What is reality and what is imagination? Dreams can seem so real, and yet, are they? What makes a dream unreal and the waking world more real? Man’s been grappling with these philosophical questions since time immemorial, and I certainly can’t answer that myself in this blog post. But on that topic — I want to share what happened to me.
I just had one of those lucid moments in the nether realm between sleep and awake that roused me from my bed to write this at 3am. The dog barking outside woke me from a deep and intense dream and as I struggled to shut my brain off and fall back into that place of peaceful slumber, my mind began racing with the intense enthusiasm and curiosity of a six year old. The idea fomenting in my brain was too fantastic, amazing and frighteningly wrought with implications for me to just lay there and return to dream land. So here I am banging my brains out on my keyboard…hoping to quell this urge and get back to bed for a few Zzzzzz’s before I really do need to get up and start working again.
The thought that I found so compelling was this – in the not-so-distant future, I think our reality – our daily interactions with others, will consist of a blend of real interactions and what I’m calling “actualized reality.” This idea’s not new, but I predict it will become an actualized reality within a scant 20 years from now.
My concept of “actualized reality” is this: on a regular basis, humans will participate in immersive, fabricated experiences that are virtually indistinguishable from “reality.” Example — I’m at the gas pump, the ATM or the supermarket. While other people are buzzing around me, running their errands, I’m chatted up and checked-out — not by a friendly 50-something Midwest housewife clerk named Flo — but by a computer generated simulation of Flo. She asks me how my days is going, suggests some products that others who bought this also purchased, offers me some virtual coupons and I’m on my way. Now in my own mind I probably realize that “Flo” was not real, but really –what difference does it make?
Many of the simple, banal customer service experiences I have today don’t involve a live person. I pump my own gas and interact with a gas pump. I check out, bag my own groceries and interface with coupon-generating clones. I hit the ATM and get my own cash. I don’t need a person to service me. Thirty years ago, we didn’t have the technology to enable these self-service transactions. Today we do, and with Moore’s Law in full effect, I suspect that in another 20 years I’ll have these same experiences with a virtual teller, checker or gas station attendant (that’s if we’re still filling our vehicles with gas in 20 years, but that’s another blog post entirely…).
You see, the perfect storm is brewing — a convergence of technologies that will enable this type of interaction to happen on a regular basis. At Sitewire we’re constantly looking ahead at what’s next. Social Media and the social interactions and technologies that comprise them have been heralded as Web 2.0. We’re now having a “customized, interactive web experience.” But what’s next? What is Web 3.0 and 4.0? Will we even call it “web” anymore? I doubt it – because with the uncoupling of the web from desktops and laptops, we’re rapidly moving to an always-on, persistently-connected mobile interactive experience. As we continue to rapidly progress towards who-knows-what, I see the possibility for some very interesting mash-ups of existing technologies — refined to produce actualized reality scenarios; following us everywhere we go and surrounding us in an immersive alternate reality. The reality is, that if you consider where we are today with regard to the following sciences, trends and nascent industries, all the pieces are coming together to make my “actualized reality,” a reality:
- Cloud computing
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Service economy
- Augmented Reality (AR)
- Systems Intelligence (SI)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Holography
- Mobile Projection
- Overpopulation
- Behavioral Targeting
It is a very viable reality that these technologies will converge in the near future to make “actualized reality” a living reality. Man is a dreamer and our dreams inspire us to make them reality. Taking my cue from such notables as Frank L. Baum’s “The Wizard”, Star Trek Voyager’s holographic doctor and even social media guru Charlene Li who said, ”…where applications are free to roam wherever they go I think that social networks will be like air.” – the possibility of a virtual Flo at my grocery store is a reality.
Twenty some years ago the tricorders on Star Trek were fantastically amazing and mobile phones were giant clunky bricks of transistors and overwhelmingly expensive for the population at large. Fast forward a few decades and today’s smartphones are the realized manifestation of what was once purely sci-fi. So while this may seem like more geeky “what if-ing” or semi coherent dreaming – I think that actualized reality is our manifest destiny. What do you think?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great read, Josh. I think you’re right – we aren’t that far away from this “actualized reality.” I really enjoyed reading this.
How about a personal avatar who is also your alter ego and who lives on the chip on your credit card…or on the net. While you are pumping gas, she accesses your calendar and reminds you from the screen on the gas pump that you are to stop at the grocery store and pick up a few items. She will send a list from your wife’s computer to the store computer which will map your items by shelf and send the results to your PA/Phone.
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