ABSTRACT Does the digital/virtual have a reality? For a critical realist, there is no doubt it does, since what can cause something is real. But what kind of reality is it? The article argues that this reality is a relational quidditas. The diffusion of new AI‐based technologies increasingly blends analogue and virtual realities, making it essential to understand the causal processes of exchange between them. Digital/virtual reality is constituted by the relationships it designs, and these relationships are increasingly programmable through incentive structures that optimise engagement and control. Using a critical realist lens, the author distinguishes the lifeworld (D1), hybrid/virtual environments (D2) and AI‐based technical systems (D3) and analyses the exchanges between them. He argues that current systems excel at simulating first‐person experience and signalling sociality, but lack second‐person relational reflexivity (mutual respect, responsibility, shared normativity). This absence, combined with the capitalist incentives of platforms, generates asymmetrical ‘companionship’ relationships. that risk degrading relational assets (trust, reciprocity, care). It is necessary to clarify the process of colonization as one through which digital rationalities replace analogue and embodied relationships. Claims about augmented and virtual reality must, however, be evaluated, emphasising their limited and uneven adoption.
Pierpaolo Donati (2025) studied this question.