21 Jul 2023
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: Separating BS from Reality
AWE USA 2023
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the most engaging content from AWE’s catalog of conference sessions. Now that AWE USA 2023 has concluded, we have a fresh batch of sessions to dive into.
This week, we spotlight XR veteran Avi Bar-Zeev and his "Hype or Hero" principles for XR. With all of the overlapping hype cycles in AR, VR, metaverse and AI, having a good BS detector is critical. Bar-Zeev breaks it down.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library on awe.live and AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
Avi Bar-Zeev, XR Guild
– The challenge with XR isn't just engineering and design... but hype.
– The collective impact of vested interests and market forces tend to drive hype.
– But there's no gradual deflation of the bubble... it's bad air that ends with a bang.
– And reality always wins... no amount of hyped-up energy changes that.
– The most recent example is the metaverse, whose hype cycle is replaced by AI.
– With all these hype cycles, the bubble bursting doesn't mean the tech goes away.
– Rather, they continue in quieter ways where actual work and progress are made.
– But to prevent the damaging effects of hype bubbles, how can we sidestep them?
– It's about being aware of common hype-bubble traits so we can identify them.
– Bar-Zeev also lays out five hero principles for AI and spatial computing.
1. Works only for the benefit of each person and with their informed consent
2. Creators should be able to make a living in a thriving ecosystem
3. Those who benefit the most from a thriving ecosystem should pay for it
4. Safety is non-negotiable
5. You can’t trust technology to solve anti-social human behavior
For more color on each principle and more insights from Bar-Zeev, see the full session footage below. You can also see his Medium post where he breaks things down... 
