© Image courtesy of Brainlab
You may not own a Virtual Reality (VR) headset, but someone you know probably does. VR is growing rapidly and it's going to change our world. Gaming, entertainment, education, and healthcare are just a few of the areas that will benefit from VR technology. However, its use in one less commonly discussed industry could put more at risk than we realize.
VR sex platforms raise profound questions, forcing us to confront VR's potential to affect our minds for better and for worse. VR affects us in powerful ways for three main reasons. Firstly, computer-generated visuals have become so convincing that it can be difficult to decipher whether you're looking at a real-world video recording or a computer-generated virtual creation [1]. Moreover, modern VR headsets have advanced to provide a consistent first-person view. Even while turning your head quickly, you rarely lose the illusion of a first-person perspective.
Secondly, the synchronization of other sensory forms like sound, smell, and most importantly, touch, with convincing visuals, amplifies the experience. In one groundbreaking experiment, the synchronized stroking of a rubber hand positioned parallel in space with a participant's real, hidden hand created the sensation that the rubber hand replaced their real hand [2], an insight that has since been expanded in countless ways in VR [3]. When sensory streams are paired, the brain knits them together, enhancing the illusion of the virtual experience.
Finally, VR translates your own movements to control analogous movements in virtual worlds. When you reach out in a virtual world using the motor pattern you use in everyday life, see a virtual arm extend from your body to touch a virtual object, and
feel that object, you experience an
embodiment illusion [4]. When the visual, tactile, and motor information are delivered and received close enough in time, your brain is fooled. The body you see is no longer a virtual body, but
your body.
As technologies advance, better visuals, touch feedback, and motor translation will create ever-more convincing virtual experiences. Headsets will progress to be lighter and more comfortable, computer processing power will increase, and as more consumers adopt VR as a medium, the breadth of experiences will expand, including into the intimate.
VR sex simulation is not the same as porn. The term "VR porn" is therefore somewhat misleading. When viewing photos or videos, you experience the material through a real-world lens; you still understand that you're in your own body in the real world.
VR sex simulation, using the principles of embodiment manipulation, supplants a person into a different body. In essence, you can become a different person, potentially acting in ways you never would in the real world.VR sex platforms are not science fiction. There are devices on the market currently that stimulate human genitalia in synchrony with visuals and sounds from VR headsets,
with much more powerful technologies in the pipeline [5]. Companies are even buying the rights to use the likeness of porn actors and actresses, creating 3D scans of their bodies for use in simulations [5,6].
With better AI, companies will no longer even require the rights to specific people.
AI will generate a near-infinite number of digital sexual partners with stimuli so detailed it will be difficult to tell they're not real people. In fact, some VR sex experiences will be designed for users to engage in acts that are impossible, socially unacceptable, and illegal in the real world.User privacy will be difficult to maintain. Right now, data collected from the micromovements of your head are enough alone to identify you from among hundreds of others [7]. Upcoming VR headsets will come standard with eyetrackers, and even brainwave-sensing electrodes [8].
Recent studies have warned about the potential information that can be gleaned from visual gaze data - not just demographic data like age, sex, and ethnicity, but personal data like personality, drug use, mental health status, and sexual preferences [9]. With simple, easily implementable data analysis tools, any VR headset will know who you are soon after you don it and may know more about you than you know about yourself.This data is far too voluminous for human analysts, but not for AI. VR sex platforms will use algorithms that compile your data to construct sexual experiences just for you. These experiences will be fine-tuned to your current mood - they will recognize your deepest, primal urges before you do.
The implications of this are not hard to imagine. AI algorithms will quickly learn what buttons to push and when, making the experience highly addictive. Perhaps your sexual preferences could be altered by your AI companion's suggestions. If humans have access to an infinite set of virtual partners that know what they want in any given moment, how will people's desire to seek out sexual experiences with one another be impacted? Perhaps humans will become so accustomed to "perfected" VR sex experiences, that the thought of intimacy with another "imperfect" human won't even be arousing.
With first-person, embodied, VR sex experiences, people will
feel physical stimulation, and
see their virtual bodies being stimulated. They will be convinced that the virtual world is their world, and that their virtual body is their body.
Relationships as we know them could be reshaped. It's time to prepare for this possibility, and that begins by talking about it.References:
[1] Fallis, D. (2020). The Epistemic Threat of Deepfakes.
Philosophy & Technology, 1-21.
[2] Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands 'feel'touch that eyes see.
Nature, 391(6669), 756-756.
[3] Slater, M., Pérez Marcos, D., Ehrsson, H., & Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2009). Inducing illusory ownership of a virtual body.
Frontiers in neuroscience, 3, 29.
[4] Slater, M., Spanlang, B., Sanchez-Vives, M. V., & Blanke, O. (2010). First person experience of body transfer in virtual reality.
PloS one, 5(5), e10564.
[5]
VirtualMate[6]
Camasutra Industries[7] Miller, M. R., Herrera, F., Jun, H., Landay, J. A., & Bailenson, J. N. (2020). Personal identifiability of user tracking data during observation of 360-degree VR video.
Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1-10.
[8]
Looxid Labs[9] Kröger, J. L., Lutz, O. H. M., & Müller, F. (2019, August). What does your gaze reveal about you? On the privacy implications of eye tracking. In IFIP International Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management (pp. 226-241).
Springer, Cham.[10] Massey, K., Burns, J., & Franz, A. (2020). Young People, Sexuality and the Age of Pornography.
Sexuality & Culture, 1-19.
Ewen Lavoie is a PhD Candidate and a Faculty Member of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute of the University of Alberta. He tweets @EwenLavoie.
Reader Comments
R.C.
CKamasutra Industries . . . pffff , there's a non-sequitur . . . They're playing head games and yes, the double entendre is obvious. From Wikipedia here [Link] :Wait! WWhhyyy arreee theeseses keys all stickkky????
Nevermind.
RC
We should worry about Feminism and pseudo-equality in this gynocentric society.
Women are told they can have the same as men, but without the effort. Going in six-figure debt for a paper-and-pencil-pushing career, drab around in their prime, and expecting a simp to marry them and other men's kids when they approach the wall. Only to get ripped off later in the divorce court.
Toxic masculinity kept the society going for centuries, emancipated feminism destroyed it in a few decades.
@codis:
There was a time I dated a lot of women, because I was so interested in them. It was a LOT of fun, albeit with some heartache too.
Women are gone now.
They are outdated and have been replaced.
Men are gone away, too.
Computerized, regulated lifestyles are the new brand and topple everything else.
It's nobody's fault though, we did this all by ourselves.
Yeah.
Ummmm, no.
There was a third party.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah....
The psychos.
ned,
out
R.C.
All lesser, lower caste humans need to be kept in carefully constructed zoos, where their lives can be monitored and simulated completely.
A life of simulated reality is the best way to extend the earth's existence and preserve the climate until such a time as when we are able move to another planet, that is more suitable and conducive to our uncontrollable lust and greed.
Or galaxy, even.
On the other hand, who cares?
Really and we could just kill them all anyway, at any time we choose.
There are only two kinds of people, US and them. And only one kind matters.
Guess which?
So what's the big deal?
This is it.
And no one knows this better than we.
Kirk,
out
(sarcasm for a lying planet)
It reminds me of Brave New World where women are conditioned to belong to everyone and the more sexual encounters the better which is also sex for the sake of sex, devoid of relationship or emotional connection. It is dehumanising.
Shop at home.
Facetime rather than real time.
VR sex rather than real sex.
False virus to generate fear of others, even family.
Quite the pattern forming. Human to human contact should be on an endangered list, because TPTB are doing everything to make it a thing of the past.
The plans going well.
And yet they are now avoiding touching their mother. What the fuck.
All goodbyes could be the last.
Bill? Is that you?
I hope you DO get to meet him; I'd give at least 2 to one odds in a cage match in your favor. . .
RC
Anyway, how will you find the time to do that amongst all the bj's you're dishing out..?? I note that you're up to 311 so far and aiming for a four figure total.
Such absurd subject headings.
Who are 'we' anyway?
Now isn't that the Matrix in a nutshell?
RC
Have you got the dueling pistols ready?
RC
My friend, my heart, thoughts and prayers remain with you and yours. I'll advise once I've visited my Mum.
RC
(Especially a noisy one... ) (Rereading that, I . . . . . .which is a combination of something innate ( 'innature'? I like that) / plus respectful Southern nurture, I guess.
I was born & lived in Cal until age 7? and then we were here with the rockets in Florida. I then learned to use (and still do if I wish) a Southern Accent* - same has served me well before sundry small town redneck judges...
I'm gonna bet that you grew up with big brothers.
RC
*BBub: You'll get notified of this on your PRB**. My friend, this beautiful Tom Petty (RIP) song about Mums is for you. [Link] - Listen close to the lyrics. Hang tough.
** Pavlovian Red Bell.
RC
Mind you I am just going on the music and my feelings cos I cannot understand a word said.
and not just so I can look up their dress...gee, I hope that did not sound sexist
Thanks for the fun!
Thanks!
RC
RC? He's OMG! A dream? (Or a dud? )?
Here's RC again. ? or
Actually, the real RC:
Real RC, too:
Pretty genius way to control.
I played a VR game where I shot at aliens. It was a lot of fun. Thinking about those same aliens trying to run a galactic train on me is only a little hot. But mostly weird.
Eh, I'd try it once. Yolo
THEN I read the rest . OMG! (Literally - I blush easily.) . and it's but more this:
What a cool renegade! Lord knows that this world needs more!
RC
P.s., I see you've dumped 83 lad or whatever, right? Cool. Nice pic, my dear.
RC
I'm a natural born renegade.
(I probably shouldn't say this but - hey! that's my nature, so.....Although I'm not versed in photoshop (or whatever) your pic struck the innate detective in me and I thought that I could probably take that picture, invert it, and copy and paste (or such) and fix to recreate a fair guestimate of your fair face. It was on my too long to-do list, as it turns out.
If you wish a picture of me, just imagine Mel Gibson . . not. whatever...
RC
I'm a newbie to all of this. A year ago I believed everything I saw. When the pandemic happened I spent weeks staying up until 8am researching everything (I went nuts okay). I stumbled upon this site about 5 months ago.
But it is me. With a little lighter hair color. I'm a brunette. People tell me often that I look like Marisa Tomei.
It's a weird, (but undeniably cool) feeling, in the sense that it reaffirms the validity of the principle of always seeking truth.
I have never understood how people could blind themselves to undeniable facts. (For example, WTC-7 collapse, etc. How can ANYONE see that and still buy into the lie of the 'official story'??? And yet, sadly, many / most? folks do! )
Well, ~ 2004? I showed my genius retired space engineer mum, the video of WTC-7 and told her of the circumstances, (official story 'waste basket fire', NO plane strike, etc.) and that permanently awakened her to the fact that one can NOT trust the 'official story' re 9/11/2001, et al.
Now when we were little kids - to keep us tough and NOT reward crying, when we'd fall down, she'd say: "What? Did widdle baby fall down, go boom?" and it helped and we (I certainly) would laugh rather than cry..
Well, when she saw that WTC-7 video she said: "Absurd! Skyscrapers don't 'fall down, go boom!"
Give me a path to find truth, or give me death.
Welcome!
RC
I'll have to check out this wtc 7 video.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11/2001 Truth: [Link]
WhatReallyHappened [Link]
Truthseeker UK: [Link]
Unz Review: [Link]
and (This one's important!) Global research. [Link]
Good luck, Roxy Jim. Your computer will melt in ten seconds. . . .
R.C.
*Please note that ten years ago, it was WAY easier to research truth online; now it's scarily hidden by big tech hand in hand with government turning a blind eye, etc...
RC
OKC bombing. (We were flying en route to Denver when that BS went down.) See the General Partin report.) Check out WRH on that: [Link]
Another early depressing awareness was the fact that they still sold Pearl Harbor as a 'surprise' attack when the UK had already broken the Japanese code and US Intelligence followed (tracked) Yamamoto?'s fleet all the way across the Pacific.* The book that sealed that deal and proved all that beyond any reasonable doubt was Day of Deceit : The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor is a book by Robert Stinnett (1999). .(I was aware of the limited information before then - mostly from WRH.) Oh, and I'm not surprised to see that wee wee pee pee ahh still effectively treats it as a 'conspiracy theory'.
(Do you know that that phrase, 'CT' was a product of 'Operation Mockingbird' so as to have an MSM (BFM) united front to denigrate all those who questioned the official story of JFK? - Now THAT was something that I - believe it or not - did not learn until ~ 2006! (From right here at SOTT! LOVE THIS PLACE! )
As re archives, I'd say start by researching old stuff on WRH - it damn sure woke me up. [Link]
It is a 'weight off my shoulders kind of feeling' because I think that most of us, in are heart of hearts, realize that we're being lied to; the problem is that folks use cognitive dissonance to shut down their logical thinking processes.
But once you've seen that 'wizard' behind that curtain?. . . as 'tis said, 'you can't unring a bell.'
R.C.
*God I love surfing the Pacific!
RC
It's going to be a late night for me, lots to read!
[Link]
I detect that it rightly angers you, as it does me - which I presume as reasonably likely true since it is you, my dear, referencing it.
But (again, sorry) is there some issue related to 'virtual reality' there? (Frankly, I I've not gone to your link, as I have NO desire to learn anything more about the Clantons.) Thanks in advance.
R.C.
And I think these sort of articles are more distraction from the real stuff. It’s bread and circus.
RC
I never believe anything 100%, for that's something I've learned these past 30+ years.
We'll chat on our thoughts shortly, for I am curious, but off to bed.
RC