Harkening to the hypotheticals posed by popular science fiction tales throughout the last century, Apple has released a nightmarish device into the world with large consequences sure to follow.
Apple’s latest device, the Vision Pro, hit shelves at a whopping $3,500 on Friday. This unique vizor promises to let its users do whatever they want to do with other smart technology whenever and wherever they want. Besides making users look like a somehow less emotional Wall-E, Apple says the device “seamlessly blends digital content with your physical space.”
Within days after its release, public usage of the Apple Vision Pro has already been met with widespread consternation across the internet. Clips of the earliest users wearing them in public areas as they walk up staircases, eat dinner in company, and even drive Teslas have gone viral and filled many spectators with consternation. And rightfully so.
Apple’s futuristic product is something straight out of science fiction and dystopian stories. Many comparisons have already been made to Ready Player One and Black Mirror due to the uncanniness of watching a human being obscure their senses of reality by filtering it through a virtual world that they control. But those types of stories were written specifically to warn readers of this sort of virtual crisis.
The Apple Vision Pro speeds up the process of lulling society into submission. While it may not be the direct intention of Apple, such technology, with enough regular use, gives people a false sense of what reality is. It provides users a false sense of comfort and security, and it serves to be more of a distraction from reality than anything else. Not only is that a convenient chain for us to put around our necks, but it is an even easier one for hostile companies and governments to grab ahold of us down the road with.
The Apple Vision Pro also further damages relational skills. We live in an increasingly antisocial age, exacerbated by the ridiculously long COVID lockdowns around the world. The obscuring of every human face was proven in multiple studies to impair the ability of people, more so children than adults, to understand human emotional behavior. And like the COVID era, Apple has now given society a new device to obscure the other half of the face.
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Although the mask mandates have lifted and most people have reverted to a normal lifestyle, the permanence of Apple’s advanced technology will maintain perhaps an infinite lifespan if left unchecked. Of course, soon, technology will find its way around the eye-to-eye problem, but the problem remains of unfiltered human interaction. It will be up to society to decide whether the risks that the Apple Vision Pro poses are greater than its conveniences.
While it is OK to take breaks from the hardships of everyday life through leisurely activities, people need to keep in mind that these fake virtual worlds are just that: fake, illusory distractions.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.
