Big picture tech thinking still has to start with the human

Sometimes tech is more beneficial to the companies that make it than those encouraged to buy it… 3D TVs anyone?

The metaverse, as a concept, was probably an easier sell during lockdown when society felt fairly dystopian anyway. However, the benefits to any party other than to the Artist Formerly Known as Facebook seem less apparent now we're able to leave our homes. Corporate ‘verses have a history of not being fun or indeed useful, as anyone who tried out Sony’s proto-metaverse, Playstation Home, will be able to testify to.

Speaking of Playstation, its persistence in selling VR to the masses is currently being met by a collective shrug of the shoulders accompanied by mutterings about the cost of living. Sony projected two million global sales in the first three-months for its PSVR 2, yet it’s reported the company has shifted just 300k units.

VR gaming headsets aren't yet ready for the mainstream. They are unwieldy, complex to set up and need to be attached to an expensive processing unit, usually a powerful PC or games console. While there is undoubtedly a niche market for hardcore gamers, Sony’s efforts to market a high-end headset feels like a stake in the ground, rather than a mainstream concern.?

Yet this feels somewhat like missing the point in the current climate?

As we've seen with the rise and rise of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the status quo is never quite as stable as the incumbents would like us to believe. While Sony and Meta may have brand visibility it just needs someone who can do it better, and preferably more cheaply, to come along and shake things up.

VR isn't going to be a mainstream concern until someone streamlines the form factor so it's more Google Glass than Star Wars extra. That means disentangling the wires and slimming down the headsets, so perhaps a shift from hardware to Cloud delivery or integration with a mobile phone… without having to wear it on your face! It would seem Apple is the party to watch (no pun intended.)

I know technology doesn’t stop - or at least your competitors don’t - but sometimes it pays to take a step back and consider who a technology really benefits? Is there an equal value exchange between the consumer and the company pushing it, if not then it isn’t a viable long-term prospect.?

For all our sakes' let's hope the AI firms take this on-board and heed the open letter from the grandly named Future of Life Institute. The genie may be out of the bottle on generative AI, but we know genies are tricksters.

It seems timely that an AI recently fooled a human into circumventing a security puzzle intended to catch out bots! (In a controlled test) ChatGPT-4 assured an actual human that it could not complete a Captcha test because it had a visual impairment...If this isn’t enough of a flag that now might be to take a pause on developing the next generation, then I don't know what is? And while Martha Lane Fox cautions we shouldn’t let Elon Musk levels of hysteria (ahem, self promotion) derail momentum, it does seem only sensible that we should give legislation enough time to catch up.

Technology is a tool, and an important one in helping humans become more than the sum of their (limited) parts, but we should never forget to put the end-user first. Sometimes you need to start small, rather than focusing on the big picture.?

Unless the human is factored into the equation as well as the potential money to be made, that money may never be forthcoming. It’s easy to get carried away by the hype, but any technology has to give more than it takes - whether that’s in monetary terms or other forms of enrichment - and that’s something the big tech companies need to think carefully about in this economic landscape.?