can you think of an experience that goes
deep enough to be positively
life-changing that might have the
potential to make us more human when the
first astronauts came back from space
they were indeed deeply moved as if
something happened out there that they
couldn’t quite understand but that
shifted their perspective and their
worldview this was later called the
overview effect after his first
spaceflight astronaut at committal
stated we went to the moon as
technicians we returned as humanitarians
you develop an instant global
consciousness a people orientation and
intense dissatisfaction with a state of
the world and a compulsion to do
something about it from out there on the
moon international politics look so
petty isn’t that the kind of experience
we wish more people would have
especially in the light of current
politics of increasing rhetorics of hate
isolationism ignorance or terror but
honestly most of us will never become
astronauts I mean is there a way we
could use technology such as virtual
reality to provide more people with a
glimpse of such powerful transformative
experiences imagine we could do this
safely from Earth without having to
spend all the money time effort and
incredible carbon footprint pollution of
shooting more rockets into space imagine
we could give such experiences to keep
the would otherwise never be able to do
it because they’re not young healthy fit
or rich enough to do though so this is
one of the reasons why I and many other
researchers a glow around the globe are
excited to bring these experiences into
our labs using virtual reality so we can
learn how they really work research them
understand what factors are important
and how we could use technology to
design for them so we could ultimately
make them access
to the broad audience but especially for
those who might not have had a chance
yet to try to watch reality what is it
really let me just give you a very
simple example so here you can simply
Explorer virtual vancouver by facing and
leaning in the direction you’d like to
go
no hands needed so what’s special about
virtuality well you can do and
experience things you could otherwise
not do like flying so in a way virtual
reality is the closest you might have to
lucid dreaming or flying dreams but
you’re awake and just like neo in the
matrix you’re empowered to do things
experience things you could not
otherwise do you can take on different
perspectives you can immerse yourself
you can have embodied visceral
first-person direct experiences and it
doesn’t feel like you’re looking at a
screen anymore but you’re looking
through a window onto the virtual
environment so you can have the embodied
sensation of really being there of
presence so could watch reality make us
more human I believe it has that
potential if we really combined with
strong ethics so we know which
experiences we should create and which
ones should never be created if you
democratize it as a creative medium if
you give more people access to these
experiences and the tools and the skills
teach them the skills on how to do that
and then combine this with research so
we better understand how these
experiences work what factors are
important and how we could use
technology and which experiences
actually worth creating but still wonder
I mean why use what reality it’s still a
little bit of a technical effort but
there’s clearly quite a difference
between passively watching something on
a 2d screen where there’s actually being
there experiencing yourself have an
agency let me give you an example from
the real world a few years ago when I
was in Indonesia I wasn’t really
planning on going scuba diving
it was just so hot that I really felt
like I had to be in the water so on my
second day after still learning to scuba
dive we went to bar to belong and
inconspicuously looking rock and we’d
dive down to 15 meters and initially it
was still fiddling with the gear and
trying to breathe calmly once I could
and look up
I was just puzzle if Li stand in awe and
wonder about all these amazing creatures
around me not even afraid of me I really
felt like I was immersed I was in a
nature documentary and it could
literally hallucinate David Attenborough
himself literally my experience no
kidding but something was different I
also felt this visceral connection to
this environment to these creatures and
a deep urge that we have to protect this
and this took me a little bit by
surprise because I mean literally I have
seen so many nature documentaries before
maybe even of prettier cuter larger
animals but none of them had affected me
that deeply so there was clearly huge
difference between seeing something
beautiful on a screen and actually
having a first-hand direct experience
and I wish I could share this experience
with more people I mean would me almost
automatically start caring and
protecting more if you just felt it deep
enough visceral connection just like
when you hold a baby or your cute little
puppy in your arms you look into their
eyes too deeply to longley and then
oxytocin gets released and you have this
kind of bonding experience and you
really just feel compassion and love for
it and out of this comes this almost
visceral urge that you want to protect
it you want to take care of it and this
is quite different than just the
irrational thought of oh I should really
recycle more or reduce my carbon
footprint because it’s really good for
the environment it’s almost like well
once you have a deep enough experience
your perception your thinking your
behavior almost changes automatically so
take a moment think about an experience
you might have had yourself
positively transformed you that might
have shifted how you think and behave
are the experiences you wish you could
share with others or experiences that
you wish you or others could experience
but what if these experiences aren’t
really that easily accessible for
example if it’s a bit difficult to
become an astronaut or if you’re just
not physically or financially able to
afford them I mean is there a way we
could use virtual experiences could
these be transformative I mean for that
work they wouldn’t really need to have
real-world effects I mean is there any
strong solid evidence that virtual
experiences can have real effects so
let’s take a look at research have you
ever wondered what it might be like to
be in a different body to be of the
opposite sex to be of a different race
to be taller shorter thinner larger do
you think a glimpse of such an
experience might somehow affect your
thinking and behavior
well it sure does researchers from
universities in London and Barcelona
shot that embodying an avatar of a
different race or gender can actually
reduce your unconscious biases so for
example if you’re white and just for 12
minutes embody a dark skinned avatar
that is enough to reduce unconscious
biases afterwards and of course it
doesn’t completely and forever go away
but it’s step in the right direction and
in our current political climate isn’t
that an experience we wish more people
could have other researchers showed that
superhero like flying can actually
enhance pro-social behavior we also know
that virtual exposure therapy can really
help to reduce anxiety disorders or if
you immerse yourself in a virtual snow
world this can help to reduce acute burn
pain actually above and beyond what
opiates alone can do and if you embody
if you become an animal invert reality
that can enhance your connection to
nature so how about
overview effect it turns out it’s not
quite as simple as just teleporting
somebody up into a virtual is a Space
Station you need to carefully craft and
design the whole experience so it’s a
risky long-term research project but the
first results are promising so we know
already that when we did our first
experiments on virtual flying most of
the participants already experienced and
Wonder and almost half of them even
experienced chills and goosebumps not
because it was cold like here but
because people were so deeply touched
and moved now this is really exciting to
me as a researcher because we know that
our experiences are positively related
to increases in life satisfaction and
medical benefits such as reduced
inflammatory markers and these are non
PD to be correlated with a lot of
chronic diseases such as cardiovascular
diseases diabetes or depression but I
still wonder I mean who can actually
afford and create these experiences and
what if I wanted to create my own
experience and indeed when he started
off in virtual reality it was a little
bit inaccessible it existed only in a
few labs and just to have a computer
fast enough to render Virtual City there
was a lot simpler than the one you’ve
seen here cost more than a million
dollars things have changed drastically
just five years ago at a conference a
colleague of mine over dinner took out
this little cell phone put it in this
self-build slide here and that was the
first time we could ever experience vert
reality over dinner without all the gear
with all these extra need for cables and
tracking and software and hardware and I
thought well this is amazing it really
is the step towards democratizing the
medium we have to bring this back and
put it into the hands of more people and
empower them to really use it as an
outlet for their creativity their
creative thoughts so when I came back to
Simon Fraser University here in
Vancouver here
where I do research and teach I started
redesigning a course on immersive
environments for our undergrad students
andit asked them to try and create
meaningful experiences to really go
beyond what you might traditionally
associate with virtuality so no ego
shooters no porn no horror games no
violence what came out of this was quite
impressive for example you could become
the sea turtle and experience yourself
how your home coral reef was destroyed
by human cause pollution climate change
cold leaching would you take this more
personal in another semester we asked
people to create empathetic experiences
experiences it might lead to more
compassion in one of these examples
parallel Minds I could really get a
sense of what it might be like to have a
psychotic episode and be tormented with
visual hallucinations hearing voices
because I experienced myself a glimpse
of it so I was really fascinating to see
the variety of different ideas and
projects that our creative students came
up with but it was probably the most
rewarding for me as an instructor at the
mentor was really when I could sense the
students empowerment one of them call it
the oh my god I’m a wizard phenomenon so
they experienced that within less than
two months you can use learn and you
tool and use software new theories and
bring it together and create new novel
exciting maybe even beautiful
experiences that you haven’t even had
yourself and then even share it with
others but you might wonder about the
ethics isn’t there a dark side to
virtual reality
I mean don’t people just become more
isolated removed from reality addicted
and traumatized I need’d I am deeply
worried about this we have to do
something about this potential I mean
there’s increasing evidence that just
playing violent video games is linked to
increases in aggressive thinking
feelings and behavior and reduce empathy
and pro-social behavior and those video
games are not even immersive
first-person embodied or visceral at all
so clearly that reality has a huge
potential for good and for bad but just
like many other powerful medium they are
not inherently good or bad nor are they
neutral what we do know is that they are
very quickly becoming increasingly
affordable accessible and powerful
powerful to a level where we might be
able to provide almost medical great
immersive experiences how would we deal
with that I mean in medicine we have
this amazing beautiful history of a
Hippocratic oath and the mandate to
first do no harm I posit that we need a
similar Hippocratic oath for virtual
reality and really any other of these
powerful media whether we like it or
hate it
what technological evolution brings us
we should not ignore it and we should
not leave it just up to the free market
it won’t regulate it so cut virtuality
make us more human I believe and I’m
convinced it really can but we need
strong clear effects we need to
democratize it as a creative medium give
our people access to these experiences
and tools and carefully teach them the
skills and how to do something
meaningful positive with it and then
combine this with research so we really
understand how these experiences work
how to design for it how the technology
works and really to bring this together
we can design positive transformational
experiences that have the potential to
make us more human
so if Ted is about ideas worth spreading
could the future of virtual reality be
about experiences worth spreading my
vision is to empower people to create
positive transformational experiences
worth spreading thank you
you
you
deep enough to be positively
life-changing that might have the
potential to make us more human when the
first astronauts came back from space
they were indeed deeply moved as if
something happened out there that they
couldn’t quite understand but that
shifted their perspective and their
worldview this was later called the
overview effect after his first
spaceflight astronaut at committal
stated we went to the moon as
technicians we returned as humanitarians
you develop an instant global
consciousness a people orientation and
intense dissatisfaction with a state of
the world and a compulsion to do
something about it from out there on the
moon international politics look so
petty isn’t that the kind of experience
we wish more people would have
especially in the light of current
politics of increasing rhetorics of hate
isolationism ignorance or terror but
honestly most of us will never become
astronauts I mean is there a way we
could use technology such as virtual
reality to provide more people with a
glimpse of such powerful transformative
experiences imagine we could do this
safely from Earth without having to
spend all the money time effort and
incredible carbon footprint pollution of
shooting more rockets into space imagine
we could give such experiences to keep
the would otherwise never be able to do
it because they’re not young healthy fit
or rich enough to do though so this is
one of the reasons why I and many other
researchers a glow around the globe are
excited to bring these experiences into
our labs using virtual reality so we can
learn how they really work research them
understand what factors are important
and how we could use technology to
design for them so we could ultimately
make them access
to the broad audience but especially for
those who might not have had a chance
yet to try to watch reality what is it
really let me just give you a very
simple example so here you can simply
Explorer virtual vancouver by facing and
leaning in the direction you’d like to
go
no hands needed so what’s special about
virtuality well you can do and
experience things you could otherwise
not do like flying so in a way virtual
reality is the closest you might have to
lucid dreaming or flying dreams but
you’re awake and just like neo in the
matrix you’re empowered to do things
experience things you could not
otherwise do you can take on different
perspectives you can immerse yourself
you can have embodied visceral
first-person direct experiences and it
doesn’t feel like you’re looking at a
screen anymore but you’re looking
through a window onto the virtual
environment so you can have the embodied
sensation of really being there of
presence so could watch reality make us
more human I believe it has that
potential if we really combined with
strong ethics so we know which
experiences we should create and which
ones should never be created if you
democratize it as a creative medium if
you give more people access to these
experiences and the tools and the skills
teach them the skills on how to do that
and then combine this with research so
we better understand how these
experiences work what factors are
important and how we could use
technology and which experiences
actually worth creating but still wonder
I mean why use what reality it’s still a
little bit of a technical effort but
there’s clearly quite a difference
between passively watching something on
a 2d screen where there’s actually being
there experiencing yourself have an
agency let me give you an example from
the real world a few years ago when I
was in Indonesia I wasn’t really
planning on going scuba diving
it was just so hot that I really felt
like I had to be in the water so on my
second day after still learning to scuba
dive we went to bar to belong and
inconspicuously looking rock and we’d
dive down to 15 meters and initially it
was still fiddling with the gear and
trying to breathe calmly once I could
and look up
I was just puzzle if Li stand in awe and
wonder about all these amazing creatures
around me not even afraid of me I really
felt like I was immersed I was in a
nature documentary and it could
literally hallucinate David Attenborough
himself literally my experience no
kidding but something was different I
also felt this visceral connection to
this environment to these creatures and
a deep urge that we have to protect this
and this took me a little bit by
surprise because I mean literally I have
seen so many nature documentaries before
maybe even of prettier cuter larger
animals but none of them had affected me
that deeply so there was clearly huge
difference between seeing something
beautiful on a screen and actually
having a first-hand direct experience
and I wish I could share this experience
with more people I mean would me almost
automatically start caring and
protecting more if you just felt it deep
enough visceral connection just like
when you hold a baby or your cute little
puppy in your arms you look into their
eyes too deeply to longley and then
oxytocin gets released and you have this
kind of bonding experience and you
really just feel compassion and love for
it and out of this comes this almost
visceral urge that you want to protect
it you want to take care of it and this
is quite different than just the
irrational thought of oh I should really
recycle more or reduce my carbon
footprint because it’s really good for
the environment it’s almost like well
once you have a deep enough experience
your perception your thinking your
behavior almost changes automatically so
take a moment think about an experience
you might have had yourself
positively transformed you that might
have shifted how you think and behave
are the experiences you wish you could
share with others or experiences that
you wish you or others could experience
but what if these experiences aren’t
really that easily accessible for
example if it’s a bit difficult to
become an astronaut or if you’re just
not physically or financially able to
afford them I mean is there a way we
could use virtual experiences could
these be transformative I mean for that
work they wouldn’t really need to have
real-world effects I mean is there any
strong solid evidence that virtual
experiences can have real effects so
let’s take a look at research have you
ever wondered what it might be like to
be in a different body to be of the
opposite sex to be of a different race
to be taller shorter thinner larger do
you think a glimpse of such an
experience might somehow affect your
thinking and behavior
well it sure does researchers from
universities in London and Barcelona
shot that embodying an avatar of a
different race or gender can actually
reduce your unconscious biases so for
example if you’re white and just for 12
minutes embody a dark skinned avatar
that is enough to reduce unconscious
biases afterwards and of course it
doesn’t completely and forever go away
but it’s step in the right direction and
in our current political climate isn’t
that an experience we wish more people
could have other researchers showed that
superhero like flying can actually
enhance pro-social behavior we also know
that virtual exposure therapy can really
help to reduce anxiety disorders or if
you immerse yourself in a virtual snow
world this can help to reduce acute burn
pain actually above and beyond what
opiates alone can do and if you embody
if you become an animal invert reality
that can enhance your connection to
nature so how about
overview effect it turns out it’s not
quite as simple as just teleporting
somebody up into a virtual is a Space
Station you need to carefully craft and
design the whole experience so it’s a
risky long-term research project but the
first results are promising so we know
already that when we did our first
experiments on virtual flying most of
the participants already experienced and
Wonder and almost half of them even
experienced chills and goosebumps not
because it was cold like here but
because people were so deeply touched
and moved now this is really exciting to
me as a researcher because we know that
our experiences are positively related
to increases in life satisfaction and
medical benefits such as reduced
inflammatory markers and these are non
PD to be correlated with a lot of
chronic diseases such as cardiovascular
diseases diabetes or depression but I
still wonder I mean who can actually
afford and create these experiences and
what if I wanted to create my own
experience and indeed when he started
off in virtual reality it was a little
bit inaccessible it existed only in a
few labs and just to have a computer
fast enough to render Virtual City there
was a lot simpler than the one you’ve
seen here cost more than a million
dollars things have changed drastically
just five years ago at a conference a
colleague of mine over dinner took out
this little cell phone put it in this
self-build slide here and that was the
first time we could ever experience vert
reality over dinner without all the gear
with all these extra need for cables and
tracking and software and hardware and I
thought well this is amazing it really
is the step towards democratizing the
medium we have to bring this back and
put it into the hands of more people and
empower them to really use it as an
outlet for their creativity their
creative thoughts so when I came back to
Simon Fraser University here in
Vancouver here
where I do research and teach I started
redesigning a course on immersive
environments for our undergrad students
andit asked them to try and create
meaningful experiences to really go
beyond what you might traditionally
associate with virtuality so no ego
shooters no porn no horror games no
violence what came out of this was quite
impressive for example you could become
the sea turtle and experience yourself
how your home coral reef was destroyed
by human cause pollution climate change
cold leaching would you take this more
personal in another semester we asked
people to create empathetic experiences
experiences it might lead to more
compassion in one of these examples
parallel Minds I could really get a
sense of what it might be like to have a
psychotic episode and be tormented with
visual hallucinations hearing voices
because I experienced myself a glimpse
of it so I was really fascinating to see
the variety of different ideas and
projects that our creative students came
up with but it was probably the most
rewarding for me as an instructor at the
mentor was really when I could sense the
students empowerment one of them call it
the oh my god I’m a wizard phenomenon so
they experienced that within less than
two months you can use learn and you
tool and use software new theories and
bring it together and create new novel
exciting maybe even beautiful
experiences that you haven’t even had
yourself and then even share it with
others but you might wonder about the
ethics isn’t there a dark side to
virtual reality
I mean don’t people just become more
isolated removed from reality addicted
and traumatized I need’d I am deeply
worried about this we have to do
something about this potential I mean
there’s increasing evidence that just
playing violent video games is linked to
increases in aggressive thinking
feelings and behavior and reduce empathy
and pro-social behavior and those video
games are not even immersive
first-person embodied or visceral at all
so clearly that reality has a huge
potential for good and for bad but just
like many other powerful medium they are
not inherently good or bad nor are they
neutral what we do know is that they are
very quickly becoming increasingly
affordable accessible and powerful
powerful to a level where we might be
able to provide almost medical great
immersive experiences how would we deal
with that I mean in medicine we have
this amazing beautiful history of a
Hippocratic oath and the mandate to
first do no harm I posit that we need a
similar Hippocratic oath for virtual
reality and really any other of these
powerful media whether we like it or
hate it
what technological evolution brings us
we should not ignore it and we should
not leave it just up to the free market
it won’t regulate it so cut virtuality
make us more human I believe and I’m
convinced it really can but we need
strong clear effects we need to
democratize it as a creative medium give
our people access to these experiences
and tools and carefully teach them the
skills and how to do something
meaningful positive with it and then
combine this with research so we really
understand how these experiences work
how to design for it how the technology
works and really to bring this together
we can design positive transformational
experiences that have the potential to
make us more human
so if Ted is about ideas worth spreading
could the future of virtual reality be
about experiences worth spreading my
vision is to empower people to create
positive transformational experiences
worth spreading thank you
you
you
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