4 ms·

> Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley Highly unlikely, there's still a lot of value in face-to-face meetings.

by cbg0 6y ago

Jyaif 6y ago
If only there was a technology that allows you to have face-to-face meetings remotely.
- PunchTornado 6y ago
  sadly, there is not. zoom is not face-to-face meeting.
- benrbray 6y ago
  Yes, if only.
  - buboard 6y ago
    In a world in a pandemic and climate crisis , asking people to drive long distances, or worse, fly so that middle management can “observe facial expressions better” should be met with disapproval
    - benrbray 6y ago
      It's not middle management that benefits the most from in-person work. It's new hires and new grads (like me) who are just starting their careers and benefit a lot from knowledge gained passively in the workplace. And--wouldn't it be great if our cities were designed so that people don't need to drive long distances to work? Density + mass transit in cities would go a long way towards reducing emissions. (and no, we should not use the threat of a once-per-century pandemic to double down on isolated, suburban lifestyles--instead, we should work to make sure cities are clean and support a safe, sustainable density of people)
      - buboard 6y ago
        > Density + mass transit in cities That is no reason to require not-remote work , and also not entirely true https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac9d2 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac9d2
- darwinwhy 6y ago
  If you've ever played or watched a social VR game like VRChat, I think you'd come to believe as I do, that complete social expressiveness is impossible to achieve with current technology. The most experienced and skilled players today can express themselves with their avatars nearly as well as they could with a human body (not to mention the exciting ways they can communicate in VR that they couldn't possibly communicate in person), but the learning curve for that level of expressiveness is akin to learning a proto sign language. More to the point, VRChat really makes you appreciate the minutiae of physically proximate human communication, like the lengths of pauses between various speakers. The "mute" avatars in VR also make you appreciate how much we communicate with high dimensional facial and body gestures that can't be duplicated with existing video conferencing. I highly recommend interacting with a mute player in VR if you have the chance. Watching a video isn't the same experience, but here's a short clip of two mutes communicating if you have 30 seconds: https://clips.twitch.tv/CrackyMushyAntelopeBloodTrail https://clips.twitch.tv/CrackyMushyAntelopeBloodTrail
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    This functionality is explicitly noted as the reason VR takes off in the book Snowcrash
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    The technology to enable next-level social interaction in VR already exists. - eye tracking - facial muscle sensors (that sit between your skin and the rest of the headset) - deepfake ML - high resolution scanning Combine all four, and wala, you can inhabit a high resolution deepfake model of yourself in real time. It’s only a matter of time before this becomes a thing, maybe one or two generations of headsets. It will be mind-blowing.

> Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley Highly unlikely, there's still a lot of value in face-to-face meetings.

by cbg0 6y ago

> Is this the start of the end of Silicon Valley Highly unlikely, there's still a lot of value in face-to-face meetings.

Jyaif 6y ago

If only there was a technology that allows you to have face-to-face meetings remotely.

PunchTornado 6y ago
sadly, there is not. zoom is not face-to-face meeting.
benrbray 6y ago
Yes, if only.
- buboard 6y ago
  In a world in a pandemic and climate crisis , asking people to drive long distances, or worse, fly so that middle management can “observe facial expressions better” should be met with disapproval
  - benrbray 6y ago
    It's not middle management that benefits the most from in-person work. It's new hires and new grads (like me) who are just starting their careers and benefit a lot from knowledge gained passively in the workplace. And--wouldn't it be great if our cities were designed so that people don't need to drive long distances to work? Density + mass transit in cities would go a long way towards reducing emissions. (and no, we should not use the threat of a once-per-century pandemic to double down on isolated, suburban lifestyles--instead, we should work to make sure cities are clean and support a safe, sustainable density of people)
    - buboard 6y ago
      > Density + mass transit in cities That is no reason to require not-remote work , and also not entirely true https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac9d2 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac9d2
darwinwhy 6y ago
If you've ever played or watched a social VR game like VRChat, I think you'd come to believe as I do, that complete social expressiveness is impossible to achieve with current technology. The most experienced and skilled players today can express themselves with their avatars nearly as well as they could with a human body (not to mention the exciting ways they can communicate in VR that they couldn't possibly communicate in person), but the learning curve for that level of expressiveness is akin to learning a proto sign language. More to the point, VRChat really makes you appreciate the minutiae of physically proximate human communication, like the lengths of pauses between various speakers. The "mute" avatars in VR also make you appreciate how much we communicate with high dimensional facial and body gestures that can't be duplicated with existing video conferencing. I highly recommend interacting with a mute player in VR if you have the chance. Watching a video isn't the same experience, but here's a short clip of two mutes communicating if you have 30 seconds: https://clips.twitch.tv/CrackyMushyAntelopeBloodTrail https://clips.twitch.tv/CrackyMushyAntelopeBloodTrail
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  This functionality is explicitly noted as the reason VR takes off in the book Snowcrash
- keenmaster 6y ago
  The technology to enable next-level social interaction in VR already exists. - eye tracking - facial muscle sensors (that sit between your skin and the rest of the headset) - deepfake ML - high resolution scanning Combine all four, and wala, you can inhabit a high resolution deepfake model of yourself in real time. It’s only a matter of time before this becomes a thing, maybe one or two generations of headsets. It will be mind-blowing.