Eat my augmented reality shorts! The Simpsons has struck again, eerily predicting the augmented reality mayhem unleashed by Apple’s shiny new Vision Pro headsets. Just days after launch, people are already living out futuristic (and, frankly, bizarre) scenarios with Apple’s new headsets, much like the 2016 episode where Springfield residents donned similar tech.
The Simpsons has had an uncanny knack for capturing future trends through their satirical lens. Take, for example, season 7 episode 17 “Bart to the Future”, which showed Donald Trump becoming president before he was elected in 2017.
Now, eagle-eyed fans of the long-running TV series have unearthed another gem from the show’s prophetic vault! The 2016 episode “Friends and Family” features Springfield residents sporting VR headsets strikingly similar to the recently released Vision Pro. Coincidence, or cartoon clairvoyance?
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In the episode, Springfield residents fall prey to the allure of virtual reality headsets eerily similar to the Apple Vision Pro, directly mirroring real-life anxieties surrounding similar technology. As Mr. Burns hires the Simpsons to play his virtual family, chaos erupts in town, with characters like Principal Skinner becoming consumed by the tech, oblivious to their surroundings.
These scenes clearly echo the recent rise in unsettling real-life footage on social media of people using the Vision Pros in public, such as the individual wearing the headset on a New York City subway car and another getting his work done while walking down California streets.
One of the defining features of Apple’s new Vision Pro is its reliance on hand and eye tracking for control. Instead of physical buttons or hand controllers, you can scroll your feed by flicking your wrist, use eye movements to navigate or perform hand gestures to play games and interact with apps.
While this innovative approach is groundbreaking, it has also become fodder for memes. Reacting to the whole scenario, one of the users on X wrote, “It seems like every time we turn around, there’s another wacky, far-fetched prediction from the show that turns out to be spot-on.”While another said, “The Simpsons look more and more like modern-day Nostradamus.”
Even though the Apple Vision Pro is currently one of the most mature MR headsets on the market, its popularity also raises important questions about the potential impact of AR on our social interactions. Will our presence in augmented worlds diminish real-life connections? How will etiquette and privacy evolve in these blended spaces? These will be important questions to answer as the so-called era of spatial computing sweeps over us.
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