VR Eye Tracking Ethical Displays

I had the opportunity to work with RIT professors Shaun Foster & Evan Selinger on a Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab Grant to research and display certain ethical implications of tracking a user's eyes in virtual reality.

Created with Unreal Engine using the HTC Vive Pro Eye, these scenarios all aim to outline certain possible uses for eye tracking. The first scene shows a Terms of Service agreement that a user agrees to by looking at numbered elements in order.
The second scenario shows a gallery with different displays: a room of black and white abstract cubes, a room of realistic and abstract paintings, and a room full of mannequin heads with common skin tone colors. As the user looks around, their preference data is gathered based on what types of media they looked at, and when the room contents are regenerated, the contents update based on the user's prior preferences.
The third scenario shows a virtual concert with band members. While harmless at first glance, the user's eyes are being tracked actively to determine what types of media they gravitate to the most - the band members are all wearing product examples for different companies, and now that the user's eyes are being tracked, those companies can have a quantitative number for how well their ads engage with users.

I created the environments and Unreal code for this project, as well as implementing video and sequence direction for the finished product. 3D assets from Epic Marketplace kits "Art, Fashion, Automotive Galleries and Showcases" by Dekogon Studios and "Modular Concert Stage" by Modulus Studio - Props were utilized for this project.

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