Author: Anna Johansson / Source: The Next Web
Virtual reality (VR) has made some impressive progress in the past few years. Despite a false start a few years back, VR headset sales are improving, with more than a million units shipped in a single quarter for the first time at the end of 2017. Sony, HTC, and Oculus are seeing increased sales, and VR developers are moving beyond gamers to target a broader market.
So far, most VR engineers and developers have been focused on solving problems like how to make a more comfortable, portable headset, and how to decrease the costs of production so headsets are more affordable for the general population. But there are bigger, higher-level problems that still need to be solved in the world of VR — and how we solve them could have a major impact on the future of the industry.
Rather than focusing on profitability or user adoption, VR developers should be spending more time navigating these all-too-important ethical dilemmas. This isn’t a finite list of the ethical questions of VR, but here are the nine issues I believe are most pressing and that we need to resolve as soon as possible.
1. User protection
Users may require at least some physical protection, depending on the nature of the headset. If deprived of real-time sensory feedback, users could end up walking into walls or fail to recognize key dangers in their immediate surroundings. There are already some suggested resolutions for this, including using a circular walking arc to simulate straight-line walking without ever walking past an intended boundary, but they still need time for development.
2. User isolation and social effects
Already, we’ve seen the rise of technology capable of forming physical addiction. Though rare, some individuals are so consumed by social media and/or video games that they isolate themselves from society to an unhealthy degree. When entire, immersive worlds are available to explore, who’s job will it be to prevent that from happening?
3. Pornographic content
There’s already some evidence that excessive exposure to pornography could influence harmful behavior toward women. If users engage with pornographic content in an even more realistic environment, with a first-person style of interaction, what effects could that have on violent crime? The problem becomes even more complicated when you introduce the possibility of simulated interactions with real-world people, or the possibility of virtual sexual acts that are illegal in the real…
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