Reality Is Changing - 6/7/23

Reality Is Changing

Virtual Reality is almost here and things will never be the same. On June 5, Apple announced one of the most anticipated new products in over a decade—And it’s potentially a game-changer. Their new VR headset, known as Vision Pro, appears to be yet another huge leap in the tsunami of technological advances occurring regularly now and the catalyst that could truly lead to a realistic virtual world. It’s being touted as the beginning of spatial computing.

Although technically the Vision Pro is Apple’s bold new entry into the virtual reality market that so far’s been led by Meta (Facebook), this product is much more than the VR headsets currently on the market. It’s basically an advanced wearable computer that allows users to customize their own world while replacing existing devices such as laptops or phones. Users can even create virtual images of themselves during the setup for use during FaceTime or Zoom sessions.

You’ll also be able to watch movies or games with 4K resolution while sitting in the virtual location of your choice, such as a cabin in the middle of the mountains, the penthouse of a luxury high-rise…or even the surface of Mars. Once all the app providers inevitably flood Vision Pro’s multiverse, the only limitation will be the user’s imagination.

There is no doubt that VR is going to change everything and the confluence of it and all that’s happening around AI will have breathtaking consequences, literally altering the user’s perception of reality. In less than a decade, there will likely be people who’ll have difficulty discerning the current world from the one their device manufactures.

People will have the power to create virtual homes complete with their favorite friends—some based on real people, others made up. They’ll have unlimited virtual mobility, able to bounce around completely realistic locations, changing the setting or activity whenever they want. Imagine having dinner while sitting in your favorite restaurant, then touring the Louvre… Or even orbiting planets in your virtual spaceship. It seems inevitable that many people could wind up choosing those alternate worlds over their own limited and overly familiar realities.

And that’s just the start. Now throw in the power of rapidly advancing generative AI technology. Combined with Apple’s newest innovation (the company filed for over 5,000 patents for components) this device’s capabilities will evolve exponentially as AI becomes more powerful. There will come a time when the headset won’t be required and the experience even more seamless. Discerning what’s real could eventually become a hazy web. In the last letter I talked about Elon Musk’s company, Neural Link and his plan to eventually implant chips directly into human brains for direct interface with AI. I see Apple’s Vision Pro as the first primitive step in that direction.

The device also adjusts to users’ individual vision requirements, eliminating the need for glasses while in use. Sound quality is reported to be professional studio level. All of it is designed to provide an unprecedented immersive experience. There was some push-back from the press about the $3,500 price tag, but there is no doubt in my mind these things will sell at record rates once the product becomes available early next year.

As is the case with all things tech at this inflection point in our societal evolution, having the capability to temporarily customize one’s perception of reality will no doubt impact society in ways nobody quite understands yet. Think of how addictive this technology could be. As is the case with all these new mind-altering innovations, it’s bound to include a dark side. For some, this could be as addictive as drugs.

Temporarily escaping the stress and anxiety of the real world will be easier than ever before. Some won’t want to come out, particularly those prone to depression or who have difficulty coping in their daily lives. On the flip side, in addition to entertainment, VR might also provide therapeutic benefits, not to mention relief from loneliness and isolation for many.

And what about Social Media? Instead of logging on to your Facebook or Instagram account with a phone, you'll simply slip on a headset and walk into a virtual room where all your friends who were already online are hanging out. Instead of interacting with a key board and screen, you'll be able to sit at a virtual table with your friends and have an actual conversation.

And for those who want a more customized social experience, they'll have access to a world with an unlimited variety of AI-generated friends who hang out in virtual environments and can interact 24/7. Users could have their personalized AI create a private site with as many virtual friends as they want…a mix of interesting characters that even includes celebrities and historical figures. Each conversation would become increasingly insightful and engaging, based on the AI’s ability to gauge our responses and increase the algorithm’s efficiency, just like chatbot's are doing as I type this.

Or, how about your own best friend or girl friend, or virtual spouse? And someday you’ll have the ability to upload these characters to your robot house keeper, or synthetic pet. Imagine taking your robot dog for a walk while discussing the last novel you just read.

What if we find ourselves in a world where virtually all social venues are downsized or eliminated because everyone has their own ecosystem right in their virtual living rooms? Who needs the ambience of a fine restaurant when you can duplicate it for free without ever leaving your home?

There are unlimited possibilities for all this and the one thing I'm sure of is that it will eventually head in directions we can't currently imagine.

The Sky Is Falling...But It's Not Our Fault

There’s an interesting wrinkle unfolding around the current state of the whole AI narrative. Numerous experts who’ve spent much of their careers developing the very technology that’s led to where we are today are in the process of publicly proclaiming concern. Two letters signed by AI luminaries cautioning that the technology is moving too fast have been made public. Although there are some dubious questions around the authenticity of the first one, the second letter does seem legitimate. And, Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the company that’s been the focal point of the still-brewing hurricane testified in front of congress recently about the dangers of the technology he developed…and more importantly, continues to evolve. Altman was even the one who called for the hearing.

After declaring his concerns that AI could wind up in a very bad place, Altman was asked by one senior member at the hearing if he might be interested in leading a new oversight committee with the goal of developing guidelines and regulations that would result in safety mechanisms designed to mitigate some of the potential risks. Even though he showed no interest, it struck me that had he wanted to, this guy could have implemented the greatest strategic maneuver since the Trojan Horse. The man who’s literally at the forefront of the potential technological apocalypse was being asked if he might want to oversee it…regulate himself and his company. That’s just another aspect of the goofy circus atmosphere as this saga continues to unfold and is reflective of how naive any notions of so-called effective government regulations actually are. We currently have three-dimensional chess players interacting with elderly politicians trying to wrap their heads around the basics of checkers.

At first glance, watching some of Silicon Valley’s elite proclaim that the sky might be falling appears responsible and cool-headed, an attempt to demonstrate transparency and a degree of moral clarity by prioritizing safety over financial gain. Problem is, none of it is resulting in even the slightest slow-down. Nor, are most removing themselves from the AI race. If you look closer, it seems that much of the hand-wringing is simply an attempt to position themselves outside any chain of accountability. In short, a skeptic might say that they’re covering their asses.

A small group of tech whizzes currently working at break-neck speed to advance general AI, while simultaneously shouting to whoever will listen that it might lead to the extinction of humans seems pretty absurd. If you look through the virtuous facade, the real message to the average person seems to be, “We may destroy humanity…but it’s not our fault because we warned you it could happen. Now, we have to get back to work. We've got stock options to maximize.”

This current schizophrenic disconnect is really representative of why government oversight or any type of regulation is simply empty talk. That and the fact none of our international adversaries will care much about the self-serving chorus of concern being piped from Silicon Valley like mall music. The real focus for all nations will undoubtably come from the militaries around the world. Any significant edge in weapons technology could re-shuffle global power in a matter of weeks, or even days. The world could change in an instant. And that’s just the first phase in what is sure to be a series of accelerating events that nobody can predict.

Meanwhile, as the internet is flooded with mesmerizing AI-generated images and chatbots that can carry on conversations like your friend or neighbor, the chip giant, Nvidia just announced it’s produced the most powerful computer ever built. Its processing power exponentially surpasses anything previous and will be used by companies like Google and Facebook to advance their current AI projects.

But the potential scenarios aren’t all gloom and doom. I want to emphasize, I do have hope that all this results in some dazzling array of positive changes, paradigm shifts that move toward a utopian model. Wonderful things could be on the horizon, innovations that could elevate the world in ways we’ve only dreamed of previously, as well as ways we can’t even imagine. And although much of what I’ve written around AI seems negative, I am an optimist by nature and my default setting is to believe it all works out well, at least after the inevitable bumps in the road.

But I believe we are now all floating down an unstoppable river. We can navigate to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, we’re going where that river takes us and all we can do is stay aware, diligent, and involved.

Aliens Are Bad Drivers?

There is an incredible amount of buzz around the internet regarding the story that broke this week about an ex-intelligence officer, David Grusch, who claims to have first-hand knowledge that the government is in possession of intact unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP), as well as the remains of its pilots.

Here’s an excerpt as recently reported from The Guardian:

Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch told the debrief. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.

Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” to the Debrief, adding: “We are not alone.”

Now I have no idea what’s going on here, only that these things, whether you call them UFOs, UAPs, or flying saucers carrying little green aliens, appear to be popping up all over the place. And when I first saw this particular story, my immediate reaction was skepticism, mainly due to my inability to envision an alien craft so technologically advanced it could navigate to Earth from light years away--only to crash in some corn field. Oh, and by the way, the first people on the scene happened to be the U.S. military.

But it seems to me that these types of statements coming from extremely credible sources like Grusch and Grey might justify a more robust investigative effort by our mainstream press. Journalistic big guns like the New York Times and Washington Post seemed to have pretty much ignored the story, at least so far, although it was picked up by the New York Post. Tucker Carlson even highlighted this lack of interest by mainstream media in his first broadcast on Twitter since leaving Fox. His point was that the story and its potential ramifications were deemed less important than trivial subjects covered daily and as a result those newspapers were negligent in their responsibilities.

And that brings up another point. There seems to be a collective malaise settling in, not only with the media, but the general public as well. My sense is that there may just be so much happening that we as a society are having trouble processing the underlying cross currents that are gradually pulling us out to sea. That doesn’t necessarily mean this riptide is completely negative, only that at some point we’re going to look up and see that we’re a lot farther from the beach than we thought. It’s important to stay aware. There may be some difficult waters to navigate sooner than most people believe and if so it will require a collective effort as well as preparation.

Finally, On A More Human Note...

I came across a movie I’d never heard of before called ‘The Last Movie Star.’ The main character is played by Burt Reynolds and the plot centers around a mostly-forgotten actor who’d been famous decades earlier. And yes, if that sounds familiar it’s because this is basically the story of Burt Reynolds, starring Burt Reynolds.

This was Burt’s last movie and was released the year he died in 2018. Regardless of whether or not you were a fan, watching the frail actor who was obviously running on fumes by then is sometimes tough. That’s made even more poignant in scenes where old Burt talks to his younger self via clips from earlier movies like ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ and ‘Deliverance.’ There’s even a scene in that famous black Trans Am where he tries to tell his younger self to slow down, that he’s about to make a lot of terrible decisions. It's obviously a scene he's relived in his imagination many times.

Reflecting his real life, Burt’s character laments all the mistakes he’s made; everything from bad movie choices, terrible financial investments, and losing the love of his life. His sense of loss, failure, and regret is transparent and tragic. You get the feeling he was still trying to figure it all out…understand how everything went so wrong.

When he was at the top of his game there was no bigger star in the world. But his gradual decline over the decades, mainly due to increasingly desperate attempts to recapture the magic of Act I in his career, eventually led to films that sometimes seemed more like home movies made with friends. But it’s impossible to think about the 70s or 80s without him and when I remember those years, I'm struck by how simple and innocent that era seems now.

RIP, Sir. You lived one big life!