Translator: Megan Mrozek
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven Today, I'm here with you
to talk about virtual reality and how what happens
inside this headset has the power to change
what happens in the real world. By now, I'm guessing that most of you have had some sort
of experience with VR before, but for those of you who haven't, it can be hard to imagine
how strapping goggles onto your face could possibly make you feel anything, except socially awkward. (Laughter) That guy's worth a lot of money now. But looks can be deceiving, and how VR appears from the outside
can cause people to misjudge the impact that it'll have
on our long term future. The reality is that even with today's
rudimentary technology, people are constantly surprised at how real and how visceral
it already feels. And we're only starting to scratch
the surface of what's possible. The question that really seems
to get people thinking is, What's going to happen
when it gets to be so real, so advanced that we can no longer
tell the difference? But my point today isn't actually
about how fast technology is moving, because I think that's something
we already know. My point is that over the next five years, we're going to have to open up
our thinking in completely new ways in order to use these new capabilities
and move humanity forward. My name is Thong Nguyen,
and over the past few years, I've been applying VR
to help companies see and test the future. What this means is that we iterate in VR well before anything
is actually ever physically built. And this helps leaders learn faster and also make decisions
based not just on intuition but also empathy and data. In my work I get to introduce
a lot of people to VR for the first time, and what I've found is
that a lot of people have no idea that it's being used for things
other than games and entertainment. But what if I told you that the NFL,
NBA, and US Olympic Ski Team all use VR to train for competition? Or that Ford, BMW, and Volkswagen are using it not only to reinvent
the car buying experience, but how they design cars
in the first place. Or what if I told you that VR
can actually be used to help alleviate stress and anxiety for people
suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's? Or that VR is actually
an alternative to morphine? If any of these are surprising to you,
then you're definitely not alone. But I've got a handful of other examples
that I want to share with you today. But before I get into that,
let's take a quick step back so we can understand
why VR is able to do these things. A concept that's really important
to VR is called presence - not as in birthday presents,
but as in the feeling of being somewhere. It's not something that we
really think about on a day to day basis, but it's our brain's distinct way
of telling us that an experience is real and that we're not just looking
at a picture or a book. What VR does is activate
the motor cortex and our sensory system in a way that's similar
to a real life experience. As an outside observer, you might not be able to see
somebody experiencing presence, but what you can see are the physiological and emotional
reactions that occur as a result. Now, if any of you have done VR before, you may have felt something like this: [Oh my gosh] [No] [It's too real] [My palms are sweaty] [Oh, F---] [That is so cool] [I'll have to go back] [Nhah I don't want to] (Air rushing) (Car horn) (Fast breathing) (Gasp, oh my god) (Beep!) (Whimpering) (Oh, s---!) Thong Nguyen: (Chuckles) I've got that app if you want it. (Laughter) So aside from being able to make
people swear and sweat profusely, why is presence important and how is it actually
supposed to help people? Well, that's actually
a really interesting question that's bringing together
researchers from around the world and across a broad variety of disciplines. As it turns out, something that happens
when we achieve presence in VR is that our brains actually become
more accurate at encoding memories. There's been some interesting research
from the University of Maryland that shows that there's about a nine
percent improvement in memory accuracy when learning in VR
versus looking at a flat screen. In the meanwhile, a study
done by STRIVR, a VR startup, actually shows that recall and response
times are improved by 12 percent. Now on the surface,
those numbers may not seem huge, but in the right situations that can mean the difference
between winning and losing, easily. And in extreme circumstances, that could be the difference
between life and death. VR also gives people
a safe environment to practice things that could be otherwise expensive,
risky, or dangerous to replicate. And this could be for anything
ranging from operating heavy machinery to practicing life-saving surgery
to saving hostages, or even prepping for Black Friday. (Laughter) Interestingly enough, the VR training program at WalMart
has been so successful that since starting in 2016, they've expanded from using it
at 30 of their locations to almost all 200. And the feedback from employees
has been nothing but positive. Because of its ability
to tap into brain pathways, VR is also showing a lot of promise in the fields of cognitive
and behavioral therapy. To give you some context, an estimated one in five adults
in the United States has some form of mental disorder. This not only deeply impacts their lives, but it also impacts the lives
of the people around them. And it costs an estimated 467 billion
in lost productivity and medical expenses. And unfortunately, one of the most common solutions
that we have today is prescription drugs. Research has shown
that in a number of cases, VR can actually be
an effective alternative. Through several techniques
such as exposure therapy, distraction therapy, neurofeedback, virtual experiences can actually be
designed specifically to address a host of conditions,
including the ones that you see up here. The progress in some of these areas
is definitely further than in some others, but the fact that VR
can even be considered as a viable solution
for some of these health challenges can't be understated. And it just goes to show that there is still so much
we have to learn about the human mind. Needless to say, VR in healthcare
is definitely an area to watch. Another topic that's actually really
important to VR is called embodiment. But rather than just telling you about it, what would you all think
if I showed you instead? (Cheers) (Applause) Go, go, magic fingers! (Laughter) You guys ready? (Yeah!) Roomera, calibrate. (Chime sounds) Hi everybody. (Woah!) (Laughter) (Applause) In full disclosure, these gloves
use little magnets and accelerometers to detect the position of my fingers. So typically they are
really, really accurate, but with all the equipment on stage,
there may be some interference. So if, for some reason,
I give you a lewd gesture ... (Laughter) then please don't be offended. (Whispers) It wasn't me, it was my gloves! (Laughter) So embodiment can be described as the feeling of agency and control
that you have within your body. But like presence, it's not something that we're typically
conscious of on a day to day basis. And yet it has an enormous impact on
the perception of the world and ourselves. An example of this is called
the "rubber hand illusion," which is a simple demonstration
that shows how your brain can actually change
what it perceives is part of you. And if you haven't seen this before, watch closely. Woman: Really weird. Man: What does it feel like? W: I'm not sure. (Laughs) W: I'm starting to feel
like that's my hand. M: Are you? W: Yeah. W: Oh my gosh.
What are you going to do? Man in background: Oh god. W: Oh my gosh. W: (Shrieks!) Oh my god! W: Feel my hands! Oh my god! Different Woman: Okay,
that's weird. That's really weird. [This is a famous scientific experiment.] [It's called the
"Body Transfer Illusion."] M: Tell me when you're there. DW: Yeah, I feel it. M: Feel it? Don't look. DW: Oh no. No, no, no, no! DW: Aah! F---! [They start to believe
the fake hand is their real hand.] (Laughter) Thong Nguyen: Come on, hand. This hand is feeling
really rubbery right now. (Laughter) Alright! At least it's not,
like, gesturing at you. So my hand's going to stay there
for a second here ... So with VR, researchers are able
to do that with not just one limb, but with your entire body. So after a few minutes in VR, your brain starts adapting
and thinking that it's your body. For example, studies from the
Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford suggest that even brief embodiment
inside the avatar of an elderly person has a significant impact
on their attitude towards the elderly. A different project from the Columbia
University called 1,000 Cut Journey actually lets you experience
racism firsthand from the perspective
of a black boy, as he grows up and experiences unequal treatment
through no choice of his own. There's still plenty of learning
and ongoing work being done in this space, but one thing is very clear: Embodiment in VR can induce
a level of empathy and understanding that's more effective than any other form
of communication that we have today. Yet another way that it can help us is to get a better understanding
of our own self-perception. So it's pretty well known
that people with eating disorders have a persistently distorted
representation of the size of their body. In a study done in 2016,
researchers from the Netherlands were actually able to show that by
putting people in a healthy sized avatar, it was possible to decrease
the overestimation of their own body size and thus improve their self-body image. Interestingly, it was found
that after the headset came off, the changes actually stayed. In yet a different study
out of the University of Barcelona, researchers studied
the effects of self-counseling in VR. Participants, in an avatar
that looked like themselves, were asked to share some issues
that they faced in real life. Then from the perspective of Freud, they would hear the recording
played back of themselves. And after responding
with advice, as Freud, they would swap back into their own body and hear their own advice
played back, but at a lower pitch. So the conclusion from this experiment was that stepping
outside of one's self in VR can provide enough of a perspective shift that can foundationally
change a person's thinking and that we do have the ability
to take our own advice, but sometimes it's more effective
when it's coming from somebody else. (Laughter) These types of findings -
along with my hand - (Laughter) are so important because,
as many of you know, our own perception and self-image can often be the most
difficult thing to overcome. There's still so much work
to be done in this space, but it is really exciting to see how VR can enable and accelerate
this type of learning. It gives us a tangible way
to begin to test and understand the discrepancies between
what we think, what we feel, and what we believe we already know. VR can accelerate new insights
and help usher change, not through force or coercion,
but through the power of perspective. Roomera, exit VR. (Poof!) (Laughter) (Applause) So today I've shared with you a few examples of how VR
is creating real world impacts, but what I'd like to do
is end with a personal story. As a kid, I used to love reading
"Choose your Own Adventure" books. And for those of you
who have never read them before, they're these paperback books that allow you to make choices
while you read, and assume the role of the protagonist. And each one of these choices can cause
the story to change in any number of ways. These choices can be anything like,
"Open the door and step through," or, "Turn around and go the other way." What I would do,
when I was reading these as a kid, was go through and mark
all of the pages that had choices ... (Laughter) so that I could follow the branches
and understand the impact of my decisions. Back then I was just thrilled because I felt I was getting
40 books for the price of one, but in reality what I was doing
was testing all of my options so I could achieve the best outcome. We all choose our own adventures everyday, but sometimes, the choices that we make
are based on what's happened in the past. And that can prevent us from really,
really, really, finding our own futures. And unlike books, many of our stories
still have yet to be written. But what would happen if VR allowed us to experience
and try out different futures? And what if we had the ability,
not just conceptually, but to virtually walk a mile
in somebody else's shoes? And how will our lives change,
when we can see our own minds, our own egos, and our own vulnerabilities
from a different perspective? Because what happens inside this headset
will change the world. Thank you.
I've seen Palmer's Time magazine cover in so many VR and AR talks now. Industry professionals getting good mileage on it. lol. Enjoyed the talk, thanks for sharing.
This is great, thanks for sharing!
This is an amazing presentation! It's worth showing it to all your friends and family!
This is excellent, thank you for sharing.
T pose.
Very interesting he mentioned the opiate crisis! Would love to see progress on Addiction "therapy" type programs that utilize VR. I would like to see the brain comparisons of an addict and then addict in VR and then a recovering addict in VR. Also, It;s pretty damn funny how his hand bugged out! All VR users are all to familiar with this! lol! Handled it like a pro! ha!
VR is the future, so glad to be a part of it.ο»Ώ