augmented-reality-3
Explanation
The Joke
A woman confronts a man wearing an augmented reality helmet, telling him to "stop staring at my chest." The man explains that his AR helmet shows him data about whatever direction he looks, and that it is sending data to a powerful server which generates a representation of what he is looking at. He claims that virtual books obscure your chest and that books are "literally the only thing that I am currently looking at." The woman responds, "You have no right to my private data," and asks what her body looks like in his augmented reality. The man admits it looks exactly the same. The final panels show the woman reflecting: "I honestly thought the dystopic future would involve killer robots, or some sort of corporate overlords." The last panel observes: "When you talk in real life, your virtual books jiggle. And yet, here we are."
The comic satirizes the privacy implications of augmented reality technology. The man uses elaborate technological justifications to explain why he is staring at a woman's chest -- his AR system is just "processing data" and overlaying books -- but the end result is the same as regular ogling, just with extra steps and a veneer of technological sophistication.
The Humor
The humor works by exposing how technology can be used to add layers of plausible deniability to basic human behavior. The man's convoluted explanation about servers and data processing is essentially a high-tech version of "I wasn't looking at your chest, I was reading your shirt." The comic also plays with dystopian expectations: the woman expected the future to bring killer robots or corporate overlords, but instead the dystopia is just men using sophisticated technology to stare at women's bodies while claiming they are not. The phrase "your virtual books jiggle" is the perfect absurdist detail that undermines all of the man's technical explanations.
The votey panel shows the woman saying "Gimme one," suggesting that despite her objections, the technology is compelling enough that she wants one too -- a commentary on how even privacy-conscious people are drawn to adopt invasive technology.
References
- Augmented Reality (AR): Technology that overlays digital information onto the real world, typically through glasses or headsets. This comic was published in 2016, around the time AR devices like Microsoft HoloLens and Google Glass were generating significant privacy concerns.
- This is the third in a series of SMBC comics about augmented reality, as indicated by the slug "augmented-reality-3."