“Do we become extinct as a species?”
This is the question posed by a user on disbelief and rejection that have arisen in recent weeks before the images of the first users of this secret and long-awaited technological device.
Many consider that these glasses, whose price exceeds $4,000, lead the way to a new way of life in augmented reality.
However, history has shown that technical progress, on many occasions, is not enough for an invention to be completely assimilated by society.
“The conception prevails that, once invented, technologies burst in and begin to directly influence society.
However, reality is more complex,” warns Eduard Aibar, author of
The Cult of Innovation
(Ned Ediciones, 2023).
The author gives the example of the printing press.
“Although this invention was already known in Korea and China before its introduction to Europe, it did not have the revolutionary impact on the transmission of information and knowledge that Gutenberg's version did in the 15th century,” he tells EL PAÍS by phone.
Similarly, steam engines, which come from Heron of Alexandria's eolipiles - a machine made up of an air chamber and tubes through which steam is expelled - in the 1st century AD, existed in primitive forms long before his impact. revolutionary during the Industrial Revolution.
It was not until the innovations of Thomas Newcomen in the early 18th century and the improvements of James Watt in the 1760s that these machines began to reshape the global economy and society.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it strange how people look while wearing the Apple Vision Pro?
pic.twitter.com/wMv5xdFdZi
— Sylverconsult💜 (@sylverconsult) February 23, 2024
Aibar maintains that “technology, by itself, means nothing.”
The success of any technological invention, according to the expert, does not depend solely on technical knowledge, but also on other external factors.
He draws on an old Iberia slogan, “Iberia flies to New York,” to further his argument.
Although at first glance it seems that it is the plane that flies and not Iberia, philosophers of science often interpret it in the opposite way: in reality, the true metaphor is the plane, and it is Iberia that 'flies' in a figurative sense.
The author assures that the airplane, despite being an essential technology for flight, would lose much of its value without a series of elements and processes that go beyond the technology itself, such as a ticket purchasing system, the airport infrastructure, qualified personnel and maintenance systems, all factors that transcend the technical possibility of a multi-ton machine being able to stay in the air.
The disaster of Google glasses
Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, stated in June 2023 that the new Vision Pro glasses are “a revolutionary product.”
His goal is to end the small curse associated with augmented reality devices, which over the last decade have failed to materialize into a successful product.
In 2015, after a notable failure, Google retired its Google Glass.
It was, objectively, an innovative technology, which allowed us to do things that had never been seen before.
But the rejection was so explicit that the term Glass-hole
became popular
(a mixture between
glass
, glasses, and
asshole
, gilipollas, which in Spanish could be translated as
Giligafas
, to describe the people who walked with this device on the street. .
In terms of sales, no company has managed to become profitable.
Between 2020 and 2024, the Meta division that manages Virtual Reality lost $42 billion.
To get an idea of how delicate the situation is, just think that after presenting the accounts for the last quarter of 2023, they were genuinely happy to have “only” lost $4.5 billion in that division.
We integrated the #AppleVisionPro into our daily life and workflow, using it on the street and in the office.
🚀 pic.twitter.com/AuDhx6EWIY
— AppNation (@appnationco) March 1, 2024
Technology, by itself, is not enough, and one of the unavoidable requirements that it must meet is having an attractive aesthetic design.
This was the reason why Ray-Ban, in collaboration with Facebook (now Meta), launched Ray-Ban Stories two years ago.
They are smart glasses that allow you to take photos and record videos, in addition to offering some augmented reality functionalities.
Although the Ray-Ban Stories do not match the advanced technology of Apple's Vision Pro, Mark Zuckerberg's goal with this product was to offer a device that was both aesthetic and discreet.
The problem was that, precisely, its discretion opened a debate about its potential danger to privacy, since it allows recording and taking photos without being detected.
Although measures have been introduced, such as an LED to indicate that the camera is in use, questions remain about its effectiveness in alerting those around the user.
The philosopher of science Fernando Broncano, author of
The Melancholy of the Cyborg
(Herder, 2009), affirms that the process by which a society adopts a new technology is always gradual and complex.
“It is often believed that the announcement in the newspapers about the development of a new technology implies that said innovation will be integrated in a linear and disruptive way into our lives, instantly revolutionizing them.
But it doesn't work like that.
For an innovation to really impact society, there are multiple determining factors that are as central as they are random,” he explains to EL PAÍS.
Among these factors, the availability of a technical environment stands out;
That is, an innovation needs a technological ecosystem that supports it in order to exist and be adapted.
“Why isn't the metaverse working?
Because it needs technologies that are yet to be invented, including augmented reality.
Meta has bet on the confidence that technologies that have not yet arrived would be developed in parallel.”
Public, use and ethics
Broncano points out that for a technological innovation to be successful and effectively integrated into the social fabric, it also needs to find an audience and a use.
“Most inventions are not used for what their creators had intended them for.
For an innovation to survive and thrive, it must create its own audience and adapt to the social environment.”
The philosopher also addresses the importance of risk capital in the development and adoption of technological innovations: an innovation needs, initially, a significant financial investment that often does not generate immediate returns.
Examples such as Airbnb, Tesla, and Uber illustrate how these companies incurred financial losses for extended periods before beginning to generate substantial profits.
“This is possible thanks to the creation of an “imaginary bubble” through intensive propaganda systems, which attract even more venture capital investment despite the inherent risks.”
Jorge Barrero, general director of the Cotec Foundation, focuses on the ethical component that influences whether a technology penetrates society.
He highlights, for example, the debate around robotic technology designed to collect marine litter, which aims to combat ocean pollution.
In addition to pointing out the technical complexities inherent in the development of such technology, Barrero invites us to reflect on whether it is prudent to focus on this solution instead of prioritizing waste reduction.
“Do we really want to fill the seas with robots so we can continue destroying the planet as we please?”
At the same time, Barrero expresses concern about the concentration of power and influence in a technological and social future, where everything is left in the hands of a small group of extremely rich and powerful individuals.
“There is no doubt about the visionary nature of many of them, but this model of the future of humanity being based on the vision of the future of four or five billionaires makes me very uneasy,” he says by phone.
Two weeks ago, the famous
YouTuber
El Rubius faced a new challenge on his YouTube channel: wearing Apple Vision Pro glasses for 24 hours.
A whole day living in augmented reality.
Wilson, the famous YouTuber's cat, did not realize that there was a band of virtual Tyrannosaurus rex running around in his living room.
Besides that, the challenge did not trigger any extraordinary events.
As night fell, El Rubius got into bed, selected lake mode—which made a digital body of water appear in front of him—and put on the movie
X-Men
.
“I was so happy that almost instantly I was frozen,” he explained the next morning.
“But I think my brain subconsciously made me take my glasses off at night, because they appeared on the other side of the bed.”
Before finishing the video, he left his conclusion about this new device: “We are approaching that point where the technology is almost there.
“In 10 years, when they are the size of a Ray Ban, everyone will start wearing them.”