3 ms·

Your wife could do all of that on a video conference call, and actually see the person's real face + nunaces. Not sure how VR solves the problem you describe.

Your wife could do all of that on a video conference call, and actually see the person's real face + nunaces. Not sure how VR solves the problem you describe. Your wife needs to be there in person if a skype call wouldn't suffice.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
I'd argue a video call is worse for facial nuances. The nature of having both camera and screen is the person you're teleconferencing is never actually looking at you. Modern VR headsets already have eye tracking, it's not too out of the picture to imagine some rudimentary face tracking to capture the rest of the foundations of expression. In my experience the sense of "thereness" is much greater in a VR room than a teleconferencing session; but it's difficult to compare since VR presupposes better audio conditions.
nostrademons 8y ago
No, she can't. Her job description is basically investing several million dollars at a time into projects that a large number of participants in her industry (impact investing) believe are worthwhile, but no one fund would bankroll on its own. A key part of that job description is working to build partnerships & syndicates of investors whose goals are aligned. A key skill for that is building trust and rapport - the foundations, family offices, entrepreneurs, and hedge funds involved all need to feel like the deal is in their interest and they will be treated fairly, both if it goes well and if it goes poorly. There's a bunch of social science that's shown that repeated in-person interaction builds trust in a way that e-mail, phone calls, written communication, and videoconferencing does not. It's not just the facial expression and emotions - there's something about interacting in real-time within a shared environment that makes us trust each other. And that's what I'm referring to by "good as there" telepresence - existing systems are not good enough, because there's still a big gulf between VCing with your coworker across the country and chatting with your officemate about a cool new opportunity. I don't know whether VR will ever be good enough to bridge this gulf, but I'm saying that if it can, that would be revolutionary. If it were just a matter of deal terms & conditions, we could stick all that in a blockchain and let computers hash it out. That's my field, and I keep telling her that eventually the world'll move that way. But humans don't work that way; as long as we have squishy emotions and depend on a lot of subconscious cues we can't even describe, then looking at a screen is not going to change peoples' decision making. If you could somehow capture all those subconscious cues so it really is indistinguishable from physical presence, that may change, but that's a big if.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I've been thinking about this recently, and I feel that the "shared environment" aspect is the key, much more than facial expressions. Uncanny valley aside, I feel that brains have it much easier to recognize presence of a person despite a weird body. I've already had this kind of feeling with regular multiplayer 3D games on a flat screen. I feel virtual environments might alone be sufficient to do the trick of crossing the gulf you talk about.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    I think you might be right. It's weird, I often felt closer to people that I played MMORPGs with or fandom folk on AIM than coworkers on VC, even though in many cases I never even knew what the former looked like. A lot of that was the sense of shared experience; while my whole experience was a chat bubble at the time, so was their whole experience.

lordCarbonFiber 8y ago

I'd argue a video call is worse for facial nuances. The nature of having both camera and screen is the person you're teleconferencing is never actually looking at you. Modern VR headsets already have eye tracking, it's not too out of the picture to imagine some rudimentary face tracking to capture the rest of the foundations of expression. In my experience the sense of "thereness" is much greater in a VR room than a teleconferencing session; but it's difficult to compare since VR presupposes better audio conditions.

nostrademons 8y ago

No, she can't. Her job description is basically investing several million dollars at a time into projects that a large number of participants in her industry (impact investing) believe are worthwhile, but no one fund would bankroll on its own. A key part of that job description is working to build partnerships & syndicates of investors whose goals are aligned. A key skill for that is building trust and rapport - the foundations, family offices, entrepreneurs, and hedge funds involved all need to feel like the deal is in their interest and they will be treated fairly, both if it goes well and if it goes poorly. There's a bunch of social science that's shown that repeated in-person interaction builds trust in a way that e-mail, phone calls, written communication, and videoconferencing does not. It's not just the facial expression and emotions - there's something about interacting in real-time within a shared environment that makes us trust each other. And that's what I'm referring to by "good as there" telepresence - existing systems are not good enough, because there's still a big gulf between VCing with your coworker across the country and chatting with your officemate about a cool new opportunity. I don't know whether VR will ever be good enough to bridge this gulf, but I'm saying that if it can, that would be revolutionary. If it were just a matter of deal terms & conditions, we could stick all that in a blockchain and let computers hash it out. That's my field, and I keep telling her that eventually the world'll move that way. But humans don't work that way; as long as we have squishy emotions and depend on a lot of subconscious cues we can't even describe, then looking at a screen is not going to change peoples' decision making. If you could somehow capture all those subconscious cues so it really is indistinguishable from physical presence, that may change, but that's a big if.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
I've been thinking about this recently, and I feel that the "shared environment" aspect is the key, much more than facial expressions. Uncanny valley aside, I feel that brains have it much easier to recognize presence of a person despite a weird body. I've already had this kind of feeling with regular multiplayer 3D games on a flat screen. I feel virtual environments might alone be sufficient to do the trick of crossing the gulf you talk about.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  I think you might be right. It's weird, I often felt closer to people that I played MMORPGs with or fandom folk on AIM than coworkers on VC, even though in many cases I never even knew what the former looked like. A lot of that was the sense of shared experience; while my whole experience was a chat bubble at the time, so was their whole experience.