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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

There is a tragic flaw in your logic. There’s probably 10x engineers working on advertising then there is gaming (let alone VR). It’s not that big of an industry and doesn’t have the mass adoption attention destroying ad-driven social media does.

Statistically, the neurosurgeon is unwinding on TikTok and hating themselves for it.

Could VR become immersive and an ad-addled attention destroying mess? Yes we should probably stop that from happening. But otherwise this warning is too early.

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> But otherwise this warning is too early.

When would the right time have been to warn people about the current generation of social media?

We now have a ton of information about how technology will be used and abused, and we have a laundry list of known problems that we have not solved. Algorithmic social media and engagement-driven content are front and center.

To me, the warning is appropriate not based on what hasn't happened yet, but based on what already has.

The warnings started appropriately early in 2011, there should’ve been regulations in place by 2015.

VR is still in 2006.

Maybe let the first ad run in VR before you ascribe all the same problems to it.

What is it about VR that makes it meaningfully different enough from the current generation of problematic technology that we don't need to worry about the same problems?

This isn't a "gotcha" question; I'm genuinely curious. To me, VR is a new interface layer on top of a massive ecosystem, and the same people are building it. The ecosystem is where the problems exist, and VR is just the latest facade through which we interface with that ecosystem.

In this framing, it's not ascribing old problems to new technology as much as claiming that the new technology magnifies or intrinsically replicates the existing problems.

> The warnings started appropriately early in 2011, there should’ve been regulations in place by 2015

It's 2024 and the regulatory landscape is very poor or nearly nonexistent. Shouldn't this encourage more caution? i.e. we've already proven that looking back and deciding "oh yeah we should have been more careful" hasn't actually resolved the issue, and taking the same approach with emerging tech that has similar pitfalls seems doomed to repeat that.

I also don't think we had any idea what was coming when we were building the stacks that underlie the current web. We now have much clearer mental models of what the Internet and technology in general is capable of, and the resulting warnings are coming much earlier (appropriately, IMO).

Sure let’s legislate social media. If the claim is the problems with VR will be the same problems as social media. Let’s legislate social media and that should solve problems in VR as well? As far as it’s just a new facade over social media and the noisy new internet, let’s legislate that.

I personally think the larger space of spatial computing (VR, AR etc) presents immense opportunities outside of its ability to just be another vehicle for ads. Leave that part alone because our regime of regulations only creates calcification and monopolization.

I don't know. Meta has not had a history that encourages me to just see what happens in a space they are popularizing. I would like it if we could get ahead of it.

Why is it that techbros insist on no regulation until there's a problem, and when there's a problem it's suddenly "the confetti has left the cannon, nothing to do now"? Oh wait that was a rhetorical question.

Ironically enough, VR training for surgeons is actually booming in the medical space.

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