Philosophy behind the Virtual Society

The Emergence of the Virtual Society

In this society, people do shopping, chat with friends, play games, work, and engage in various activities just as in ordinary society.
In addition, there are many things which can be made possible only in the virtual society, such as instantaneous transportation from Tokyo to Paris.
Such a society is enabled only by using high-bandwidth networks, high quality three dimension computer graphics, audio visual capability, cyberspace platform supporting interactive communication capability, and basic technologies, such as a large scale distributed system, to actually implement a large scale and share cyberspace, where a large number of people interact.

Historical Significance --- Technology for Freedom

The history of technological development can be viewed as mankind's history of acquiring "freedom".
First, agricultural technology ensured a stable supply of food, which liberates us from the risk of hunger.
In essence, the agricultural technology gave us the freedom from hunger.

Next, transportation technology provides us a greater freedom to move where ever we wish to visit.
This technology enhanced trade by enlarging the area where people can visit. Thus, it triggered a rapid exhance of goods and ideas, so that human culture has shown an explosive growth.
Significant achievements of this technology can be represented as the emergence of the jet aircraft and space programs.

Telecommunication technology originated from very primitive methods to transmit messages between tribes, but the emergence of electric (wireless, wired) telecommunication significantly augmented the range of communication and the amount of information which can be transmitted.
Now, any two people in the world can talk to each other through various telecommunication systems.
Mankind has acquired "the freedom to communicate".

As it is clear from this analysis, the history of technology has been a history of acquiring various freedom.
It should be noted that as technology develops, the freedom we acquire tends to be more abstract.
We started with the freedom from hunger. Then, we acquired freedom of transportation, and freedom of communication.

What is the next level of freedom which we may acquire?
We argue that there are much higher levels of freedom, such as the freedom from a single life, the freedom from our bodies, and the freedom from government.

For example, a sales person working for a company could simultaneously be a formula-1 driver. This person can enjoy two lines of life as a sales person in the real society, and as a formula-1 driver in the virtual society. In essence, the virtual society enables multiple lives.

The virtual society and the real society do not exist in a separate manner. They are interconnected, and present a whole new concept of an augmented social system.
Thus, multiple lives do not exist independent from real life, but instead augment our lives. We call this "the augmented life".

Detailed discussions on augmented life and the freedom we will acquire by the virtual society will be presented in this home page in the near future.

Virtual Society for Augmented Life

The limitations of movies and books are that, in their present form, the experience finishes as soon as the movie ends.
In addition, the experience is so passive that no interaction is possible.

Virtual Society intends to enable augmented life, using an approach which is quite contrary, but not necessarily competitive, to movies and novels. In the virtual society, people can experience multiple and augmented lives by providing continuous virtual society.

			Hiroaki Kitano,"Virtual Society" ver.1.0,1995