The Dystopian Superbowl ad for the Metaverse Raises Serious Metaphysical Questions.
One of the Super Bowl's biggest ads this year was created by Meta, and featured a dystopian story about a failed restaurant mascot returning to thrive in the metaverse. The commercial brought up concerns from many who saw it as dark, sad, and a little too close to home.
Brian Green, the director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the Meta Quest ad also made him think of opiates. “That commercial is saying: ‘You don’t want to live in reality,” he told me. "And that’s what opiates help you avoid."
And maybe, Mr. Green suggested, virtual reality as a means of human interaction in the way that Mr. Zuckerberg advocates should be treated like a drug. “You’re supposed to use morphine when you’re in horrible pain,” he said. “I could envision a therapeutic use for VR for people who are in depression, or are in nursing homes, a therapeutic when nothing else is working.”
Brian Green, director of technology, quoted in America Magazine.