Initial Model of Social Acceptability for Human Augmentation Technologies

Academia and industry engage in major efforts to develop technologies for augmenting human senses and activities. Many of these technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) head mounted displays (HMD), haptic augmentation systems, and exoskeletons can be applied in numerous usage contexts and scenarios. We argue that these technologies may strongly affect the perceptions of and interactions with other people in the social contexts where they are used. The altered interactions may lead to rejection of the augmentations. In this position paper we present a set of potential usage scenarios and an initial model of acceptance of augmentation technologies by users and other people involved in the social context.