Fake news, so much in the news, is a matter of semantics, ideology, deceit, power, money, and, increasingly, technology.

Tech has a role creating, disseminating, sharing, detecting, exposing, debunking, and correcting fake news. And not surprisingly the technology is getting more sophisticated.

Probably most people whose technology is used to create fake news didn’t get into the business of fakery. They got into the business of technology. So in a sense, even though they’re making money from the creative process of fake news, they’re off the hook.

Wrong. It’s a bad precedent. And a cop out.

Why?

Well, if you take a look at what folks are doing with the Microsoft Hololens, you’ll see that we’re moving closer to the place where the line between real and unreal is gone.

Might this borderless world of real/unreal be our fate? Sure. That in itself isn’t bad. But who here sees the good in it, the applications that elevate living, that make this future worth pursuing?

Yes, Microsoft and the like can tout a few uses, but the “reality” is that the Hololens and its competitors are entertainment devices. It’s kind of pitiful, the extent to which we go to distract ourselves.

But it could be worse than entertaining ourselves into oblivion. Without some other clear purpose, something far beyond and more concrete than “entertainment”, this technology — like so many others — could be all too easily co-opted by greed, power, and control. And if we don’t figure this out now, how will we ever know the difference?

Verdict: amazing technology in search of an upside. Right now, it’s Killer Fun.