“Dawn of the New Everything,” by Jarod Lanier, is a good read about virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). The book focuses on the ability of VR to enhance our understanding of people and give us a new perspective regarding the connection between the body, brain, and the world. I enjoyed this book, especially after using my brother’s Oculus to travel to new cities, play games with friends worldwide, and explore new worlds.
The author says the topic of VR is tough to explain because it is “hard to contain.” VR is connected to many things, including physics, art, cognitive science, math, government, medicine, journalism, business, cinema, and computer science. VR is a technology that exposes us to ourselves and, therefore, has the potential to help us rediscover information within. VR transcends technology by helping us observe the experience itself.
Lanier expressed that he believes one of VR’s greatest strengths is being a palate cleanser. So many of us have become desensitized to the basic experiences in life. When our nervous system adapts to a virtual world, it enables us to experience the feeling of being reborn in the natural world.
Virtual reality can be a revelation in a sense. Your world can change, but no matter what happens, you and your consciousness remain at the center of your current experience, even when layers of phenomena are deconstructed.
Lanier uses examples of himself transforming into animals, miscellaneous creatures, and animate clouds to explain how miraculous it is to be alive. He describes VR as “the most humanistic approach to information” because of its “inner-centered conception of life.” VR reinforces the existence of your subjective observations and allows you to experience consciousness in pure form.
The author, who refers to himself as hyper-romantic, details the complexity surrounding conveying a state of mind or vibe to another who fails to recognize it. The romantic usually has no trouble being “consumed by the overpowering subjectivity of the magical moments we experience.” Lanier says his early experiences were dominated by “flavor over form, qualia over-explanation.” However, someone with an analytical temperament may have a completely different perspective.
Exploring new worlds can teach us so many things about ourselves that we overlook, especially when we see our nervous system in operation and notice the nuances we are missing in the natural world. The science of making VR gear better is immature, but the experience of VR can be beautiful yet intricate. The author doesn't hide the fact that his opinions about VR will never be as important as those of the next generation that owns it and what they decide to do with it.
But just like any technology out there, VR comes with many hindrances. A significant downfall is the gaming world culture, which is inundated by a customer base that has had many phases of misogynist convulsions. Most conversations about feminist game design and the way women are portrayed are met with hate speech. Lanier suggests this plague in the digital gaming culture is also “a prototype and rehearsal for the alt-right.”
Lanier questions the concept of “privatizing the gatekeeping of our own public space for speech,” and he wonders if we are transitioning into a different type of government by another name that represents the common people even less. He finds it strange that our society is begging a “few tightly controlled corporations to allow usable space for sincere news reporting.”
The business model sustains the biggest tech companies today revolves around marketing and advertising. Advertising and marketing are not the same as they used to be, though; they are now less about persuasion and more about micromanaging our attention. Companies act as if they desire to be the filter between individuals and the world. Similarly, the social media and research business model is less about persuasive information and more about “biasing the options for action that are most readily available, such as posts to read or links to follow.”
Due to the cost of choice and a few other variables, tech companies have more power now than ever in “manipulating our perception of infinity.” None of us have the time to sift through millions of search results, so we rely on AI algorithms to help us navigate uncharted waters.
The digital world continues to evolve while many companies are focused on influencing behavior in a more direct and biased way, and the media is run by an indistinguishable design. If you have more than one social media account with different personas, you can quickly differentiate the biased feeds. However, Lanier seems confident that humans are more than machines or algorithms. The algorithms that appear to be self-sufficient are “repackaging value that comes from hidden individuals.”
Behind the curtain of AI, millions of exploited people can be identified. Many algorithms would be irrelevant without human data that has been stolen. The author suggests people should be paid for the data they provide in the future, and algorithms should be evaluated and designed as tools for people.
Intelligent algorithms are relied on by many people who seek the best, most relevant information. The money used to fund newspapers for ads and subscriptions is now consumed by tech companies, which is one of the reasons it’s become more difficult to find high-quality news sources.
Local investigative reporting is dying fast because of the new economy. The investigative press was once a large and diverse class, but now we mainly see the “constraining of the easiest available options to bias a user to buy something, do something, or believe something.” Social media, without doubt, is incredibly valuable, but the level of profit these companies receive is dependent on gaining the attention of users for as much time as possible. This principle reveals how these platforms differ from old-fashioned newspapers.
Unfortunately, many social media companies get users hooked by making them feel sad, lonely, angry, insecure, or scared. Lanier raises an important question here: “How much control of our society do we want to demand from algorithms?” The author asserts that every algorithm system has a failure mode and we need to create the right checks and balances between them. Lanier believes we can create a dignified, innovative, high-tech society, but that can’t be accomplished without humility from engineers.
Lanier recognizes that we can portray ourselves as primitive and crude online, but he thinks technologists should believe in human authenticity. This is necessary to achieve a compassionate society. Even though digital supremacists in Silicon Valley are working on immortality, Lanier reminds us at the end of the book that death and loss are inevitable. However, one of the most astonishing things in life is the love of creation; the creation of friendships, families, technology, meaning, and miracles.
Automating wisdom and morality is a fantasy, but until then, Lanier says “our fate rests on human traits that haven’t yet been defined in scientific terms.” Common sense. Kindness. Rational thought. Creativity. It is obvious that the structures of the basic democratic institutions, media and political finance, are less democratic than they should be. Long story longer, the planet has a fever, democracy could be on life support, and the question of whether people will be able to think critically “through seductive information systems” remains unanswered, however, on the bright side, we have virtual worlds to explore and there’s no algorithm for the human spirit. ♥️🌞
