Will the people of the future be able to tell the difference between the real world and virtual reality? Can virtual reality be used to distort facts and historical recreations? New media researcher Steve Jones thinks so.
Jones presented his ideas to U of T two weeks ago in a public lecture entitled “Telethics for telepresence: the ethics of immersive virtual environments.” Virtual reality, Jones argued, poses special ethical challenges because we must deal with “environments that are only perceived as real.”
Recently, Jones worked on a virtual reality (VR) project to create a “Virtual Harlem.” The researchers came face to face with new ethical issues when they brought in members of New York communities for a test walk-through of the Virtual Harlem prototype.
The Virtual Harlem technology is capable of recreating different aspects of life and lifestyle in early Harlem. But the researchers realized they would need to choose a perspective for the recreation. Which citizen’s perspective would they choose for the VR scenario? According to Jones, even though various intellectuals and members of the Harlem community were brought in to collaborate on the project, there remained a problem of how to accurately depict each aspect of the historical Harlem to each target audience without over-stepping the bounds of historical fact and ethical values.
“It is difficult to define virtual reality,” said Jones, “and it is even more difficult to compare it to non-virtual reality.” This remains a crucial challenge in the developing field of VR. Jones brought the message that as VR becomes more and more real, it’s a challenge that can’t continue to be ignored.
