Store where you can buy features for yourself. And you would want to create those apps yourself.
But the programming languages required for this customisation are too strict. This is not about the sources becoming available, but people need to be able to make AR Devices and apps. If end users are not willing to use and able to modify the AR apps, then there is no incentive to create the alternatives. We will become robots ourselves, instructed every step and action we take. We need to be acquainted with the technology and make sure it configures to us. It is becoming more important to become your own Robot, however, it is going to be extremely difficult and it will require a lot of work.
The DSS Mic Drops are inspirational, interactive, provocative master classes given by expert researchers and practitioners, on topics that relate to design, tech, societal challenges and how we can make the world a better place by integrating technology more wisely and humanely.
