| Homepage | Title page | Introduction | Background | Legal Perspectives | Ethical and Social Perspectives | Security Perspectives | Conclusion | References |
Social and Ethical Implications
As should be obvious, augmented reality is a futuristic technology with boundless potential. In the premiere demo of the augmented reality application “Aurasma,” a device is directed at a newspaper article regarding a recent tennis match (Mills, Lecture, 2012). Instantly, highlights from that specific match began to play over the photo in the newspaper and all the text remained so that the viewer could read about the match while viewing clips from the same match. If augmented reality applications become fully functional and are integrated in to pop-culture, information could be shared and accessed at leisure.
In recent times, any sort of information can be found through search engines. But there are restrictions on search engine research. For example, if one does not know what to search for, information cannot be accessed. Imagine, however, a scenario in which a beautiful building is visible in the distance. When the device is pointed at that unknown building, the application could tell the user the coordinates of the building, the date it was built, the architectural style, the name of the building, its function, and how many of the user’s peers have visited or seen the building. Furthermore, users can create auras for that specific building or its respective city that may contain graphics or animation other than specific information. For instance, a user could point his device at any building in Times Square and see Spider-Man swinging around the skyscrapers from building to building. As a technology with legitimately powerful practical use and staggering entertainment value, augmented reality will soon be used by everyone.
As noted, ethics can never be ignored when a new technology is growing. The biggest fear is that the pornography industry will be heavily involved with the rise of augmented reality. Wassom (2012) records that, “You can always count on the military and the porn industry to push technology forward.” He continues to cite a law enforcement officer’s prediction that “wherever society finds pornography, child pornography is not too far behind” (as cited in Wassom, 2012). Along the same lines, augmented reality could certainly give the average person easy access to far too much information. Perhaps augmented reality will allow the user to view information and qualifications on a potential employee through eyewear (Day, 2005). Or, it could allow more savvy users to view a person’s address, place of work, likes, dislikes, date of birth, and even more personal information. It is possible that augmented reality will evolve to be the most dangerous and manipulative technology to date.