VR Industry Risks Major Liability Exposure Due to Disorientation, Expert Warns

"How big an issue is the nausea problem for Virtual Reality products?" is the title of a really fascinating if disturbing Quora post by Steve Baker, who's been working in VR for over two decades, primarily for the military and defense contractors, who got into the virtual reality business way back during the Cold War. Baker carefully analyzes the nausea problems associated with VR, argues they are fundamentally unsolvable, and then drops this jaw-dropping factoid taken from a military study of test subjects' reaction to long term use of a flight simulator:

Anecdotal data continues to be received indicating there is a part of the aviation population that experiences delayed problems beyond the simulator exposure and for periods that exceed 6 to 8 hours for approximately 8 percent of the population and l-to-2 days for an even smaller population... an aviator should wait postflight before piloting an actual aircraft or even driving a car.

"Yeah," Baker observes, "the US Navy believes that some people shouldn’t drive a car within one to two DAYS of being inside a VR environment."

In conclusion, he raises a liability issue I brought up from another direction a few weeks ago:

If these devices are in pretty much every home - then there are huge problems in store for the industry in terms of product liability. There have been plenty of warnings from the flight simulation industry - there are no excuses for not reading the Wikipedia article on the subject. If people are driving “under the influence” and the VR companies didn’t warn them about that - then they’re in deep trouble.

Or like I put it, Matrix-like blurring between the virtual and the real is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Hat tip: Rubiyat Shatner.

Image credit.

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Comments

[melponeme_k]

You see my psychosis warnings continue to be proven right.

This technology will be used in plenty of amusement park situations first and foremost. Unaware of the dangers, people will use it indiscriminately and be bamboozled with perception problems and dislocations from reality.

[Ezra]

Someone alert the hundreds of thousands of Rift and Vive users out there on the large forums, Steam communities, subreddits and the like that are devoid of Matrix and car crash experiences that they should start feeling like they're in the Matrix and crashing cars.

[melponeme_k]

@Ezra

No one using the fledgling VR devices now are using them to the extent as fighter pilots are using simulations.

Right now, regular users experience about a few minutes to an hour of feeling disconnected.

What the Navy warnings are about is something very disturbing. They are saying VR messes up human perception enough that we can't properly judge time, distance, gravity etc.

Now tell me, do you trust programmers and art creators enough to properly mimic full reality? Can they even do it? Something tells me no which is why the Navy stops their simulation trainees from operating vehicles or other types of large equipment.

[Ezra]

@melponeme_k "Right now, regular users experience about a few minutes to an hour of feeling disconnected."

Source? I don't with my Vive. None of the communities I'm apart of are plagued with posts about confusion and delusions of being in the Matrix.

Since Hamlet doesn't own a headset to post about any real or positive experiences, he posts about stuff like this is basically the only thing going on here. You've bought too much into it.

Also, have you see a jet simulator before? They aren't headsets. This is a jet simulator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o__qrd32rY My Vive and office chair doesn't do that nor anyone elses. Two completely difference experiences. A rollercoaster is a better comparison.

Anyway, the time of predicting what will happen with VR headsets are over. You don't have to guess, visit communities of users like Reddit's /r/vive and /r/oculus, Steam communities of high activity individual games like The Lab and Vanishing Realms. You'll find among thousands of reviews and posts a complete lack of people feeling they're trapped in the Matrix or unable to operate after using their headsets for hours.

There's no intelligent reason to go on what Hamlet has to do for clicks vs. tens of thousands of real everyday experiences you can read about elsewhere on the web.

[melponeme_k]

@Ezra

A simple search on the internet will bring up articles and even Oculus etc. forums discussing the problems with VR.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/18/were-not-talking-about-what-vr-is-doing-to-our-eyes-and-our-brains/2/

(Get a load of the picture in the linked article of the children in headsets while sitting in swing like chairs. Talk about Giger art come to life)

Congratuations YOU don't have any problems...yet. But there are people who do. So does your experience negate the experiences of others? Maybe the VR community just needs to take Just YOU into account. Right? LOL.

Also you went on about the differences between simulators used by the military and the baby devices available for the commercial market. I ALREADY mentioned that. If you had read my post, you would know that.

But will we be able to experience military grade simulations in amusement parks? You betcha. And all those hapless people will then be released into the general public. Some of them experiences an impaired ability to judge reality and messed up reaction times. Many of them will come out of it with no mishaps. And others WILL be in car accidents or other types of accidents.

I'm sorry safety concerns are getting in your way. But this technology absolutely requires regulation.

[Wagner J Au]

I actually started thinking that this is a fairly widespread issue after noticing enthusiasts describing it on VR community sites and media outlets. I personally have just mild, temporary feelings of disorientation after using a Rift or Vive, but it would be incredibly amateurish to conclude, "Welp, *I* don't have a problem, so I guess there's nothing to worry about here!"

[melponeme_k]

"I personally have just mild, temporary feelings of disorientation after using a Rift or Vive,"

@Wagner

Actually the Navy regulations regarding VR usage point to a more insidious problem with feelings of VR dislocation and disorientation.

You may think it is temporary but there are loads of other problems that you are not aware of. VR is messing with your perception and fooling with its ability to measure reality.

Do you trust programmers not to fudge with natural laws in VR? Is this even a concern for them? Because, depending on how much time you, I or anyone else spends in VR it is going to mess with how we measure reality. How we measure risk.

Simple, silly example.

Driving simulation. A normal speed in VR turns out to be close to 80 mph in RL. How many people will default to what they think FEELS right.

And as you say, this is even beginning to touch upon people who will have worse symptoms. Symptoms in which reality won't feel real. Not always but just in weird and inopportune moments that could cause anxiety and confusion. Which again could lead to mishaps.

[Ezra]

@Wagner "but it would be incredibly amateurish to conclude"

Then cite. It's amateurish as a journalist to report on something and not cite.

Link those those examples of users reporting being trapped in the Matrix or whatever.

It's extremely amateurish to choose to blog about VR without owning a VR headset. But that explains why you fixate on exaggerated and conflated topics like this that don't require a headset.

If this was an issue, you'd have no shortage of incidents and sources to show, but you're talkin' about a jet simulator. Silly.

[Wagner J Au]

"Then cite."

There's a citation in this very post. I can literally see it on the same actual screen where I'm writing this comment right now. Assuming I'm not in virtual reality already!