VR, research and morality
It seems that there is some reasonable evidence of VR's utility in augmenting people's minds and key characteristics which facilitate such augmentation are identifiable. However, exploring if and how VR can augment people's minds cannot be considered in isolation from researchers' ethical obligations (Garg, 2020). Others have also added that whilst VR shows considerable promise in healthcare, caution should be applied to announcing short term benefits without considering long-term implications (Wright, 2014). However, the overriding consideration may be that cognitive augmentation is inevitable, suggesting that without it, humans' long-term survival could be questionable, particularly given the history of augmentations and how this has advanced society as it is known today (Clark, 2014). This may indicate that the inevitable change should be expected but approached cautiously. Paying caution to the long-term implications may be difficult given the relatively short time that VR utility has been studied.
How does VR compare to Brain-Computer Interface
When put into context, VR is not as morally challenging as other mind augmenting technologies such as Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). This technology is being positioned as a scientific breakthrough, holding significant promise in neurological rehabilitation and cognitive augmentation (Musk, 2019). BCI, also known as Neuralink, directly links into the human brain, suggesting its capability will stretch into augmented intelligence, memory, and cognitive response time (Dadia and Greenbaum, 2019). Surveillance capitalism is where data relating to an individual's preferences, habits, aspirations, and beliefs, amongst other personalised data, is used by organisations to gain an economic benefit (Cinnamon, 2017). Given that BCI can directly link into people's brains, some have suggested that this is a step too far given the prevalence of surveillance capitalism, which concedes control to powerful corporations over people's lives (Žižek, 2020).
People’s perception of technology matters
This may be important to consider in investigating VR's ability to augment people's minds because people tend to be sceptical of new technologies (Elgohary and Abdelazyz, 2020), despite a recognition by organisations that digital transformation is an essential component of future success (Knight, 2015). Furthermore, some believe that attempts to alter the organic course of human brain development could lead to significant difficulties and that until scientists have a greater understanding of how the mind works, caution must be maintained (Reiner, 2011). People's acceptance of VR may differ because it is not invasive like BCI technology which requires a direct link into the human brain, as mentioned previously. Also, researchers (Huygelier et al., 2019) have found that generally, after initial use, people are optimistic about using VR. Additionally, people's ability to readily stop or pause a VR experience may give people an essential level of control over the technology that BCI does not.
Interestingly, the increased prevalence of visually-based social media platforms may be confounding people's preferences towards visual content and learning styles. In the UK alone, 99% of those aged 16 to 54 have a mobile phone and an average of 90% have a social media account (OFCOM, 2020).
Conclusion
VR as a mind augmenting tool, could become more acceptable as the technology becomes more prevalent. Research is important and critically evaluating all technology before and whilst it is being used, should continue to be a priority for technology providers, researchers and organisations.