Project Type
Visual Presentation
Publication Date
4-23-2020
Department or Program
English, Linguistics, and Communication
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Mentor #1
Blevins, Brenta
Abstract
Virtual reality is recognized as an immersive technology that separates its user from their current, fixed reality. VR is still very young. The shoes that it is expected to fill are waiting patiently in the future, knowing its potential has yet to be reached. The VR concept that I introduce with my project, fills these metaphorical shoes. The user is not aware of a heavy headset weighing down on their face. Instead, they are projected into darkness, and expected to quickly adapt. I present, through photographs that I have taken and edited, a void, much like the black dreamscape in Stranger Things. Through this digital project, I want to introduce a concept that would remove bias of artificial intelligence in an unanticipated manner. The user believes that they will be playing an advanced version of the Turing test in a virtual environment, but come to face a deeper truth inside of themselves. In other words, the game starts simply, and ends with a lesson. As Turing suggests, aren’t we also machines of a similar nature? Flesh and bone rather than wires and circuitry? Instead of holding a pessimistic viewpoint that is spiteful towards the presence of AI in our future, we should attempt to open our eyes to the coexistence of man and machine as well as the bond that we could share. It is okay to acknowledge with some fear, and an even greater hope, that we are different from one another, yet so entirely the same.