Autonomous Realities: A Journey into Protocolizing Digital Object Permanence in a Future of Many Mixed Realities

Published on Aarhus 2025

Autonomous Realities: A Journey into Protocolizing Digital Object Permanence in a Future of Many Mixed Realities

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Abstract

Major technology companies envision a future where mixed reality (MR) devices become as ubiquitous as smartphones are today. Yet most collaborative MR research assumes users share a single augmented layer—an assumption that may not hold true. Rather, MR technology is inherently permissionless: users control what they see, making each person's augmented layers private and unique. We are moving toward a future of multiple overlapping and co-existing mixed realities. This paper employs protocol fiction as a speculative design method to explore this near-future scenario. We follow the journey of a fictional digital pet rock as it travels through successive protocol eras of mixed reality, adapting to the changing infrastructures and protocols it encounters. Through a comic-style narrative, the story unfolds across four protocol-defined chapters: Centralized Realities, Distributed Realities, Persistent Realities, and Autonomous Realities. Each chapter examines moments when digital pet rock owners—wearing MR headsets—engage in social encounters, revealing how protocols shape the ontological nature of digital object permanence and highlight the socio-technical challenges of constructing consensus reality.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the Ethereum Foundation and the Summer of Protocols program for their financial support.