This Mark Zuckerbergs Virtual Reality photo really makes you think

Look closely. Tell me, what do you see? Simply a room full of techies, a tech conference maybe? Look closer. There is much more in this picture to be seen. This photo has been taken at the MWC 2016 and it depicts Mark Zuckerberg walking by 5000 devoted followers , each plugged into a Virtual Reality headset. This image has caused a lot of buzz in the social media world with many linking it to movies such as the Matrix, where people live in a virtual world with overloads in control, thinking that their reality is in fact, real.



A Glimpse at Our Future!?

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, and in this case I believe it’s worth a lot more. I’m a Computer Scientist myself but I have to admit that when I first saw this picture I felt…uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about technology and innovation but seeing this photo has forced me to take a step back and think: “Are we still in control?” We love the fact that technology is evolving rapidly but have we ever thought what might come out of it? What is the ultimate goal we are trying to reach as a human species and how far can advanced technologies take us?



Mark Zuckerbergs Virtual Reality Vision

Facebook, which bought virtual reality firm Oculus for two billion US dollars in 2014, has since partnered with Samsung to create the Gear VR headset. The outcome has been great so far and many people are getting excited over this partnership, including myself. Mark Zuckerberg stated that “VR is going to be the most social platform”. In his speech at MWC he explained how technology has rapidly evolved from text to photos to videos and now to virtual reality. He used an example to introduce how virtual reality can improve our way of experiencing life. He said that when he made his first steps as a baby, his parents just took a pen and wrote down the day in the baby book. When his cousins’ baby first walked, she took a photo using a camera and when his sisters’ son took the first steps, she used a phone to record a video. Mark Zuckerberg claims that he wants to capture the whole moment and he believes that virtual reality will be the perfect way to do it. Will it though? Personally I believe that great moments in our lives need to remain as human as possible. Experiencing your baby’s first steps through a virtual reality headset makes the moment, well, less of an experience at the least.



Getting Philosophical

If you had a choice to live in an ideal Virtual World or keep living in the normal and maybe outdated by the time real world, what would you choose? Even if you chose to live in the real world, how do you know that you are not part of the Virtual Reality already and don’t really have a choice? I mean, once you plug into a VR Headset, how can you be sure that you took it off after wearing it? Are you still plugged in or are you not? Assuming that you have a choice, what is considered “real world” in the future? If the majority of the human population resides in the virtual world, does that make it more real? These and many other questions surround the controversial topic of Virtual Reality. The question you might have to answer sooner than you think is: Would you take the red pill or the blue pill?







