THE NEW REALITY The computer technologies of the coming decades do not as yet have a collective name. We already speak of: *VIRTUAL REALITY - total immersive experience of a computerised world. *AUGMENTED REALITY – data overlaid onto the real world *ARTIFICIAL REALITY – total immersive so realistic looking the simulation feels as though it is real life. *SMART SURFACES – many surfaces in the real world will be computerised; mirrors, windows, tabletops, showerscreens etc *INTERFACES – gesture control, voice control, thought control *3D PRINTING - ie, decentralised manufacturing capacity *ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – computer programs that have the capacity to behave intelligently, driverless cars, pilotless planes, medical droids, accounting droids, manufacturing droids and so on. I want to propose a collective name for these new technologies. They are not just technologies that somehow exist separated from human experience, but they are technologies that interface directly at the point of human experience – with the sensory apparatus itself. They are not just technologies, but realities; each of them enhancing reality, extending reality and in some cases, they are whole new realities altogether. All of these new realities will combine to create the New Reality; not virtual reality, or augmented reality or any other individual “reality” technology, but all of them collectively, working as part of a single, seamless, integrated information apparatus, a single New Reality. Just as there was an Old World and a New World, the threshold upon which we stand is between the Old Reality and the New Reality. The Old Reality was the reality mediated through the human body. It was a reality of sight and hearing and smell and taste and feeling. The New Reality will be those senses, augmented by new ones, extra sets of senses, some of them provided by technology, and others latent within us that technology will teach us about and help us to liberate. It will be a true paradigm shift in the evolution of the species, as our sensory systems become intrinsically linked to the data apparatus. We will no longer be able to speak of workers and bosses, or citizens and aliens, but rather, all of humanity will collectively become the users of the New Reality.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 03:52:15 +0000