Virtually Human: Living in Jaron Lanier’s virtual reality

In this episode of the “Technically Human” podcast, I sit down with Jaron Lanier, the creator of virtual reality. Jaron and I discuss the meaning, and the future, of reality in an increasingly virtual world, and we talk about what virtual reality was in its early stages. Jaron outlines his concerns and critique of technological culture, and he explains why the kind of behavior modification and manipulation engineered by social media platforms has become, in his mind, a “Behaviours of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent," or a BUMMER.

Jaron Lanier is the founder of the field of virtual reality. Since 2009, he has worked at Microsoft Research as an Interdisciplinary Scientist in a role called “The Octopus,” (which stands for Office of the Chief Technology Officer Prime Unifying Scientist).

In 2010, Lanier was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people. In 2018, Lanier was named one of the 25 most influential people in the previous 25 years of tech history by Wired Magazine, and one of the 100 top public intellectuals by Foreign Policy Magazine. His books include the bestsellers “You Are Not a Gadget, A Manifesto,” “Who Owns the Future?,” and “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.” His writing appears in The New York Times, Discover, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, Atlantic, Wired Magazine (where he was a founding contributing editor), and Scientific American. He has appeared on TV shows such as The View, PBS NewsHour, The Colbert Report, Nightline and Charlie Rose, and has been profiled on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times multiple times. He regularly serves as a creative consultant for movies, including Minority Report and The Circle.

He has received honorary doctorates from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Franklin and Marshall College, was the recipient of CMU's Watson award in 2001, was a finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005, and received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for contributions to Virtual Reality.

Jaron Lanier is also a musician and artist. He has been active in the world of new "classical" music since the late '70s and writes chamber and orchestral works. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual and historical musical instruments; he maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played instruments in the world.

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Produced by Matt Perry
Art by Desi Aleman