Vice has an in-depth and incredibly important essay by Avi Bar-Zeev, one of VR's leading pioneers -- a co-inventor of Microsoft HoloLens, and over the last couple decades, a lead developer of VR/virtual world projects at Apple, Amazon, MS/HoloLens, Linden Lab, Google Earth, and Disney. And as Bar-Zeev carefully explains, the consumer launch of virtual reality has opened up a Pandora's Box in which companies like Oculus and Vive will soon gain access, through eye tracking and other data mining, and incredible amount of knowledge of its users -- and consequently, unprecedented power to influence or even manipulate them. And at some point, VR companies are almost certain to abuse this power. As he explains:
Eventually, without corrective forces, [VR] companies will make decisions that lower their own [user privacy] safeguards. It’s the business model, not the ethics of employees, that matters most...
In The Matrix, fictional AIs would occasionally alter the virtual world to further their oppressive goals. But even the Agents didn’t use the more sophisticated techniques we’re discussing here. In real life, people won’t be used as batteries. We’ll more likely be plugged in as abstract computational nodes, our attention and product-buying decisions channeling the flow of trillions of dollars of commerce; our free will up for grabs to the most ‘persuasive’ bidders.
The potential to use VR-based data mining against its own users is very well known within the industry, but is rarely brought up by the tech/VR press, let alone by VR consumers -- even though, just a mere three years ago, Oculus owner Facebook enabled a data mining scandal which quite literally helped changed the direction of world history.
"My best guess is that the tech press figures people aren’t interested, so they don’t write about it, which minimizes interest," Bar-Zeev tells me. "Also, VR enthusiasts have to endure a lot of pain to get an early 'fix' today, so maybe they’re a lot less picky about what form it takes. Maybe they assume that any exploitation of their data is not yet happening."
However, he adds: "These would all be rationalizations, in my opinion, because unrepentant data collected today can be used against them later. The easiest time to fix this is now. But people don’t see the crisis yet."
To start addressing this crisis, here's a question that Avi Bar-Zeev recommends that the press and consumers starting asking VR manufacturers now:
"Ask them, 'How do you ensure that the data you collect is best protected from abuse and only used for the benefit of the subject of the data? Be specific about the steps you take.'"
As it currently stands, the leading VR devices have very problematic policies around data collection -- to the point where Bar-Zeev himself doesn't even use some headsets:
"Some Terms of Service are better than others. HTC may offer 'opt-out' vs. the better 'opt-in/informed consent' approach to data collection and retention. But they at least seem to have taken some steps to address this issue. Oculus, even after Zuckerberg called for 'privacy', still says they can use your biometric data to market you and not tell you about it. I’m willing to use a Vive but not a Rift or Quest as of today. However, with eye tracking in the high-end Vive, Vive gets more dangerous again."
If you already own an Oculus, Vive, or other device, here's what he recommends:
"Write to the company (Twitter, email, etc…) asking questions about privacy and/or let your wishes for privacy be known. Companies will often try to please their customers, once they know. And other companies seeing first companies take steps are that much more likely to follow. It may only take one or two positive examples for a sea change to happen."
Consumer pressure may also encourage people in the VR industry to advocate for privacy within their own firms and startups:
"Insiders have thanked me for speaking up about this," Avi tells me. "They may not feel like they’re in a position to change things in the bigger companies, even though they're closer to the decision-making process than I am. All of these companies need a 'red team' or similar efforts to articulate what can go wrong. Risk management will often take those risks and come up with the same positive mitigations as best practices. No one wants to mess up a big product launch the way [Google] Glass did with privacy concerns."
The alternate, of course, is do nothing, wait for the inevitable VR data mining scandal to occur, and allow (say) President Elizabeth Warren to impose regulations from above:
"[I]t’s something we can fix most easily by working together in industry," as Avi puts it. "But if voluntary solutions fail, then we’ll get to legislation next."
Images via Road to VR, Vice.
...or just don't use the crap. Problem solved.
This issue has been raised before. C'mon, its FBorg (et al), they are moving from offering 'free' shinies in return for strip mining you and now they want to coin it in by charging you hundreds of bucks to do it better?
I 'retired' too early, if its this easy now I just should have hung in for another decade.
Posted by: sirhc desantis | Wednesday, June 05, 2019 at 02:51 PM
sirhc its already way too late to stop this train. For background read Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism. Google (do no evil) began this ball, of predictive advertising. Google solved the key data collection problems, their data scientists wrote the original US Patent, a "how to"
collect data on everyone. Everyone watched (who knew what to look for) as Google turned from a search company to a surveillance behemoth. But mostly they saw how easily Google turned your data into money. You are the product. Yes, welcome to the machine. Every industry is now retooling to use your data. Really? Insurance -your driving habits, communications - your cell phone (Google again, and Verizon and others), Medical. Travel, etc.just about any company you do business with is going to sell your habits and the data they collect about you, your emails, web choices, incidental speech in your home picked up by a certain applicance and yes, augmented reality is cashing in.
You know this, of course, but maybe you like the free stuff - we don't want you to be too aware of what we are doin. Think your browser isn't part of the machine? Think Facebook with their social graph. Think Cambridge Analytica if your still not tracking. Everyone piled on poor CA but they they had some regrettable sales practices that got them headlines, but, there are many like them. Academics who study how to push your buttons are to be found in the most respectable places, for example, at a certain University (which has the name of an ancient river). This is where they figured out the "how to" of predictive advertising. And it is transforming business - industrial capitalism is being replaced by a new source of wealth - you.
And I wanted to say something about the interview Hamlet did with Ebbe. In that interview Hamlet brings up some numbers which I think come from gridsurvey.com. Ebbe makes a face! That's because he's got better numbers! Why? because - well - the Lab collects data and analyzes it. If you wonder who has the most influence in SL, the real FIC, - its the numbers. Straight forward business data analytics. Let us pray that the Lab isn't going to monitize that data. Perhaps quirky habits by an avatar strongly correlate with a weakness to buy a certain private item. And being part of the Valley culture I am dead sure they think about it or have already been enticed by probably more than one high dollar consulting firm who tells them how much their data is worth (to an aggregator). I wish I could give you good news - that a revolution in ethics is sweeping the industry but I can't And we data scientists are as guilty as ever.
Posted by: Argo Nurmi | Wednesday, June 05, 2019 at 04:34 PM