rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (06/04/91)
Thanks to Genny Engel (GENOL%UCCMVSA.BITNET@uccvma.ucop.edu) for the meeting notes. One particular part of Lanier's ideas caught my attention: > Lanier said he views VR as less corruptible than other media > such as TV because the producer of the medium cannot impose a > view upon the user. In other words, if you force someone to see > something they weren't pointing their head at in the virtual > world, you make them nauseous and it just doesn't work when you > make your media consumers throw up. This seems too idealistic. What's to keep the VR author from creating a reality in which the user (poor word choice!) *can't* get away from a particular thing to be seen/felt/experienced. That is, just because you can turn away, turn your back on something, doesn't mean you won't see the same thing (with a different veneer of presentation) the next place you turn. In fact, it seems to me that the total immersion created by VR makes it incredibly corruptible...all it takes is a little experience in how to control the participants and lead them to what you want them to "want to experience". The illusion of control in VR could be dangerous because it's an illusion--if you're led to a particular viewpoint or experience, doesn't the illusion of having gotten there under your own control (rather than passively, as with TV) make it all that much more persuasive? Yeah, I know, that's a pretty dark view...but what am I missing that argues against it? TV is already incredibly good at grabbing and holding people's attention. I never cease to be amazed at the complete trash that will completely captivate creative, intelligent people. There are specific programming tricks that allow TV to do this. Won't the same tricks evolve for VR? -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better.
GENOL%UCCMVSA.BITNET@uccvma.ucop.edu (Genevieve Engel) (06/04/91)
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)... > reality in which the user (poor word choice!) *can't* get away Thanks for mentioning this point about word choice. I work in (of course) User Services and I think I have come to view all of society as The Users, myself included. This was my word choice. In fact, I can't really remember what word anyone at the SIGGRAPH meeting was using <- there's that word again, or close! I see you prefer "participant" ... better, but it's a little long for me to use <-! comfortably. If your fears about manipulating the consumers of VR prove true, maybe it would be most apt to call them "victims." Although I must say, ever since the movie Tron, "user" has more of a charming ring to it, for me, than it would otherwise have had. We could always borrow from library terminology and call the people who make use <-!! of VR services "patrons." > In fact, it seems to me that the total immersion created by VR > makes it incredibly corruptible...all it takes is a little > experience in how to control the participants and lead them to what > you want them to "want to experience". The illusion of control in > VR could be dangerous because Yes, this sort of question was brought up by an audience member in the q-&-a which followed. Jaron Lanier allowed as how VR wasn't strictly incorruptible but he was definitely convinced that it is inherently more dependent on the creativity of the person experiencing VR than are media such as TV. And of course Brenda Laurel was equally convinced that it would be entirely too easy to corrupt the entire VR field. Genny Engel GENOL@UCCMVSA.BITNET <- preferred gen@magnum.ucop.edu <- last resort [MODERATOR'S NOTE: Is it the technology or the people behind the technology whose corruptibility is at issue? -- Bob Jacobson]
aprile@ghost.unimi.it (Walter Aprile) (06/04/91)
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >... [I]t seems to me that the total immersion created by VR makes it >incredibly corruptible...all it takes is a little experience in how to >control the participants and lead them to what you want them to "want to >experience". The illusion of control in VR could be dangerous because >it's an illusion--if you're led to a particular viewpoint or experience, >doesn't the illusion of having gotten there under your own control (rather >than passively, as with TV) make it all that much more persuasive? Yeah, >I know, that's a pretty dark view...but what am I missing that argues >against it? I think that VR is extremely corruptible because of the R in it. That's to say: If you see something printed on paper, such as "President Cossiga flies paper airplane during Italian parliament meeting!", you think it is a joke, or at least you have some doubts. If you see it on TV, it becomes more real, but nowadays everybody knows about TV tricks. But if you experience it on VR, hear the laughter, see the glint in the amateur airplane engineer and later shake hands with him: man, that would be truly convincing, wouldn't it ? This might be particularly true for people that are not able to decode the illusion; even now it is very difficult even for a trained user to spot a TV tri ck (and almost impossible to spot a photo trick). Think what a good VR trick mig ht do to unsuspecting audience ! One solution would be to hang big shiny "DO NOT BELIEVE" signs all over the place ! :-) More seriously, it dependes a lot on the way VR is perceived: I mean, TV is for many people a source of truth (at least in my country). Newspapers are not, what will VR be ? I think that depends on the marketing people :-) *---------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Walter Aprile | I don't think what I say * * Universita' degli Studi di Milano | and I don't say what I think * * Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione | my employer doesn't exist * * Via Moretto da Brescia, 9 | and the University of Milan * * I-20133 Milano - Italy | won't admit anything * *---------------------------------------------------------------------------* * aprile@ghost.unimi.it * *---------------------------------------------------------------------------*
shebs@Apple.COM (Stan Shebs) (06/05/91)
In article <1991Jun4.030757.993@milton.u.washington.edu> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >In fact, it seems to me that the total immersion created by VR makes it >incredibly corruptible...all it takes is a little experience in how to >control the participants and lead them to what you want them to "want to >experience". The illusion of control in VR could be dangerous because >it's an illusion--if you're led to a particular viewpoint or experience, >doesn't the illusion of having gotten there under your own control (rather >than passively, as with TV) make it all that much more persuasive? Yeah, >I know, that's a pretty dark view...but what am I missing that argues >against it? Both the user and the author can unwittingly collaborate to produce horrid things: imagine a VR documentary about the Third Reich, where a user with secret dreams of power takes on the role of Hitler, gradually adjusting the VR so that he takes over the world, establishes the thousand-year Reich, and dies peacefully of old age - simultaneously dying of dehydration in real life, having stayed in the VR too long. VR could be like wireheading with more variety... The evidence so far seems to be that our brains aren't particular about where the stimuli come from, and that synthetic is just fine. Seems to me it's only been our bodies that have saved the race from our brains' survival-threatening obsessions with religion (think of medieval hermits), drugs, war, ideology, etc. Perhaps this is how we'll survive the dangers of VR as well. Stan Shebs Apple ATG System Software
jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai) (06/05/91)
In article <1991Jun4.184740.9119@milton.u.washington.edu> shebs@Apple.COM (Stan Shebs) writes: >The evidence so far seems to be that our brains aren't particular about >where the stimuli come from, and that synthetic is just fine. Seems to me >it's only been our bodies that have saved the race from our brains' >survival-threatening obsessions with religion (think of medieval hermits), >drugs, war, ideology, etc. Perhaps this is how we'll survive the dangers >of VR as well. Or maybe VR will turn out to be a new selection mechanism for humanity, as the wireheads who "lose it" are weeded out. Considering how many people today are already self-deluding without VR, this may not be a bad thing. There, now that's morbid.