Virtual worlds – are they really the future?

In Second Life: The Official Guide, the authors suggest that Second Life, a game in which players create Sims-esque versions of themselves to live in a virtual world, represents "The Next Generation of Internet." They point to the fact that real life corporations, especially online retailers like Amazon.com, have begun using the game to sell things to real-life customers almost entirely within the game world. Also, the game has enjoyed a steady growth in its user base since its creation, boasting over 38,000 logged-in users at any given time (on average).

But does this game really represent the next stage of evolution for the internet? Will traditional web-pages eventually be replaced by in-game representations of the entities they represent? I think not.

The current trend in the progression of technology and the internet, is not the tendency of humans to live large portions of their lives within a specific virtual (but realistic) environment, but rather the tendency of technology and its accompanying interconnectivities to embed themselves into normal human life. Most people of the future will not need a virtual avatar to walk around in virtual rooms representing websites when those websites are readily available via wireless networks and are conveniently integrated into peoples' "real" lives. This trend is already fairly evident thanks to inventions like PDA's and iPhones; even normal cell phones are now considered hopelessly outdated if they do not provide the user with instant access to the internet anywhere and anytime. I suppose one could argue that our real lives are, through constant connection to the internet and data networks, become more like virtual ones. However, this is far from proving that games like Second Life will be taking over the internet; why get an avatar to do things you can do yourself?

Destroy all humans

I would like to return to discussion of the robot I pictured in an earlier blog posting, "Big Dog." Big Dog is a combat robot being developed by the US military and Boston Dynamics.

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

On a similar note, check out another military ground robot here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjpH7ig0rKo&feature=PlayList&p=863B26044AEDC565&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=50 (This one may be a bit older and is more tank-like.)

This got me thinking, though – just what are the implications of having robot soldiers in the military? It hasn't happened yet, but it seems almost inevitable that at some point we will begin to use fully or near-fully automated robot troops rather than human ones in high-risk combat situations.

What are the ethical implications of sending a cold but intelligent killing machine into the field against live humans? A robot cannot feel mercy; it can only be programmed, and while it is certainly good to save American lives I think it's also important to ensure that mechanized violence does not get out of hand as a result of the removal of the human conscience from combat. Is it possible to program a robot to behave as if it knows kindness while retaining its military effectiveness? Would our military even consider implementing such programming when a more efficient killing machine is that's necessary to win battles? These are important questions that we may have to face in the near future, as I don't think Asimov's law of "A robot shall not harm a human being" will be a very workable combat strategy.

"He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake." 0_0

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she was telling me how her little brother had learned to hack the school system to alter his grades at about 11 years old and had been hacking ever since. The stuff of movies? I think not!
Far more disturbingly, he had also shown her that just by gaining access to a friend's Facebook account he could track down that person's social security number and other personal information. YIKES! Don't worry, though. He didn't do anything with the information that time.

This anecdote serves to illustrate the extreme lack of privacy that has become the norm in the modern world and, obviously, has far-reaching implications. Information about individuals is collected constantly on a daily basis by other individuals (via facebook, etc) and by companies, especially advertisers, that are part of what Hull calls the "Panopticon." Living in a panopticon basically means being under constant or near-constant surveillance – surveillance that can be conducted must more easily by computers than by people. After all, what are computers if not an icon of the information age – an entity ideally composed of pure data and built or bred specifically to handle more and faster information each year.

One example of how privacy is, at least by conventional standards, routinely violated is when Google searches through a gmail user's mail in order to pull out keywords for advertising. This means that at the very least a computer, if not a person, is reading through millions of peoples' personal mail every day. It used to be a clearly defined federal offense to go rifling through someone's mail, but now it's just normal part of the program. Clearly, the world is changing. One must wonder whether we will have any privacy at all in the near future.

Real Vs. Virtual

In the past week, we have seen several examples of people and their avatars. While several of these people are simply playing for fun, and to make friends, there is an alarming number of people who log on to escape their own lives, or who allow the game to take over it. Examples include Lui Da, the teenager who works 12 hours a day in a game farm but then plays even more as soon as he gets off of work. Lucas Shaw admits that the game has taken over his life and destroyed his grades, his social life, and his health. And in the trailer for Second Skin, one can clearly hear one of the players say, “Forget dinner, let’s just do this.” This dedication to a virtual world is not healthy.

Humans must live in the real world. We have bodies here that must be fed, watered, and have exercise, or else they perish. And along with the human body goes the force behind an avatar. Since we must live in this physical world, it behooves humans to develop the skills necessary to live in it, which may not be possible within a game. Many gamers admit to having low social skills, which may or may not be a draw to online gaming, but games apparently do little to help one socialize. Many gamers trade physical friends for virtual friends, but people must interact with other physical people, so it is important to develop real-world social skills. And while some people make money playing and developing games, many players are just playing for fun, and not learning any job skills. Testimonies from hardcore gamers indicate that at times, they step away from the games, and find that chunks of their life are gone, with nothing but an “imaginary” life to show for it. Therefore, while online games may be fulfilling in moderation, humans must give themselves time to live in the physical world.

Governmental Power Abuses

Companies are allowed to track consumer web browsing and store information about consumers. One must wonder what such information will be used for. Currently, it is used for advertising, but given such legislation as the Patriot Act, it is difficult to judge where the encroachment may end. Soon, companies or the government may be able to use our information to any end. Some would argue that if a citizen isn’t doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t have anything to worry about. If you’re not doing anything wrong, why would it matter if the government is reading your email? Invasion of privacy may not be the worst thing that the government has done to citizens. After all, we’re not being locked in concentration camps or massacred. However, the government’s justification for invading our privacies is, in my opinion, terrifying. The government claims that they are wire-tapping, etc. for security purposes. In other words, they claim that they must perform any number of privacy invasions to prevent terrorism. While this may seem like a noble cause, it is actually placing the government in a position to choose one citizen over another. The government is now permitted to encroach on one citizen for the benefit of another. They now have an unprecedented level of power. They can decide that Person A’s rights are more important than that of Person B’s rights. Such power in a government is exceedingly dangerous. If the government continues to use such principles to flout the constitution, rights of citizens will soon amount to nothing. The government has the power to ignore the second amendment, “for the greater good”, so which rights will be next? Such blatant encroachment must stop, not because monitoring is a serious inconvenience to private citizens, but because the government should never have the right to select one citizen’s rights over another’s.

The Encroachment of Advertising

In class a few weeks ago, we discussed the encroachment of advertising onto the American citizen’s psyche. Websites and companies are permitted to save a citizen’s browsing history, and even read their emails for the purpose of centering advertisements around a citizen’s interests. While some think that this is a fair practice, I disagree. Many people like directed advertising because it makes shopping easier. They do not have to hunt down projects; the computer does that for them. However, in order to perform this targeted service, computers must encroach on people’s privacy.

But are advertisements so bad? You can simply click to exit out of them. Their encroachment is not absolute, that is, one can always escape the ads. However, recently, a new billboard was set up that can broadcast directly to an individual person. There is no opting out of this form of advertisement. One cannot simply click on it to make it go away. If you pass this billboard, you are going to listen to this advertisement, and that’s the end of that. Certainly it’s annoying, but more so than that, it is extremely pretentious. Never before have people had advertisements so forcibly thrust upon them. And while we might go out of our way to ignore such billboards, how long until it is impossible to walk down the street without having advertisements forced into one’s head? This is to say nothing of further advances in technology, which may allow for people to be assaulted as soon as they walk out of a store, or step out of their homes. People must be given the option to ignore advertising. Forcing us to listen to sales pitches is completely un-American.

Virtual Worlds: Is the Virtual Unreal?

There has been much discussion over the question Is the Virtual Unreal? It was determined by the class that the virtual is unreal in some ways, but also real in a lot of other ways. For example, even though virtual worlds do not physically exist, the emotions experienced by the “players” within the virtual worlds are very real. In some cases, the emotions experienced in the virtual worlds surpassed those experienced by the individual in the real world. In other words, I think that in many cases people turn to virtual worlds because they feel that they are missing some emotional aspect in their real, physical life.

Although I understand this argument for virtual worlds, I personally think that emotions are dulled in the virtual world. For example, if one falls in love in the virtual world, it is obviously better than not finding love in any world, but it would not be a great as falling in love in the real, physical world. Many people who enjoy spending time and living in the virtual world talked about how they create avatars, who are representative of the person that the real, physical individual aspires to become. Well, if you fall in love in the virtual world, wouldn’t that love be bitter sweet? Because wouldn’t the real, physical individual always wonder to him/herself whether his avatar partner could love the real, physical, imperfect version of him/herself. Also, even though sex in virtual worlds is possible, it clearly would not be as good as the real, physical act. Lastly, in the “Virtual Worlds, Virtual Lives” clip the one girl’s avatar was raped and she felt a lot of the emotional baggage associated with the experience. Even though rape is a horrible and hateful crime in any world, I feel confident that, that girl would rather her avatar be raped than she. Virtual Worlds can help enhance the emotionally unfilled lives of real, physical people, but I do not believe that virtual experiences could ever replace or surpass real-life experiences, because the extreme emotions that make life so great and so awful can never be transferred to the virtual world.