So, if we hypothesise that AR will act more like a feed reader than a browser when gathering data, and is really just a UI layer for whatever data you feed it, we come to a looming problem: nobody is going to have the exact same view of the AR enabled world. Vernor Vinge covered this somewhat with his “belief networks” in Rainbows End, but where he saw fictional networks vying for supremacy I see politics.
This is a slightly different issue from the “unpleasantness filter” idea Charlie Brooker took a crack at. We’re a long way away (technologically) from that.
This problem is more immediate and insidious - when you can choose your data sources, confirmation bias will come into play. When your “view” on the world is carefully curated to match your personal preconceptions, the real world is no longer a common normalizing reality. Imagine what I’ll short-hand refer to as the “Tea Party” AR bundle - whipping subscribers into a righteous fury. As a counter-example there’s a real-time environmental impact layer for Layar in Copenhagen. The groups who might subscribe to these different kinds of views are probably non-intersecting. Your focus determines your reality.
At the last ISMAR this discussion came up in a panel in the Arts and Humanities track, and there was a general call for an “AR commons” that could be used to bridge the divide, but again, I think this comes from a misunderstanding of the medium and is not enforceable. Even if it were, the end result would no doubt be a tragedy of the (AR) commons.
