Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and the Re‐enchantment of the World

Abstract

There has recently been a surge of development in augmented reality (AR) technologies that has led to an ecosystem of hardware and software for AR, including tools for artists and designers to accelerate the design of AR content and experiences without requiring complex programming. AR is viewed as a key “disruptive technology” and future display technologies (such as digital eyewear) will provide seamless continuity between reality and the digitally augmented. This article will argue that the technologization of human perception and experience of reality, coupled with the development of artificial intelligence (AI)–based natural language assistants, may lead to a secular re‐enchantment of the world, in the sense outlined by Charles Taylor, where human existence is shaped through AR inhabited by advanced personal and social AI agents in the form of digital avatars and daemons, and that enchantment has been persistent throughout the formation of modernity and is being rekindled by the integration of AI in the plane of AR.

Proximate and Ultimate Concerns in Christian Ethical Responses to Artificial Intelligence

“…74 In brief, we do not enjoy direct contact with either the natural world or the social world because our experience of these are increasingly mediated by technological networks. We simply do not have the same kind of relation to creation we once did and AI is both re-enchanting our world 75 and our relation to it. It is shaping us personally, morally and spiritually through this augmented reality that can introduce new agents and networks of power into our relation to nature and society.…”

Augmented Reality in Education: A Review of Learning Outcomes and Pedagogical Implications

“…By Increased Motivation, we refer to users being more eager, interested, and engaged to deal with new technology as well as teaching and learning content compared to non-AR (NAR) methods [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. The benefit is described in quotations such as "the AR-style game play successfully enhanced intrinsic motivation towards the self-learning process" [13, p. 113], "Participants using the AR books appeared much more eager at the beginning of each session compared with the NAR group" [12, p. 112], and "students have been satisfied and motivated by these new methodologies, in all cases" [19, p. 60].…”

Artificial Intelligence and Theology: Looking for a Positive—but Not Uncritical—reception

“…Several analyses focus on the issue of Imago Dei; it is applied both to how we can understand the human condition when confronted with developments in AI coming close to the human mind, and to what extent Imago Dei interprets our intelligent creations, or whether personhood and what is associated with it can be attributed to machines too. Some studies point to a necessary revision of our theological anthropological categories, after observing the contrast between us and the machines (Barbour 1999;Herzfeld 2002Herzfeld , 2007Brittain 2020); or the complex issue conceiving alterity in our relationship with these intelligent systems (Chaudhary 2020;Burdett 2020;La Parra 2021). The impression is that many things change when we consider these new arrivals or fresh developments and applications in AI; their status appears as ambivalent, or less clear, mid-way between the mechanic thing and the real person able to interact and even to reveal some intention.…”

“…In the first group, some essays point to the disruptive power that AI displays to erase most traditional beliefs, especially those religious (Helmreich 2000; Georges 2004; Anderson 2005). The other position leans toward perceiving AI as a sort of new magic or even a religious flair (Foerst 1998, 2004; Chaudhary 2019; Wilks 2019; Hipple 2020; Schradle 2020; Reed 2021; Obadia 2022). Some reflection is dutiful in this case too.…”