In addition to the usual ads, the virtual billboard at the newly renovated bus stop shows you some harmless news through your AR glasses. When it was still all busted up, and smelled like god knows what, it predominantly showed you the latest immigration statistics. You just know that the older lady staring at her own version of the billboard still sees those. She must be one of those people who don’t need the smell to be convinced that it’s the foreigners that mess it up for all of us. You can’t really make out her face between the headlines about the latest scandal in the conservative government. She probably doesn’t really see you either between the news about climate protesters.
This story might feel like science fiction, but it’s an extrapolation of where we are today. Unless we move on from the economic incentives that drive the modern web, AR and AI technology will lead to immersive echo chambers that threaten our shared reality and democratic societies.
Today, the web is funded by ads that pay for attention. Attention is won through outrage. Outrage shatters a common sense of reality and erodes the trust in each other that democracy depends on. If we aren’t careful, the algorithmic noise that dominates our screens will soon take over our physical world, too. Ads on screens can be banned to our pockets, AR glasses will have a permanent place on our noses.
The positive potential for these technologies is immense. AR glasses are already describing surroundings to people with vision loss and translating conversations between strangers in real-time. However, the technology isn’t cheap, and it is not yet clear who will foot the bill.
In the absence of healthy economic incentives for big tech companies, we could explore personal infrastructure and services. The emergence of no-code platforms and AI as enabling technology will let all of us, regardless of technical literacy, build the apps and services that we want. We have this technology today. However, it is unlikely that a majority will immediately move from ad-funded services to personal ones for which IT infrastructure would need to be paid. Initially, it will be a small group of already tech-savvy people that will make use of these new opportunities. With technical barriers coming down, that group will grow.
There is an alternative to putting the burden of financing onto the individual. In an AR world, physical products can become the funders of digital experiences. Enhancing them with digital apps largely doesn’t make sense today, but that will change in an AR future. Imagine a pharmaceutical company attaching a service to their pill bottles that overlays information about the prescription. AI intervenes if the patient is about to use the product incorrectly. The intervention might be a video you record for an aging loved one. The technology now functions as a differentiator, and pharmaceutical companies can compete on providing the best care instead of the most compelling ad.
We already see a version of this in today’s world. The smartphone is a limited platform for this sort of incentive system, but we can look at airline apps as an example. Creating better travel experiences benefits customers who repay the airline with loyalty. Instead of creating ever louder ads, companies are incentivized to quietly improve services.
We now need platforms for interactive AR content creation. Ideally, these platforms empower both companies and end users to quickly and conveniently create virtual services. Those of us who are so inclined will use them to turn our surroundings into systems that support us personally. Companies will use them to craft experiences that set them apart from the competition. Both will reduce the amount of ads and, consequently, the amount of divisive immersive content. Today, most companies that produce physical products don’t have the expertise to create supplementing virtual experiences. We need to make it as easy as possible for them.
We also need to examine very carefully where we allow AI systems to create or even just position content. Context matters and positioning is editorial framing. Content about immigration at a run down bus stop tells a different story than the same article placed next to a high-end restaurant serving foreign cuisine even if the information given is factually correct in both cases. Law-makers will have to find ways to allow AI to positively affect our communities, while prohibiting detrimental effects. Demanding clear auditability of why content has been presented to a user in a particular context is a good first step. These regulatory guardrails will be required on top of the economic shift.
In a rapidly changing world, it’ll be on us to demand and create a reality in which we can still see the other and their humanity at the bus stop.