Towards a Smart Glasses Society? Ethical Perspectives on Extended Realities and Augmenting Technologies Provisionally Accepted
Max Tretter
Michael Hahn
Peter Dabrock- 1Philosophische Fakultät und Theologische Fakultät. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
The release of Apple Vision Pro in early February and the subsequent media coverage have pushed Mixed Reality (MR) and augmenting technologies into public consciousness, raising the question of whether we are moving towards a "smart glasses society" where wearing MR-devices in public becomes commonplace, and regularly engaging with extended realities will be part of our everyday experience. This paper delves into the ethical implications of this potential development, scrutinizing the effects smart glasses may have on our humanity, our relation to the world, and our shared-life world. It calls for a nuanced approach that earnestly engages with these concerns while maintaining a composed outlook, recognizing that many of these issues discussed in the context of immersive technologies, although they seem new, have been with us for quite some time.
Keywords: augmented reality, virtual reality, Mixed reality, immersive technologies, Surveillance capitalism, Privacy
Received: 21 Mar 2024;
Accepted: 11 Apr 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Tretter, Hahn and Dabrock. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mx. Max Tretter, Philosophische Fakultät und Theologische Fakultät. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, 91054 Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany