Robin Hanson wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >Its a classic promise/warning piece of fiction. This is what VR will be
> >like, indistinguishable from reality as we know it ...
>
> I couldn't disagree more. A world of people who don't know they aren't
> living in a 1990 city is vastly different from most real future VR, IMHO.
> Sure the tech could make things look that vivid, but ...
> 1) Most VR will not be used for role playing.
> 2) Most role playing will not be faithful simulations of history.
> 3) Most history simulation role playing VR will not be done by
> amnesiacs who honestly don't remember that its just a simulation.
> 4) Most amnesia history role playing won't be done with thousands of
> people over decades of time.
Aw, Robin, you're being way to literally minded here. VR is already used for role playing in VR chat, and the trend in video games is that VR will be the state of the art in video games, and role playing is the form of long duration gaming of choice.
As for the amnesia part, well, think about this: Take an 8 year old kid and stick him on a VR system for his education and entertainment, heck even for use for his physical fitness training, and by the time he's 18 he won't know what is really reality. Real reality will seem blase, generic, vanilla compared to VR.
>
> Really, instead of role-playing, VR will mostly be used to fascilitate
> other goals. Shopping, travel, social gatherings, sales meetings, etc.
> All where people know what year it is and aren't pretending otherwise.
> Worlds will be chosen to fascilitate these processes. Physical laws
> can easily be broken, but deviations would be limited by our vast
> cognitive investment in dealing the familiar laws.
Robin, you're acting WAY too grown up for this.... "SALES MEETINGS!" for gawds sakes!!!!! eeewwwwwww......