For my Final AR I created a black mirror-esque lens to filter people out of your life that you don’t want to see.

The lens uses body mesh tracking to track 2 people’s bodies simultaneously. A text appears mapped to their head that says

"<UNDESIRABLE DETECTED>”

The user can choose to block said individual by tapping on the tag for each individual.

Once blocked, the individual’s body will become blurred and an errie smiley face will appear over their face to keep the user’s mood uneffected by the undesired individual.

Additionally, the voice of the undesirable individual’s will be muffled so the user will easily be able to ignore what the undesirable is saying. (Audio is affected globally, when the recording starts right now)

I wanted to make this lens as an example of an a dystopian reality we will probably experience with AR. As wealth disparity becomes greater and individuallity increases as a cultural trend, The ability for people to ignore the harsh reality of others around them will be increasingly desired. In our individualized society many people prefer to seek comforts and I think AR glasses will let people have more control over this in a way that allows them to disassociate even further from these unfortunately.

Outside of wealth disparity issues, some individuals may use this type of interface to even just block those around them that they don’t want to interact with: frenemies, past partners, rivals, for the sake of their personal comforts.

I see this as incrediably problematic, and will further increase society divides. I really hope before this is regulated against before it becomes available on commerical AR platforms.