A reader reacts to my proposal to flood the Internet with deepfakes of everyone having sex with everyone else:
Wiping out the myth will combat it, for sure. Good idea. I wonder what the side effect of not being able to believe anything you see any longer is, however.
At least on video.
But this reminds me of some background for an undeveloped novel of the near future. The pertinent idea was the saturation of society with Virtual Reality (VR). The visual was that a significant portion of society indulged in VR in public. In this fictional background, VR goggles are passé, and the desirable technology appears to be a holographic globe. From the outside, it may be opaque or translucent; the user sees the virtual reality incorporated into the holographic walls of the globe. The VR would be adaptive to local reality in such a way as to keep the user relatively safe, such as projecting a wall to keep the user from straying into a road used by real-world vehicles.
I had not considered the digital security of such a device, however, and if VR ever manages to take off, it’ll become a significant concern for anyone associated with VR. The potential damages seem almost immeasurable, and, to some extent, unpredictable.
And this may already be happening. I’m aware of certain industries, such as elevators, in which VR-like goggles which enhance the vision of technicians are a requirement of the trade. Since these are digital and connect with a home base, this renders them vulnerable to intrusion, especially if security is, as usual, lax.
To circle around to my reader’s comment, if computing and energy resource problems can be solved, an entertainment VR technology much like I visualize doesn’t seem to be out of the question – and it’ll be a tempting target to criminals ranging from simple thieves to sophisticated assassins. The problem of trusting what you see may be compounded.
