Are you for real?

Right now yes, you are and so is the world around us. Traffic lights in the streets, electronic displays at airports with information about flights – all of this is there.  But is it here to stay? Time of course will tell, but the odds seem to be in favor of having augmented reality become a larger and larger part of our reality. Nowadays, augmented reality is already used by the military. Some upscale car models offer vision on their screens of objects that cannot be seen by the driver because they are outside the range of the car's lights, or simply outside the driver's scope of vision.

You may come across people walking with a tablet that uses fledgling augmented reality. They may be seeing the local area on the screen of the tablet augmented with information about historical buildings that are no more, or other places of interest.

This last year, we went hiking in the mountains with our dog and a tablet that kept us on the right track. We could see on the screen what was beyond the next turn, beyond the next mountain top, where our trail leading us and which path to choose to find our way home. We saw a waterfall on the screen and were lead to it by the app on the tablet. The real waterfall was a stunning display of nature's beauty that no electronic image could match, but had it not been for augmented reality, would we have known how to get there? Or that it was there in the first place?

Right now, we use tablets, next we might be offered glasses that will do the same and much more and then?

Then, things could start looking scary from our current point of view. Imagine that in order to function in the world you will need a special computer chip implanted into your body. Otherwise you will not see the signals coming from traffic lights, as there will be no traffic lights, no displays at airports, maybe even no street signs – just virtual interfaces. The only way to communicate with those interfaces and get vital information from them -  like whether or not you can safely pass through a busy intersection - will be through that computer chip. You take it out and you're blind and in danger. Can most of us imagine living in this day and age without a computer of some sort, or a cell phone? Probably, not. Basically, functioning in the augmented reality world without a device connecting us to the signals coming from outside will be impossible.

Things could go further, much further in fact. We could end up with simulations of ourselves, avatars programmed by us. Would anyone be able to tell, if the person sitting next to us at a meeting is real or just a near perfect simulation? Would it matter? Will the profession of translators and interpreters be still needed? Or maybe I could have a virtual simulation of myself projected into a courtroom, while I am sitting comfortably at home and interpreting through my avatar? 

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the world around me, such as it is, with a real fur-shedding dog, creaking floors of courtrooms and libraries that smell of old books.