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Article snippet: BERKELEY, Calif. — Jaron Lanier is the most unusual person I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of unusual people. A barefoot Buddha with dreadlocks, perched in a crazy fun house in the leafy hills of Berkeley, Mr. Lanier is a founding member of the digerati. The 57-year-old computer scientist, musician and writer has been christened the father of virtual reality. “I’m a professional illusionist,” he says. “In some ways, I might know more about making illusions than anybody.” Mr. Lanier is one of the few prophets who admits that the spawn of Silicon Valley could become evil, but he tries to stay on the sunny side. It helps that he avoids all social media. “The popular ones are designed for behavior modification,” he says, wearing his usual black T-shirt and black pants. “It’s like, why would you go sign up for an evil hypnotist who’s explicitly saying that his whole purpose is to get you to do things that people have paid him to get you to do, but he won’t tell you who they are?” At this moment when dark clouds loom over Silicon Valley, Mr. Lanier is able to talk about the Lords of the Cloud with affection yet candor, as he worries that these tech gods creating new worlds may be getting “high on their own supply.” “This is such a scary time, isn’t it?” he says, in his sweet, breathy voice. “I mean, it is for me. I had always feared we would create this social-manipulation technology out of computers.” In his forthcoming memoir, “Dawn of the New Everything: Encounter... Link to the full article to read more