Will virtual reality ever become a daily reality?

The Vision Pro is Apple's new $3,500 virtual reality headset.

Since its debut in February, users have found new ways to use this latest iteration of a decades-old technology: scrolling TikTok at work, driving Tesla's Cybertruck, recording their kid's birth.

But can VR truly integrate into our daily lives? Or will it forever remain a niche technology for geeks and gamers?

Endless Thread dives into the history of VR and its potential for the future.

Show notes:

This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.

Ben Brock Johnson: Amory, how do you feel about FACE-BASED technology?

Amory Sivertson: You're going to have to get more specific or we're going to be here for a while.

Ben: I think your glasses are face-based technology.  You know? like a nose warmer is probably face-based.

Amory: I benefit from one of those.

Ben: Alright I am talking about Virtual Reality…Mixed Reality…EXTENDED reality…AUGMENTED reality, all the extra realities. Am I augmenting your reality RIGHT NOW?

Amory: Yes, you are, because I live in the real world, Ben.

Ben: Hahaha.

Ben: Alright, so let’s hear…from a guy who brought face-based technology…to one of life’s most intimate experiences.

Robert Calvin: I thought that it would just be awesome to start capturing that footage from literally minute one of my child's life.

Amory: Whoa

Ben: This is Robert Calvin. Two months ago, he and his wife rushed to the hospital to welcome their newborn baby girl, Nova Joy, into the world.  And before they left, along with that go bag, that baby go bag, Robert grabbed his Apple Vision Pro.

Robert: The labor process ended up being about 14 hours long. The main reason for wanting to bring it into the labor room, as I knew this was going to be a long process, is to honestly have some entertainment, but while also being able to stay involved as well.  

Ben: Now, for those who haven’t seen it, the Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s $3,500 brand-new virtual reality headset. And, as Robert said, he mostly brought it to the hospital for some entertainment. Labor can take a long time, and when you're the dad, you're just like sitting around. What do you have to do?

But the other reason he brought these giant VR goggles to the operating room, slash the baby wing, slash whatever you might call it. He really planned to record himself cutting the cord, the umbilical cord.

Robert: I had the vision pro set up beside me, had it already turned on, had the camera app pulled up so I wouldn't be fumbling around with it. 

Amory: I mean, that's really something he's gonna go back and watch? I don't know. I've never even watched my wedding footage before.

Ben: you don't watch it. You don't rewatch your parents recording of you, of your umbilical cord getting cut. You don't, you guys don't sit around the living room and rewatch that all the time.

Amory: Believe it or not, we don't. It does, that footage does not exist, and I'm not the least bit mad about it.

Ben: Well, that would make you different from Robert who, when the time came, popped on the luxurious, but cumbersome headband and

Robert: It was a quick, maybe 50 seconds in the headset, put it on. They passed me the scissors.

Amory: Oh god, we're gonna watch this?

[Robert’s spatial video: I'll show you. Oh man. Alright, you're able to see this? Yeah, yeah, I'm good. These are for you. Where am I at? In between these two, okay? Good job. Tell me when. Yep. When. There you go. Whenever you're ready. Oh! Oh! Oh!]

Ben: Okay, so you can see this like first person view. He's like flipping the scissors around. They're all laughing. Oh, and there he goes. He snips it.

His wife looks thrilled, by the way.

Amory: Surrounded by, like, half a dozen people all up in her biz.

Ben: Six or seven people in her business.

Robert says he wanted to be able to share this moment with his daughter when she’s older, because who doesn’t want to see an immersive video of their own birth?

Robert: I think that just something we can look back on when she's old enough and even laugh about just how I, I trust me, I do realize how insane and ridiculous it looks to be in the labor and delivery room with ski goggles on essentially digital ski goggles.

Amory: And all of us. Can I just say we've now all seen this, if this was supposed to be intimate footage. Sorry. Sorry, daughter.

Ben: Sorry, Nova Joy.  As a self-described super duper tech enthusiast, Robert thinks if this VR technology stays around, it's gonna grow with his daughter, Nova.

Robert: I would just be ecstatic if that does happen. And it's like, Hey, Nova, 25 years ago, when this was just super duper first-generation technology, I made this crummy video.

Amory: In 18 or so years, when Nova has become an adult. Nova, if we're still making this show, I'd love to have you on and see what you think about your dad recording this and showing the world.

Ben: And THIS…this gets at something. Because, for decades, Virtual Reality tech has been through major ups and downs, and it’s never quite reached the level of popularity (or utility) that Robert is describing, imagining in the future. But now, again, with Apple’s Vision Pro and other VR headsets on the rise, interest is AGAIN percolating. And more people — experts, even — say that we may have finally arrived at VR’s moment.

Amory: Did we though? Did we?

Ben: Let’s find out.

Amory: I'm Amory MIXED REALITY Sivertson.

Ben: I'm Ben face-based technology Johnson. And you're listening to Endless Thread.

Amory: Coming to you from WBUR, Boston’s virtual NPR station. Today’s episode?

Ben: “The hype cycle!”

[APPLE announcement: Introducing Apple Vision Pro. The era of spatial computing is here.]

Ben: Apple announced the Vision Pro, its first foray into VR, on June 5, 2023, to thousands of black turtleneck-loving fans. Earlier this February, it became available for purchase.

[APPLE: A single piece of three-dimensionally formed laminated glass acts as a lens through which the cameras and sensors view the world.]

Ben: Unlike other VR headsets, Apple's new operating system does not require traditional controllers. To choose an app, a tab, or anything, just look at it — that's like using your eyes as a cursor almost. Then, to select it, just tap your finger, a little pinch, and it’s almost like you're clicking a mouse button.

[APPLE: You navigate with your eyes. Simply tap to select flick to scroll.  And use your voice to dictate.  It's like magic.]

Ben: In the first 10 days, Apple reported more than 200,000 pre-orders for the headset. In January, sales are forecasted to be up to one million headsets this year.

Amory: I would have thought it would be higher. Is that weird?

Ben: It’s a good question. But if we think back to the FIRST iPhone, Apple sold over 1.4 million iPhones in 2007 when the phone was launched. And we are now at the 15th generation of iPhones and freaking everybody has one. Except me. I’m not a SHEEP! I'm an Android user, so I've got to come with skepticism.

Amory: Yes, yes you do. However, I believe I have the working cell phone right now.

Ben: It's fixed.  It's fixed. I swear.

Amory: All right. We still get along, so it's okay.

Ben: Amory, one true test of popularity — maybe truer than sales — is meme-ability. As we all know, that is the metric for success around here, at least at Endless Thread. The Apple Vision Pro has proven itself VERY meme-able. So, Amory, click on this link below. What do you see?

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/aPgxcSSZZb/

Amory: OK. This is in r slash pics. The title is not a single phone in sight, just two people living in the moment. And it's two people sitting at a restaurant, both wearing the Apple Vision Pro right next to each other, eating their meal.

Ben: Okay, go on.

Amory: It's bizarre. That is objectively bizarre to see two people in their own worlds, in their own virtual realities. And yet the first thing that comes to mind, honestly, is like the stereotypical older couple sitting across from each other each reading different newspapers not looking at each other or talking. So this just feels like a dystopian 21st-century version of that.

Ben: I love that example because it’s a good reminder that all new personal technology at some point has been considered isolating. The guys in this photo are Patrick and Isaac. And we wanted to get a virtual immersive experience of them. So we called Patrick up.

Patrick DeMasso: My name is Patrick DeMasso. I am in Toronto and I am a internet uploader. I guess you can call that.

Ben: Now, I haven't heard that one before. That's, I feel like that's a new one. You're not a content creator or influencer...

Patrick: Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to avoid that, that, that word that everyone tries to avoid that. 

Ben: When the Apple Vision Pro came out in February, Patrick and Issac, these two “internet uploaders,” self-described, took a road trip to Buffalo, New York to pick up their headsets. On their way back to Toronto, they brainstormed how to use their new toys to create good content. (a.k.a. good internet uploads)

Patrick: I was like, you know, I'm just gonna play with it and sort of see what happens. Like it just has to sort of come organically and he's like, yeah, I'm going to probably walk around the city with it. Cause I don't think anybody's walked around with it. And he's like, and I think we might go get Chinese food tonight.  

Amory: Wow, and this post got 8 million views on X, and I can only imagine there are even more views on other platforms.

Patrick: It just sparked way more conversation than I had ever anticipated, This isn't my first time where something's like done well, but this was one where like you're hitting the refresh and it's like thousands at a time are adding in and you're like, okay, this was this is a real one. This is going to be like part of the conversation.

Ben: Patrick wasn’t the ONLY one with his Apple Vision Pro Meemes blowing up. There was the guy wearing one while driving a cybertruck.

Amory: There was the woman with the headset one day after buying with of course a cracked screen.

Amory: AVP no longer meant the Alien Versus Predator movie franchise. It meant Apple Vision Pro. But was it a sign that people were INTO it? Or just making fun of it?

Ben: In the tech world, the intensive publicity that Apple Vision Pro has been getting signals that we are at the latest virtual reality “Hype Cycle.”

Kachina Studer: A hype cycle is this idea of a promise and this push for something futuristic, something new, something interesting and engaging. But the dip in that hype cycle. It's something not living up to expectations or over-promising.

Ben: This is Kachina Studer, she is an Extended Reality and AI Research Associate at Harvard and MIT.

Kachina: I've been in VR for almost a decade now. And I've seen, I've seen a lot of VR.

Ben: You've been in VR for a decade. Your eyes must be tired. 

Kachina: They are tired I spend so much time in different headsets.

Ben: The “hype cycle” is a concept developed by tech consulting firm Gartner in 1995, and it describes the journey of new technologies through several stages. And to understand this, Amory, I think we have to create some auditory virtual reality here. Are you ready?

Amory: Ready…

Ben: So pretend you and me are standing in front of a big whiteboard, with an X axis and a Y axis, and I take out a colorful marker, whichever color you pick, Amory.

Amory: Orange.

Ben: Alright, so I'm going to take this orange marker.  And the first stage of the Gartner hype cycle is the INNOVATION TRIGGER. And that starts left and low in the corner. And what that looks like on the whiteboard is this INTENSE jump off the line up and to the right. A steep cliff…up. So the innovation happens…and then there’s this JUMP because everyone’s like oh my god we can use this for soooo many things.

Amory: That sounds like what's happening with AI right now. Like everyone is talking about chat GPT and trying to figure out how to use AI to make things better, faster, stronger.

Ben: And this peak? It’s called the PEAK of inflated expectations.

Amory: I’m getting lightheaded…there’s not a lot of oxygen at this peak.

Ben: No, there's not. Brain cells are dying fast.  And that is why the Peak of Inflated Expectations is immediately followed, Amory, by the Trough of Disillusionment.

Amory: Oh I’ve been there baby. I’m there right now with this whole description.

Ben: Stay with me, Amory. Stay with me. This is where we come painfully back down to earth as a bunch of the things we THOUGHT technology would do… well…it doesn’t. Investors start to walk… the money dries up. Nobody opts in.

Amory: And now that the correction has happened, we're in. Just plain old reality, right?

Ben: Or…the gentle….sloooooooowpe of enlightenment. Which happens SLOWLY after this high peak. People start to figure out that. There are actually things you can do with this technology and they start doing them. They start investing in those things. People start buying the technology both literally and figuratively again.

Amory: And that feels like what 5G is now, maybe. When it was first announced everyone was like uhhhhhh, do we need this, and why should I care. But now…the phones…the routers…they got that 5G.

Ben: Definitely. And this is where the tech adoption really starts to pick up and reach to the stage of Plateau of Productivity.

Amory: That sounds like an oxymoron. The plateau of productivity.

Ben: It's just, inching up slowly over time, but it is ever inching up.

Amory: So…where is virtual reality on this roller coaster of technological innovation and adoption?

Ben: All right, I'm going to put the cap back on the marker now that we've drawn at the whiteboard. VR has been through this cycle before. A couple of times. It was coined back in 1987 by this artist and computer scientist named Jaron Lanier.

Amory: 1987… It doesn’t seem all that long ago.

Ben: Well, the actual concept of virtual reality can be sourced all the way back to the 18th century when stereoscopic viewers enabled people to see 3D photos through a pair of binoculars. And later we have the view master that adopted the idea and turned it into an entertainment product in 1939, one mostly about tourism. Have you tried the view master, Amory?

Amory: Oh, I’ve messed with the viewmaster. That’s the 19th-century version of virtual reality!

[Viewmaster: Ranging from the Grand Canyon to scenes from Disneyland and popular TV shows have been viewed through the Viewmaster.]

Ben: All right. So now let’s fast forward to the 1980s. That computer scientist artist named Jaron Lanier steps into the scene. And now…into our podcast as well.

Jaron Lanier: I have some kind of a special relationship with virtual reality. I made the first one that looked modern, that was head supported and color and all that, in fact, if you put a 1980s EYEPhone, which was spelled EYE phone next to an Apple Vision Pro, they looked very similar.

Ben: We talked to the legend. He founded the first company to sell VR goggles, which, yes, was called an EYE phone, if you can believe it, E Y E, phone.

Amory: Wow you got the guy.

Ben: Yeah we got the guy.

Ben: In 1987, he envisioned VR as a step beyond the “virtual world” concept that was introduced by computer scientist Ivan Sutherland — the man who created the first Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality headset in 1968. When Jaron coined the term, he had two visions.

Jaron: one of them was to make it a shared or a social experience with more than one person at a time.

Ben: The other thing that Jaron envisioned with virtual reality was creating an improvised shared experience that’s more fluid… so people can adapt and change the virtual environment collaboratively while they are also immersed in it. But despite being a legend in the VR world, he is not so sure about this latest hype cycle that is happening around the Apple Vision Pro.

Jaron: I'm charmed to see so many generations later that there are people interested in it. it's nice that it's still grabbing attention and enthusiasm. Uh, I have a bit of a different feeling about it than many of the people who are enthused now.

A: I love that he's skeptical of this. I love it.

Ben: Yeah, me too. When Jaron first coined the term, I think people got excited about it and then they forgot about it numerous times and we are going to get into why it fizzled and why some enthusiasts might think this time is different. We talk about that…

Amory: In a minute.

[SPONSOR BREAK]

Ben: Press and hold to align. It's showing me like a little mask with green eyeballs and now a green check mark. Oh!  Okay. This is pretty cool. Alright, I'm interested. 

Ben: Digging so much into the history of VR made us want to try these Apple Vision goggles for ourselves, and eventually we did, but it wasn't easy...I got my hands on this digital goggles first, courtesy of VR researcher Kachina Studer, who brought a pair to the WBUR studio.

Kachina: Is it asking you for a password? Yes it is. Let's try it. Yeah. Okay. 

Ben: Uh, this is convincing. Okay. I'm sold. I'm sold. Where do I buy this? I'm in. I'm in. I'm totally in. 

Ben: When I first put this headset on, I get to home view where I can see different Apple applications.. Apple TV, photo album…Keynote.. Etc. And I am EYE-Gazing to select which apps I go into.

Kachina: You want to see some dinosaurs? 

Ben: Always. Okay. Alright. Encounter dinosaurs. Oh, I see a little butterfly on the T of encounter.  And it's flying towards me. 

There's a tiny little four-legged dinosaur chasing a butterfly.  And is it going to eat the butterfly? We don't know. It's like a baby dinosaur. No, it's just chasing the butterfly. Okay.  Hey, bud. 

Ben: And I gotta say, compared to other virtual reality headsets I have at home, Apple Vision Pro is pretty impressive.

It feels like very immersive. It's beautiful in terms of like, what it's putting in front of your face, but also like, the thing that is on your face. They're both like, very pleasurable to look at. It's, you know, typical Apple design functionality and abilities. It's pretty cool. I was into it.

Amory: I'm fascinated to hear you say that because you are, I mean, let's just face it, between the two of us, you are the more tech-savvy person. You have been the more tech-forward. And, and you know, you've been around a little longer than I have. So I'm, I'm interested to hear you say that because you just have more experience with this stuff than I do. So how does this feel different and better?

Ben: That's a great question. And I think actually you are faster with technology. I'm better and you're faster and together we're amazing. That's how I feel.

When I grew up in the 90s, Amory, I saw a number of VR goggles on the market. I remember seeing Nintendo’s ​​video game console Virtual Boy. With this early attempt at virtual reality headset, you would need to place your face into a goggle-like viewfinder and it would be mounted on a low tripod-like stand.

Amory: Virtual Boy?

Ben: Virtual Boy!

[(1995) Nintendo Virtual Boy Commercial]: There's one problem.  It needs your eyes.  Virtual Boy. See it now in 3D.

Ben: But Nintendo discontinued the Virtual Boy less than a year after its release because the underlying technology for this generation of VR couldn't meet consumer expectations. The device's failure has been attributed to, at the time, high cost, $179. It was quite a lot back then, although these days it ain't nothing now that Apple's on the scene. It had this limited red and black display, underwhelming with its 3D effects, uncomfortable in its design, and its lack of genuine portability. So. the VR headset market went quiet for almost two decades after that.

The next big moment in the history of VR arrived with the Oculus Rift in 2012

Amory: Already a much better name. Oculus Rift.

Ben: Yeah, it is cool. And that was introduced by Palmer Luckey, who is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality industry.

[Oculus Rift: Step into the Game] What we're doing at Oculus is trying to create the world's best virtual reality headset designed very specifically for gaming. 

Ben: In the 2010s, Investments from Google, Facebook (which is now Meta), and other big companies brought more than 50 VR products to the market. We got Google Daydream…PlayStation VR…. Pico Neo… Oculus Quest 1,2, and 3 …. There was also Google Glass, which I would put in here.

Amory: I think Google Glass is the only one of those that I have even heard about. So in true form, I might be living under my cozy rock, but were any of these good? Did any of these come close to what you experienced with Apple Vision Pro?

Ben: I think they're all interesting, right? But, you know, they have these problems. First, they're expensive. The Oculus Rift originally went for $600.  You needed this, like, really powerful computer to run it.  They also weren't comfortable. the price of the Oculus series got cheaper. but they were still heavy, you know, it's like 500 grams, which is like having an 11-inch iPad pro like strapped to your face, which Amory I know you just love to do in your free time.

And another noticeable problem for older-generation VR headsets was that the resolution of the screen was pretty low. So, you know this kind of like tracking if you're like looking around in an immersive piece of video or something like that. The content looked heavily pixelated. It would kind of like stutter when it was catching up. It wasn't as immersive and convincing of an experience.

Amory: Hmm. That’s probably the reason why I don't see a lot of people around me going crazy for VR headsets, not like they went crazy for the first iPhone. I remember people wanting to be in line, like people that I knew, not just the tech people, but, you know, everyday people could not wait for the iPhone and I kind of forgot the Apple Vision Pro existed before we started working on this.

Ben: Another reason that has contributed is these VR headsets, you know, they just weren't targeting us, and specifically probably not you because you're not like a gamer. And you're also not working in this heavily industrial field where you need to move containers around on a container ship or something, which is another kind of application that, people talk about with things like virtual reality.

A lot of times people would purchase a VR gaming headset, you know, play a few games, and then kind of like set it aside on the shelf, forgetting about it and collecting dust. You know, and that was true for me too. Like, I have a PlayStation VR. I was like really psyched about it in the beginning. I wanted to show everyone. And then over time, it's kind of like, just been relegated to like, the back of the closet. Unless somebody like, really wants to try it. And then I'll like, take a half an hour to set it up and show it to them.

Amory: But have these really just been used for video games? Or at least mostly used for video games up to this point?

Ben: So that is what most people are using them for, according to a survey from Newzoo, a company that provides gaming industry statistics. You also have some niche, non-Amory applications like medical training or military training. And also apparently, more than half of VR users also use them to watch movies, attend virtual events, or go on virtual tours.

Amory: Hmm. Sounds a little wholesome to me. Compared to how we think about people using a technology like this.

Ben: Well, well, I've got good or slash bad news for you, depending on how you feel about this. There is also the porn industry, right?  Besides video games…the first industry to really lean into VR was the adult film industry. A 2021 research study has found the global value of the VR adult content market is expected to increase significantly, from $716 million in 2021 to $19 billion in 2026.

Amory: Not, not the least bit surprised that that's how this is being used. But okay. Interesting.

Ben: Okay Amory. You… You want to try the Apple Vision Pro now? Do you want to?

Amory: Want to or not? Here I go.

Amory: I'm in Yosemite and I'm looking at, I've never been to Yosemite, so I'm just looking at some big mountains. 

Ben: It’s nice!

Amory: Oh, it's beautiful. it's kind of like a dream state, you know, when you're like, yeah, I was, I woke up and I was in Yosemite and I was by myself, but you feel nothing, 

Ben: you feel empty inside. Is that what you're saying?

Amory: Yes I feel empty inside.

Ben: How do you like this technology?

Amory: I didn't immediately see the application in my life when I tried this out a couple weeks ago. It did just feel, I don’t know, just like surface level, like a lucid dream that I couldn't actually really enjoy. If that makes sense.

Amory: They would have to make this like a pair of glasses, not this big chunkin’ thing on my face for that to be the least bit enjoyable, even just to walk around.  I think like, I'm so aware that there's a heavy piece of equipment on my face.

Ben: Bulkiness is definitely a problem.

Amory: And also, I would not personally spend $3, 500 on this product. I'm not going to buy a computer on my face and walk around with it all the time.

Kachina: The price point definitely limits ubiquity. Not everybody is going to be able to afford that price point. It's about seven times the cost of what Meta's Quest 3 is.

Ben: When I talked to Kachina Studer about Apple Vision Pro in the studio, she told me one point that prevents this product from becoming a mainstream consumer product is the learning curve associated with the new operational system. People don't really love change, right? They're excited about new technology, maybe, but they don't love change. Amory, do you remember the shift from flip phones to smartphones?

Amory: Oh yeah.

Kachina: It took about five to ten years for this to become ubiquitous, even though we think about pulling out our phones every day and using them, and it's second nature to us at this point.

Ben: Now it's smartphones to Apple Vision Pro, right? We're talking about mastering a whole new language of interactivity. With the emergence of 3D environments and virtual reality, people need to understand and integrate this new level of information overlaid into our environment.

Kachina: Everybody needs to be able to develop that sense of interactivity, that sense of being able to connect, and that sense of community. so there is a hurdle there to create clear, interactive design between applications.

Ben: Alright. Did you master Apple Vision Pro's operational system in the 20 minutes you tried it, Amory?

Amory: No, I barely got into the system. It took me forever just to enter the password with my fingers in the air.

Ben: Well, I think like one of the big things about VR is that, like, it doesn't really, as far as we know, have a consumer-facing killer app yet. You know, and I think one of the challenges that I hear over and over about virtual reality, and that I'm still hearing about Apple Vision Pro, is really, like, just not having enough content. And I think that's the only way this stuff can fit into your everyday lives and I don't think it does.

And because of this and its low demand from the general public, some renowned analysts claimed that Apple had slashed its shipment forecast for the remainder of the year, which by the way includes Christmas shopping, and may not release a new device in 2025. So this hype cycle of Apple Vision Pro may not actually sustained. It may stay forever in the trough of disillusionment.

Amory: I could see VR headsets being used for educational purposes for students to get a better views of bees, or flowers, and even to the moon or any thing you might benefit from a more immersive and close-lens environment. I could see this be used in therapy, where you are overlaying a different reality onto your own and just try to focus on  your breathing. So I gues I am wondering who is this for? Who is this being marketed to?  Like the everyday Ben and Amo?  To do what? To go to Yosemite? To do what?

Ben: According to Apple, this bulky pair of ski goggles-like headset is marketed to everyone. It promises to bring "the remarkable entertainment experience," like watching a movie with a massive screen and surrounding sounds, taking spatial videos like what Robert did with his child’s birth. Another selling point supposedly is that the Vision Pro will be your ultimate “computer,” and boost your productivity because you can easily pull five different tabs on the screen for you to multitask. I am skeptical of this. I think the screen resolution is definitely better than other headsets I've tried, but one thing that's stuck in my head is like, what is the purpose of having these things on our faces?

Jaron: I think you'd use briefly either for a particular practical reason, like to understand a problem or for art.

Ben: Jaron…the artist and computer scientist who coined the term VR…kind of made this point that, you know, doing things like virtual reality art or other things that he imagined were really these like, these things that you would do for like little stints like it wasn't something you'd wear all the time.

Jaron: Using it sporadically would give you a contrast with regular reality. and these days there seems to be a bit more of a feeling of, oh we should be in it all the time, and the headsets should become like glasses or disappear entirely and I always thought that that was a misguided notion.

Ben: can you say more about why that's misguided in your view?

Jaron: There's a real question about what a human being is as we make more and more digital technology, because one attitude you can have is that people stop being anything special.

Ben: Do you think virtual reality will be an integral part of daily life ever, or is it going to remain sort of a niche market and is that for the best? 

Jaron: I hope it remains a niche market and it doesn't become an ordinary muzak-like part of daily life. I want it to be special and cherished like a fine wine or a wonderful violin. I don't want it to be the stupid social media app you're addicted to. I really, really, really hope it's niche. I think that's a better world. That's a more beautiful world. So my fondest hope for it is that it doesn't succeed on the terms that some people want it to succeed on. I think they have the wrong model of success.

Ben: Jaron represents one major viewpoint about this technology — a more pessimistic view that we should hold off on the mass adoption of VR in our lives. But Team Optimists like VR researchers think that the adoption of VR headsets for everyday use can happen and this current hype cycle can maybe, you know, be the hype cycle that makes it happen.

Amory: Is that the goal to make this part of our daily life?

Josh Widdicombe: I see it as replacing our cell phone as an interface. I see in some ways when it's imperceptible, to the contact level or glasses level.

Amory: This is Josh Widdicombe, a visualization laboratory assistant at Harvard.

Ben: He is a really nice guy but we totally disagree with him.

Amory: what is the potential that you see for a device like this to actually improve the world?

Josh: I think ultimately presenting you with more information in the world and more is going to be the primary focus of this and the primary benefit of using this in your day-to-day life. 

Amory: Josh said VR headsets can present information in a way that really hasn't been possible before.

Josh: Had having heads up displays, having things that kind of show you the world in different light, adding and augmenting it with data, adding different directions or, or like, unfortunately, it's gonna be ads as well, there's those dark sides of it too. But ultimately like it can be a thing that enhances your ability to navigate the world, to gain value from that.  There's the dark black mirror part of this too. You look at people's faces, you can get their name, you can get like all these like little blurbs about them. There are both sides of that and how we're going to implement it is ultimately going to be up to us. 

Ben: I don't know, Amory. I feel like we're both, you and I, we're equal grump on this one. I feel like… you know

Amory: Welcome. Welcome to my grump zone.

Ben: I mean, here's the thing. Like virtual reality is so cool, right? I can sit in central Massachusetts and throw my buddy Rory a Frisbee and he can catch it and throw it back to me in virtual reality. And that is cool. That is cool. It helps also, I think, with like potentially increasing empathy. That's like one of the other promises that we, that we tell ourselves about new technology, especially technology that allows us to feel more connected with people who are not directly in front of us.

I see the promise of this stuff. And at the same time, I'm kind of in Jaron's place where it shouldn't be this thing that is like seamlessly interwoven into our lives just like our stupid phones are. No offense to phone lovers anywhere as I am one of them. But it's like a really mixed relationship that I have, and I don't really want a VR headset to be part of a similarly mixed relationship.

Amory: Yeah. I mean, it already makes me upset that if I leave my phone somewhere and I don't have it on me, that panic feeling that sets in, that like, well, you're going through this right now, not having a working phone. Just the fact that you can't reach people, you can't check your things. I don't want us to be moving more and more in that direction, personally. I think technology can do amazing things, and I also would never trade any of that stuff for the real thing, the same way that I don't think that you would trade virtually throwing a frisbee to your friend for actually throwing a frisbee. Right?

Ben: I would always prefer spraining an ankle to like never seeing my buddy Rory. That's for sure.

Amory: Yeah.

Ben: Amory, would you still like to invest in my new bar that I'm making?

Amory: Your new bar?

Ben: Yeah, it's a virtual reality bar.  And people can show up and strap something onto their face and just like hang out and they have like really long straws that go into drinks and they just like drink their drinks while they have VR headsets on. And do you know what it's called?

Amory: I can’t wait to hear. What?

Ben: The Trough of Disillusionment.

Amory: And with that, yes. Take all my money.

Endless Thread is a production of WBUR Boston NPR’s Trough of Enlightenment. This episode was co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. And it was written and written by our dear podcast fellow Cici Yu. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.

The rest of our team is Samata Joshi, Grace Tatter, Dean Russell, Matt Reed, and Paul Vaitkus.

We also want to thank Kachina Studer and Josh Widdicombe from Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Laboratory for showing us around their VR theater, their sandbox and all the cool things that are augmenting our reality. And most importantly, they let us try the APPLE VISION PRO!

Also a huge thank you to Arzu Cöltekin, a professor of human-computer interaction and extended reality in Switzerland, who gave us a ton of insights about spatial computing and virtual reality.

If you have an unsolved mystery or an untold history or you just want to tell us what your favorite animal cam is, hit us up: Endless Thread at WBUR dot org.