The challenge in focus

The dream

The problem with Zoom meetings

The return to office mandates following the Covid pandemic proved building real connections on the internet is still tricky. One of the primary causes is that Zoom meetings and Google Meets are relatively transactional experiences. 

In an office, you'll spark up conversations, not only about work, but around the water cooler. Physical environments, objects, and the ability to communicate without looking everyone directly in the eye is key. Without a predefined, explicit reason to arise, conversations arise which are much more free-flowing, creative and often touch on unexpected topics. These sorts of conversations are essential to functioning social spaces.

By contrast, most online meetings feel like a clinical examination. The environment is stripped of personality, forcing two people to analyze one another in a void rather than share a moment in a place.

AR as a solution

Augmented reality has the power to bring context back to conversation. Experiencing each other openly in non-transactional spaces and communicating naturally, would establish the gold standard for online interaction.

It remains to be seen if such a space can be created using augmented reality, but, if a true sense of presence is achieved, a new revolution in human social organization will likely follow. 

Just imagine the power of being with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Online spaces could replace schools, workplaces, and recreation, making businesses and education more affordable without physical buildings.

The nightmare

Unfortunately, there's a dark side to this glowing reality. In physical life, no one has to carry our voice to others. But in this new virtual reality, there's a cost to the transaction of our voices. This cost needs to be paid back and it's likely that companies will once again seek to create a monetization model around personalized advertising as it allows everyone to enjoy the power of augmented reality for free.

But there's a catch, companies want to have our personal data in order to sell us explicitly what we desire. In a world where cameras are embedded in our glasses, with multiple watching our environment and multiple pointed toward our eyes even checking if our pupils are dilating, the personal advertisement model could become problematically invasive.

Just imagine how much private data will be collected on those who wear the headsets, and on those who don't by those who do. Not only is people's private and personal information often sold and used to determine insurance rates, and online prices, saying the wrong thing online has led to fines and jail time. 

Trapped

Today we have the option to unplug from technology but if a true sense of presence is achieved in augmented reality, it may soon become the primary means of communication necessary for school, work, and leisure.

Today's social networks already use the personalized advertising model. But social networks are something we can live without. This technology, if it achieves a sense of personal presence, may become so essential that most will not be able to function without it.

Freedom as essential

The last thing anyone wants in a politically divided landscape is large-scale databases on the thoughts and intentions of whole populations. Such databases could prove problematically useful to the wrong types of power.

This is why America’s founders fought for fundamental freedoms like the right to privacy in a person's own home:

We may be entering a new world in which online spaces become as valuable as our physical ones. E.g. online workplaces and one day potentially online lives. Yet, none of the aforementioned essential freedoms apply in online spaces.

We at Boundless believe that as online worlds become real to us, the rights that protect them must become just as real.