Will Snapchat’s AR Glasses Stifle Erotic Imagination or Open Exciting New Literary Possibilities?
Combined with AI, it can make words—and even your most far-out fantasies—come alive
What if picking up a book or flipping through a story, though, rather than fantasizing about how “the Wreathing-Willows were tenderly touching their back … the Kaleido-Chrysanthemums were softly caressing their cheeks” would sound or like like you’ll be able to actually hear and see those sensual, science fiction flowers compliments of your AI-image generating software running, text-reading, AR glasses.
Far fetched? Not at all, as it’s right here right now, and while technology may eventually make our literary imaginations obsolete—as in, why dream when something else can do it for you?—writers could work with and not against it to provide their readers with interactive, fully immersive, and, what we’re here for, extremely erotic experiences.
Take a look
Designboom reports these new smart, AR glasses developed by the National Library Board of Singapore in conjunction with LePub Singapore and Snap Inc. treat whatever text the reader is looking at as a prompt for its built-in AI to generate sounds played through its earpiece-mounted speakers, and project semi-transparent images onto the wearer’s field of vision.
Planned for general release sometime this year, according to designblood, the Singapore’s National Library Board sees it as “part of its initiative to use technology as a way to engage more people to read books.”
It’s in a book
When you think about it, using AR glasses to bring the written word to life is so intuitively simple that it’s more than a little baffling why its development took as long as it has.
After all, text-scanning AR glasses have been around for several years, and image-generating AI systems aren’t exactly new, either. Now that Snapchat has set things in motion, other companies are bound to follow suit, no doubt adding plenty of other immersive features to their upcoming products.
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Naturally, sextech integration is likely one of them. But even here, bringing something extra to written erotica is hardly new. Way back in 2015, we reported on B.Sensory, which although it had since shut its doors, took a novel approach by coding a number of sexy audiobooks and stories. While customers listened, their Bluetooth-enabled smart sextoys would buzz, oscillate, and thrust accordingly.
Writing, reading can grow
As we mentioned, the disturbing prospect about no longer needing to use our imaginations to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell as we read is that this basically destroys literature as an art form, turning it from a thoroughly unique reader and author engagement into something intrinsically passive, inherently one-way like movies, television, or the stage.
But don’t forget, when it comes to technology and the arts, we might protest, we might argue, but if money’s to be made—or if it makes our lives even slightly more comfortable—there’s simply no stopping it.
We can go anywhere
With that in mind, why fight what we can use? Television didn’t kill Broadway, and television didn’t ruin radio, so there’s no reason to believe AR glasses will make non-interactive reading obsolete.
If anything, erotica writers might use it to their advantage. As one myself, it’s fascinating to dream of encoding a story with a set of specific words or certain phrases designed to work with AR glasses—not to supplant a reader’s imagination, but enhance it.
Writers might even write to incorporate future developments in haptic tech—which is sure to be available in a few short years. AR readers could be tititlated by the aroma, texture, and appearance conjured by such phrases as “the Metamo-Roses were daintily embracing them.”so the reader would be tested, titillated with their aroma, texture, and appearance.
Or, “Yes, the Eye-Irises were subtly stroking their hair” wouldn’t be precise, wouldn’t necessarily take away from the reader’s imagination, but give them something for their fantasies to play with: an electric, tingling sensation, as opposed to something obvious, like its petals feeling like satin or silk.
Imagination is sexy
Yes, I’m concerned about how AI-AR Glasses might negatively impact my love of reading and my passion for writing. However, if doing both has taught me anything, it’s that when we put our minds and especially our imaginations to it, nothing’s impossible—especially by transforming the mundane into wonderful, limitless dreams.
Image Sources: Depositphotos
