XR: New Platform, Fresh Start
XR is a new platform. It’s a new interface into technology with new players and new opportunities. For decades, since the 80s, tech hippies saw VR as an opportunity to build a digital utopia. And for many, the dream lives on. A utopia might not be possible, but we do get as close as possible to a fresh start.
But why could we possibly need a fresh start anyway?
In a previous blog post I talked about how some very few organizations are controlling the Internet. Current incentives promote free information that can only be funded by the ad model, which itself can only work with mass data collection. The ad model depends on impressions, so ad organizations use our data to shape our minds into clicking more links and spending more time on a page.
There are algorithms behind with those goals. These algorithms will do anything to make us more “engaged”. Far too slowly, we’ve figured out how this model, most likely unintentionally, promotes negative content, as such is the nature of what grabs our attention. The result? A polarized society navigating the daily consumption of fake news en masse. Like Jaron Lanier says (it’s worth watching his Ted Talk), the companies behind these algorithms have become Behaviour Modification Empires. This is terrifying.
The Internet is already in a difficult situation with the general public losing trust in Silicon Valley and the big tech companies. Within this context, how can we expect people to just wear a Facebook owned VR or AR headset all day? We must also keep in mind that the population is attempting to, logically, spend less time with screens, and it’s important to respect that.
I see two options. We continue down our current path, and XR, as a more invasive platform, only becomes the tool to brings doom upon the human civilization. Or we use XR as our chance to define a fresh start. I’m being melodramatic, but that doesn’t make the issues any less important.
Uhm… Okay… That does sound scary, what can we do?
If, as Jaron says, our mistake was making free information our priority, maybe we should try shifting to a person-centered platform. In his book Dawn of the New Everything, he gives the following definition for VR (definition 45, page 257):
A person-centered, experiential formulation of digital technology that hopefully inspires digital economies in which the real people who are the sources of value aren’t ignored.
What is a person-centered platform? It’s the idea that everything built on the platform shares a common nucleus, actual people. It means that you align the incentives of what you build with people’s needs. Content that induces negative feelings doesn’t correspond to the richness and complexity of a person. When a platform ends up flooded with fake news that polarizes society, it’s not a symptom of a person-centered platform. Etsy, on the other hand, makes it easy for people to sell their craft creations, and consumers to find what they need. That sounds much better.
For XR, we need to talk about one of its core components, the so called AR Cloud. It consists on a set of information layers viewable using VR/AR. A layer could be for street art, so if it’s activated, you would see digital art on the real world. Another could be information about people, so you could see people’s profile when you bump into them in the street. Or the places database from Foursquare. Any shared information becomes a layer. The sensors on your VR/AR headset then pinpoints your position within these layers to show you the appropriate information around you, and you can also contribute to these layers yourself.
So, who owns these layers? Who owns what you contribute to the different layers? Who owns the information from your device’s sensors? We can easily see how XR could deepen our existing privacy issues.
Providing a good user experience is essential, but it was hard without a centralized entity controlling the whole platform, and people gave up their data and privacy for simpler to use apps. But that isn’t enough anymore. If we expect people to trust what we build, we need to give them control. People controlling their data and their interactions is necessary for a person-centered platform. We now have the tools to do things differently
Decentralized protocols like IPFS, Ethereum, Aragon, or FOAM help us build layers of data without centralizing data storage. This is supported by existing open technologies like the Web and an expanding and mature open source software ecosystem. Combined they provide a solid technology stack on which to build a more sustainable identity and governance model. This is a foundation where everyone can create decentralized layers on the AR Cloud with confidence
With these technologies, we can finally build a person-centered platform. What if instead of your digital life being centered around information, information was centered around you? This means that the importance of a piece of content is in its creator and consumer, instead of in the information itself.
Let’s take a look at an example. Imagine you add a tip for tourists in your hometown to the TripAdvisor AR Cloud layer. Currently, you’ll probably contribute that tip for free, and TripAdvisor will show consumers ads based on data collection from them. The consumer gives away their data but learns something. TripAdvisor earns money from ads. You give away data but don’t get anything. This is what happens when it is all about the information itself, and not about people.
What if instead, TripAdvisor creates a nice layer to view information. They can then put unobtrusive contextual ads based on location (not the consumer’s data), and/or charge a small fee for usage of their layer. The consumer then views the content without giving away their data and the creator of the tip is payed back a small amount for their contribution. The service, TripAdvisor in this case, becomes a useful intermediary between the consumer and the creator. Their business model would be based on taking a cut between them, and using that’s shared in their layer to add unobtrusive contextual ads. We’re completely changing the incentives. We’ll be promoting creativity, giving people meaning (contrasting with the supposed doom brought by AI), and also force products/services/platforms/companies to put people first.
Taking the idea of a person-centered approach to this platform a step further, we have to deal with the complex subject of safety and accessibility. As a new platform, XR has almost no tools that makes content properly accessible. There are some people researching different ideas. With social VR, we’ve already seen several cases of harassment. This is nothing new to the web but as XR takes control of your senses, these dangers gain physicality. We must build tools to avoid it. And we need to have open discussions about how to harness this new identity and governance framework to build diverse communities based on tolerance. And if we take this chance to rethink our concept of platform we can make sure we solve this from the beginning.
Conclusion
XR is coming, a whole new platform that allows us to interact with technology in a more natural way. With it come new sensors and new services like the AR Cloud, which are not devoid of real dangers. We can either follow our current path and deepen our privacy and safety issues, or we could use this as a new opportunity, a fresh start.
I believe that we need to make XR a person-centered platform, where all of the interactions stem from a real person, from an identity. This means changing the incentives to support people creating and sharing by earning from that.
We can do this by building the metaverse (or the AR Cloud or whatever you want to call it) on top of open and decentralized tools like the Web. This is our chance to change directions, we don’t know how many more opportunities we might get, maybe none. Let’s build the metaverse together putting people first.
