Ethics of technolodgy @valentinrouss-blog - Tumblr Blog

Test of the bodyextension.

Difficult to observe the user when he dives into virtual reality as the face of the user is covered by the VR-Device and I couldnt see what the user is observing. For now I completly relied on the user telling me how it felt after the experience. I couldn’t direct the users experience.

User 1: Didn’t saw big changes while opening the “Window to Reality”, due to the wrong position of the phone. After correcting the position of the phone the user realized the white frames of the phone after opening the window. A disruption of the experience.

User 2: Dove into the experience, was quite amazed of the world around him. Also he discovered the white frame of the phone. But he wasn’t that much into the experience with the crappy VR - cardboard that it was disrupting the experience that much.

User 3: I let him watch in the cardboard on the camera app of the smartphone inside. That means the user saw the world around him through the smartphone camera. Feedback: the user realized the picture focused by itself and not accordingly to the userers natural intention to focus on an object.

Conclusion: It was logical that opening the frame was distractive to the experience but looking back the responses were a bit obvious. Something more absurd would trigger more interesting insights to the experience.

Some shapes as inspiration for the design of the device I want the function to slowly awake from virtual reality to reality. Interesting is how technologie did changed the possibility of entertainment from beein in a group in e.g. a theater into beeing in front of your own screen with the option to be in a multiplayer modus. Because It is difficult to position the lenses inside the VR-glasses I will use for my next prototype my normal google cardboard and modify it.

Auditory solution

Its not like sony is the only noice cancelling headphone producer but their product has this option of hearing the real world again when the user wants to, whithout putting the headphones away.

#noproductplacement

Fusing VR with Reality

To allow people to wake up pleasently from reality I want to find a way which will allow the human dive into reality slowly while Waking up. Gaming mostly integrates two senses: the auditory and the visual. There are already solutions for noice cancelling headphone to have a button or some regulation on how much noise from the outside world they should let in. But as far as I know there is no VR glass where the user can decide by himself how much of the world around him he can see. I search for a product now which allows the user adjust on a scale from 0% to a 100% how much VR he wants to receive and therefore on the same scale how much from the surroundings the user wants to acknowledge.

Another tryout Prototype: Looking into virtual reality to see the whole reality through an altered vision. This gives the user the easy opportunity to see the quality of something on the screen compared to the real world. When you have the glasses on the first things you realize is that the screen quite pixalated and the angle of where you see things is way smaller. This makes the experience way less immersive. Furthermore I got headach after only a few minutes trying to walk through the house.

Quest for Reality

I asked the maker Filip Setmanuk about his intentions of the projects: “ The focus of my project was definitely about brining more real world elements into gaming since this industry is very detached from reality and that why the main point of the game is to seek reality. “

Additionally I got a lot more scientific Research on the causes and effects of game addiction and the motivation of people to play.

The main Reasons are: Social (escaping to meet people), Observing (escaping to discover new virtual worlds) and Achieving (escaping to kill, to gain power)

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/motivations.pdf

A selfie stick on a Virtual Reality googles.

Usind the technology of a selfiestick to put the body of the player into Virtual Reality. So you can see yourself from the front moving around on the screen of the glasses.

Grudin’s law

After explaining my Idea to Ole he had one question: Why would companys try to wake up the user from the consumtion of it, if they benefit from the user playing their game for a longer time.

Grudin’s law: When those who benefit are not those who do the work, then technology is likely to fail or, at least, be subverted.

So if you see the product from a user who doesn’t see the benefit of getting into a virtual world like Netflix for more then few hours, he won’t be pleased by a product which trys to do this. Demand and supply will do the rest.

Todays bodyextension prototype: a cube which is manipulated to mostly throw sixes. When placed in VR it will amaze the user at first and let the user experience great wins first. After a while Reflection and or boredome comes in: "why do I always win, is this world around me actually real?". A slow awakening.

Internal passive Artifact

The problem of prototyping my object: my body extension is an internal passive artifact. That means the form can not represent the technology behind it. The form is not engineerable. What happens behind the form is not understandable for the average user. Still the technology has to communicate its intention to the user. The designers task is to try to make the technology visible but still understandable.

A black cat running over the street can bring back some memories about danger. In the virtual reality a deja vu could trigger some reflections. An increasd of deja-vus can make the user bored of VR. To bring the user to dangers in reality this deju-vu should also be connected to normal Reality. In the film matrix at least this works. In gaming worlds can be take any shapes not just cats. Based on individual experiences and memories of the user. Question: How to get those individual memorys from the user for copying them into the game. In matrix the users have been warned that the black cat is a respond of a glitch in the matrix.

A friend of mine once said: It’s not about inventing new technologies but figure out what you can do with the existing ones in a different way. In my case motion sensors on your body: they can improve your gaming experience but my use of them is rather put a copy of your virtual body in your virtual reality so you can realize that actually you are not flying (Virtual Reality) but standing on the floor moving weirdly (Reality). How can it help? A try to bring back game addicts back to reality after a long time of beeing in VR in a smooth way.

new ideas: instead of an object which reminds the user of the real world, why not placing the users himself into the real world?

trying selfmade VR

Reading material

http://www.techaddiction.ca/gaming-addiction-statistics.html

Intense Discussion

The topic Reflection in Virtual reality seemes to be in great interest also of my classmates. I’ve received tons of ideas which i wanna sort out now and decide for myself weather they are ethicly or morally ok for me.

1. Reflection in virtual reality about reality

a) Can be used to have a different view on reality through the eyes of technologie. Used in Games like Pokemon go. Positive effect as it brings gamers to the real world and triggers conversation between them.

b) Can be used to show the user a review of actions he or she has done througout the day. This dependancy on technology can possibly affect the humans possibility to reflect spontaniously upon him or herself without any aids.

c) Can be used to wake the user from a virtual reality by reminding him or her of the real world outside. This is ethically the only all right Idea in this list.

d) Can show you how much personal data you are putting into the internet while using an application.

2. Reflection in reality about virtual reality

a) Can be used to prevent drug abuse to show the potential of how a drug will affect our lives. This is a similiar method as the disgusting pictures on a package of cigarets. In a studie it was proved that those pictures are helping kids to stay from cigarets more, but in the end people are getting used to the pictures if those pictures are everywhere and so those pictures are loosing their immersiveness. Same would probably will happen if you are showing a drug simulator on VR glasses to a person more then once.

b) Can be used to show addicts how they will life if they continue e.g. using heroin. This is highly sensitive topic. An experience like this can never replace a talk with a psychologist and the decision of weather or not this method is gonna should be used has to be decided indivually and carefully by professionals.

c) Can be used to let criminal people feel what they have done to their victims. Clockwork orange - an exagurated example of it. Also here: the morals of this method can not be judged by me.

d) Can be used to show humans how the world is gonna look like in 20 years if we continue with using as much resources as we use them now. The same problem that the effect of immersiveness goes away after a while. Furthermore we can not scientificly prove how the world will look like in the future, we cannot even predict when it is gonna rain tomorrow precisly. A simulation like this can possibly be received as a political propagande if shown or financed by a government.

e) Can be used to train people in medicine to practice difficult opperations in virtual reality.

3. Reflection in virtual reality about virtual reality. If you reflect eg. in a game about the games progress and not of you have eaten something today then you completly lost touch with the real world and your personal needs.

There are way more of Ideas out there an in a lot of them I see potential to be applied in education and work. But as my knowledge is quite low on this now, I am not seeing myself in the position to develop something usefull. Will I do once again an unpractical project at the DAE? Create something completly unethical to create awareness how the world should not be?

Comment: “Technology Is reinventing Humanity” - a quite precise title for the authors speech. He is a scientificly oriented person whith a big focus on progress. Science is what we needed for our planet: reducing waste, tackling issues in the foodchain, reducing pollution etc.

But do we really need to reinvent humanity through technology? Does a real hug replaces the one of a roboter?

Those questions are only possible to answer individually as it has different sensitive values to each person. If Jordan Nguyen wants to try it out, why not? Technology can copy your dead grandfathers behaviour but a copy will always be only an imitation of a real spontanious talk with him. And if you try it as a human beeing to loose yourself in this immitation completly there will be no reason for us to exist.

Humans and machines - a never ending story. The only thing I want to focus on my body extension is something which lets the human be more empathic and reflective (as Jordan Nguyen points it out) and the machine just helping the human without beeing in the way. Something I believe, you can archive through a better communication between the user and a machine.

In my body extension i would like to discover one of those possibilities: how can the user reflect upon his human reality (social contacts, social behaviour, social identity, social needs) after a certain amount of time beeing lost in a game.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Ethics of technolodgy