The Ethics of Realism in Virtual and Augmented Reality

TLDR

The paper examines ethical issues likely to arise from widespread consumer adoption of XR and calls for research and remedies to address these concerns. The authors outline a framework that first reviews general XR ethics, then focuses on superrealism‑specific concerns, and proposes remedies and research questions. The paper reports insights from a Digital Catapult group meeting on XR ethics.

Abstract

In this paper we consider ethical issues that could emerge with the widespread adoption ofvirtual and augmented reality (XR) as a consumer product. Our major focus is on a likelyfuture where, with technological advances, virtual and augmented reality may becomeindistinguishable from reality thanks to the improvements in sensory feedback, in the abilityto interact with virtual features, and in other elements that enhance the realism of the virtualexperience—what we refer to as superrealism. In the introductory section we first considermore general ethical issues related to XR use, and in later sections we consider issues specificto superrealism in XR. Finally, we propose approaches towards remedies and outline a seriesof scientific questions targeted at the research community. This work is the result of a groupmeeting under the auspices of Digital Catapult in London, and reports findings of theirdiscussions. The intention of this paper is to highlight important areas for consideration bythe wider XR community, and provoke the discussion and further research needed toinvestigate and address these important topics.