Tag: technology

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New Publication on the Ethics of Virtual Reality Technology

By Jim Spiegel

Last week an article of mine, entitled “The Ethics of Virtual Reality Technology: Social Hazards and Public Policy Recommendations,” was published in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics. In the article I discuss a number of issues related to virtual reality technology that are of serious moral concern and which, I argue, warrant the implementation of industry regulations. Here is the article abstract:

This article explores four major areas of moral concern regarding virtual reality (VR) technologies. First, VR poses potential mental health risks, including Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder. Second, VR technology raises serious concerns related to personal neglect of users’ own actual bodies and real physical environments. Third, VR technologies may be used to record personal data which could be deployed in ways that threaten personal privacy and present a danger related to manipulation of users’ beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. Finally, there are other moral and social risks associated with the way VR blurs the distinction between the real and illusory. These concerns regarding VR naturally raise questions about public policy. The article makes several recommendations for legal regulations of VR that together address each of the above concerns. It is argued that these regulations would not seriously threaten personal liberty but rather would protect and enhance the autonomy of VR consumers.

As for the regulations I recommend in the article, they include (1) a standardized rating system for VR technologies, (2) minimum age requirements for some VR products, (3) informational and warning labels, (4) public disclosure mandates, and, depending upon the degree to which VR technology merges with social networks, (5) “no share” laws regarding user data gleaned by VR companies.

To this day I have yet to experience VR technology first hand. This avoidance was not entirely intentional, but now I am pleased that I finished this research project before doing so, as I was somewhat wary of how the experience might bias my thinking about the subject. I am happy to say that all of the arguments and recommendations I make in the piece are based entirely on the research data I explored. But now that the article is published, I’m eager to do give VR a try. Anyone out there want to invite me to join them for a trip to a virtual world? I’m ready to don a headset and make the plunge!

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From the Garden to the City: A Book Review

By Jim Spiegel

A few months ago, author John Dyer came to Taylor University to speak on a theology of technology.  Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, the morning he was scheduled to speak there was a power failure in the chapel auditorium!  So the chapel service was hastily relocated to the football field, where Dyer gave a compelling talk on how a Christian worldview should inform the way we view and use technology.

Early in his book, From the Garden to the City (Kregel, 2011), John Dyer writes, “When we fail to recognize the impact of…technological change, we run the risk of allowing our tools to dictate our methods.  Technology should not dictate our values or our methods.  Rather, we must use technology out of our convictions and values” (p. 25).  This passage summarizes a major theme in the book, in which Dyer draws from the likes of Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, and Neil Postman in explaining, as the book’s subtitle puts it, “the redeeming and corrupting power of technology.”  As a professional web developer, Dyer is no luddite.  And his theological training and sharp intuition for cultural critique uniquely equip him to treat this subject in a balanced and insightful way.

2012-09-28 09.18.01Dyer begins with biblical anthropology, noting how God made humans rational and designed us for creative work, as evident in the cultural mandate in the first chapters of Genesis.  And from the very beginning of human civilization, we have been acting on that mandate, making and remaking culture and using technology to do so.  Dyer observes numerous ways in which key biblical events centered on technology, from Adam and Eve’s use of fig leaves to cover their nakedness to God’s “upgrade” to animal skins for clothing to the city construction of Cain to the diverse cultural innovations of Cain’s grandchildren to the infamous technological idolatry of the Tower of Babel.  It appears that human technology always reflects both what is good and what is bad about human nature.

With Marshall McLuhan, Dyer rejects the naïve but popular notion that technology is always neutral.  McLuhan calls this “the numb stance of the technological idiot” (p. 83).  This is because, as McLuhan notes, all technology tends to:  (1) magnify or extend something that humans do naturally, (2) eliminate something we used to do, (3) retrieve something from the past, and (4) create “the possibility of reversing into a more negative behavior when its overused” (p. 88).  Everything from cars to cell phones vividly illustrate all of these tendencies.

Dyer’s book ultimately frames a theology of technology in terms of the biblical story of redemption—in terms of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.  Specifically, he tells us that (1) human technology is born out of and reflects the Imago Dei, (2) that we are prone to misuse our technology, (3) that technology may nonetheless be used redemptively, and (4) human technology will have a role in the final restoration of humanity, as we dwell in the New Jerusalem, the eschatological city of God.

Thanks to John Dyer for this balanced, biblically grounded discussion of the positive potentials and inherent dangers of technology.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in how to think Christianly about technology or, more broadly, how to do theological analysis of culture.

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Little House on the Prairie Meets Text Messaging

By Amy Spiegel

Jim and I are fairly resistant to new technologies, always hanging on to the last before falling head long into the lap of the latest trends. Our little computer was teased on the cyber playground for being the only PC on the block who wasn’t allowed to play on the internet. We were still purchasing phone cards and calling collect while the rest of the world whizzed by on their cell phone, gawking at us as though we were on display in a Natural History Museum. “Observe twentieth century man in his natural habitat, the phone booth. Note his horrified expression as the operator, a now extinct creature, explains the interstate calling rate.” Just recently I was out to dinner with friends, feeling ever-so current with my portable talking device tucked into my purse—I even have an in-car charger now—when I heard a strange pecking sound coming from the back seat. I turned to see my always-up-on-the-latest-everything friend texting! I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

lhop2While Jim and I were in England several years ago, we observed British youngsters frantically banging on their cell phones with their fingertips, but frankly I thought they were having some strange sort of fit, perhaps an early symptom of mad cow disease. Since then, of course, I have learned better, but still I assumed that texting was something only teenagers did to avoid making eye contact with anyone over the age of 25. Now here was my contemporary clicking away. I was baffled, being the twentieth century gal that I am (and frankly even the twentieth century was a bit ahead of me. I am the kind of person who googles maple syrup farms and pick-your-own blueberry fields in an attempt to keep alive my inner Laura Ingalls Wilder. True, this does require internet service, but hey—no one’s perfect).  My friend—I won’t mention her name, let’s just call her Carrie Ross—went on to explain the glories of texting. She used small words and spoke slowly, so I think I caught most of what she was saying. Texting is really convenient. You don’t have to have a whole conversation. It isn’t as socially intrusive as talking on the phone. I nodded in seeming agreement and inwardly decided that her new metallic purse had affected her thinking. 

240px-mobilephone1Then one day my cell phone made a noise I had never heard before, while I innocently drove along listening to my iPod in the car with the kids. (I am starting to see that perhaps I am not the prairie girl I once believed myself to be, but come on. iPods are really, really cool. Especially with the windows down and P!nk belting out “So What” while you and the kiddles sing along. Am I right or am I right?). I had received my first text message. Slowly over the months to come, I have received more and more texts and have begun to send my own little messages in a bottle across the great ocean of electrical waves that surround us. And, I have to admit, my nameless friend (Carrie) was right. It is nice to send a quick hello or needed info without having to actually speak to the person. But of late, I have begun to wonder if my practices are in keeping with my deeper convictions. (This epiphany came whilst I was listening to my mom on one line and checking my voice mail on another. Pretty low, right? I quickly confessed to my mom and vowed never to do it again.) Sure, it is cleaner and simpler to send off a text without actually having to go through all the entanglements of greeting someone and enquiring about their day, but isn’t that missing the point a bit? Isn’t communication supposed to be about entangling ourselves in one another lives?  Today a friend called (not the nameless Carrie) and really needed to talk. Normally I would chat as long as the cordless phone allowed for my wandering around the house “accomplishing” things. I would have listened as long as it didn’t cost me anything. But this time I asked myself “What would Ma Ingalls do?” In an act of extreme self-control, I sat and had a real conversation, in all it’s messy splendor. (By the end, I actually had to resort to talking on a phone with a cord, something that went out soon after smoke signals and the Pony Express.) So the next time your fingertips get itchy, remember that simple and clean isn’t always best. GTG.

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Voice Mail, Answering Machines, and Life “After the Beep”

By Amy Spiegel

This past week I called a friend on her cell phone and, finding her “unavailable,” I was passed on to her voice mail. The automated message proceeded to explain the process by which I could leave a message. (I believe that most tribes in the far-reaches of the Amazon Jungle now understand this process. Could we cut to the chase, please? We get it—wait for the beep.) I noted my friend’s carefully chosen and somewhat stilted tone and came to a relatively unimportant conclusion. As a rule, I dislike modern technologies. I heat my soup on the stove top rather than in the microwave (though I would cook on an open stove in the backyard if Jim didn’t think I would somehow burn down the neighborhood.) I rarely answer the call-waiting that was included our telephone service. I still own a pen and have been known to put it to use now and again. But among the resented but tolerated intruders lurks one of my most loathed technologies—voice mail and its more backward cousin, the answering machine. 

What is not to love about these automated wonders which magically communicate our messages from Aunt Suzie, Dr. So-and-So and our son’s basketball coach, you ask? Well, for starters there is the announcement recording. Never do I feel such pressure to make a good impression, to strike just the right balance between clever and to the point as I do when called upon to push the button and begin speaking after the beep. This is, of course, ridiculous because the people that are calling fall into three basic categories: 1) people that already know me and are entirely certain of my uncoolness. No need to try and pull the wool over their eyes. It isn’t as if one day, upon hearing an astoundingly amusing but considerately succinct announcement on our machine, my friends will suddenly reconsider their basic assumptions with regards to my hip rating; 2) people entirely unknown to me who are only trying to inform me that the gas bill is due or that Sam has a dentist appointment next Thursday at two. I truly pity these creatures of the telephone. I can only imagine how many unhappy hours they spend listening to worn out clichés recorded for all to hear, over and over again; and 3) my dear friend “Toll Free Number.” Jim and I receive innumerable calls from “Toll Free” and his good buddy “Unknown.” Unfortunately, they never seem to leave a message for us to return their call. If this last category of calls were the only ones we received, there would be no problem whatsoever. I would simply record nails on a chalk board and be done with it. 

Even worse than announcement recording is message leaving. At least with your own machine, you have the option to delete and try again. (I have noticed a growing trend of “If you are unhappy with your message” options for which I am grateful, though sadly I will never be happy with my message, so what’s the use?) With message leaving, it’s do or die and I must say, I usually end up in the latter category—dying of embarrassment. Oh my, did I really just say that? Again, my failed message attempts fall into one of several categories, but for the sake of parallelism I will note three: 1) the casual message that starts off okay but then begins to ramble, leavings lots of impertinent details and ending with a mortified mumbling of apologies. Often times, I am lulled into over-confidence by a good beginning which leads to my ultimate demise. I am not having a conversation with the person, simply leaving a message; 2) the trying-to-be-brief-and-to-the-point message which is usually a result of having left a casual message sometime in the recent past. This message attempts to leave only relevant information but ends up sounding too businesslike and sometimes downright rude. Frequently, after having left a rather demanding message—“This is Amy. Call me.”—I try to cover up and apologetically add “If you want. When you get a chance. Ya know, whenever.” Smooth, Real smooth; 3) Message from Hell. This is probably the most common message left by me these days. This is the one where I am hiding in the kitchen pantry trying to leave a message and the children discover me and begin terrorizing one another at high volume right into the phone receiver. If they can, they also try to throw juicy tid bits out there for all to hear like “Mommy, Sam ate all the candy you bribed us with and then Bailey hit him over the head with the bowl and now there is blood all over the crumbs that Andrew is licking off the floor, and I didn’t get any.” Things like that. Face burning, I turn into the phone and say “So anyway, Doctor, Thursday at two is fine. Thanks for the message and have a great day. If you want to. Or not. Ya know, whichever.”