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For a long time I thought we were on a solid track to full VR, which would be indiscernible from reality. Recently I’ve realised that I was very wrong, and this

For a long time I thought we were on a solid track to full VR, which would be indiscernible from reality. Recently I’ve realised that I was very wrong, and this is why. The visual element of VR is pretty much solved. Audio no problem. But the movement in space is intractable I now believe, and it is an absolutely critical issue that scuppers the whole idea. Tricks like this can give you a better approximation but I don’t think it’ll ever be good enough. You want to jump, spin, crouch, crawl, lie down. And interact with others. I think AR is going to be massive and Apple Vision Pro will be a big hit by gen 3 or 4, but VR is something likely to be “Human-Brain-Interface complete”. Given HBI success will likely arrive on or after the time we reach AGI, I don’t really know how that’s going to work out. I think headsets will be really fun for a while, but we’re not going to get the full experience. Unless we can suspend people in some kind of viscous fluid with respirators, and ummm people think that’s acceptable… suspend them on cables and blow compressed air at them? Google glass no longer looks so embarrassing…

holmesworcester 3y ago
One thing I was thinking recently is that if we get sufficiently good at humanoid robots, perhaps it will be within reach to build a robot around a human that can put arbitrary pressure on different parts of the body sufficient to create the feeling of soccer, jujitsu, or even sex. This is probably a 10-100x harder robot to make than a humanoid robot. But it seems more straightforward than a HBI capable of full VR.
- lanewinfield 3y ago
  Feels like it might be easier to get direct access to the brain and simulate those feelings at the source
- imiric 3y ago
  You mean like a suit? I find current HMDs strapped to my head very uncomfortable, and that they're a major hurdle for mass VR adoption. In general, people want to be _less_ physically absorbed by technology, not more. I can't imagine anyone would want to use an exoskeleton robot suit for increased VR immersion. If anything, you would be less immersed because of the suit itself. I think this level of physical immersion is not feasible. It's likely that we'll prefer brain-computer interfaces instead, and the stimulation would be done directly on our nervous system.
  - Jcowell 3y ago
    > In general, people want to be _less_ physically absorbed by technology, not more. I’ve found this to not be true. If you were to give people the ability to get mantis blades, they would probably get mantis blades
- coryrc 3y ago
  You can't physically stimulate inner-ear response without actually accelerating and moving. You'd need to find some way to mask those signals so you actually feel like you're moving. Would also be the only way I could use VR due to awful motion sickness.
  - xgkickt 3y ago
    So back to Aerotrims?
- Tao3300 3y ago
  I am not getting in the VR iron maiden.
Swizec 3y ago
> You want to jump, spin, crouch, crawl, lie down I played Squid Game VR at one of those whole room VR places recently. It was great! We could run, crouch, jump, spin, and interact with others. It all worked. It was even part of the games to do these things. Felt surprisingly immersive. You forgot you were in some dark room in the basement.
- armada651 3y ago
  I'm surprised something like The Void never caught on. We've had laser tag arenas for decades, just rent a warehouse and construct an arena where any wall in VR is represented in real life. For hygiene you mandate people buy a face gasket from you or bring the one they've used previously. No treadmills needed and you can actually touch and lean on surfaces in VR.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    it’s not a great business model because it’s a big space with a small number of people at a time… and the games are fun but more arcade like due to needing to get people in and out of there with laser tag (also not a huge money maker) you can have many more people in the space, like 5x easily
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
With a sufficiently large version of this, why couldn't you jump, crouch, crawl, and lie down? The system would move you back towards the center between jumps. A remaining missing piece is possibly some type of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation system. Tell me if I'm totally off-base on this, but this seems like a technological achievable problem. I'm not saying it's perfect (you can't simulate scrambling over a rock, for example), but it would enable a pretty wide range of movements.
- bear141 3y ago
  Yeah it seems like people are assuming the person engaging with the floor would be kept completely stationary. It seems to me if the floor were covering a larger area and therefore required less manipulation to keep you stationary then it could use minimal inputs to keep you within the borders and still allow your inner ear to receive most of the inertial inputs required to feel realistic.
- redcobra762 3y ago
  > A remaining missing piece is possibly some type of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation system. That's kind of like saying the missing piece for antigravity is the ability to control gravitons, though.
  - riwsky 3y ago
    Both of which problems I could fix, using my mystery machine, if only this planet weren’t so depleted of the necessary Solvtonium.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    As I said, "tell me if I'm totally off-base on this, but [Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation] seems like a technologically achievable problem." I say this because early forms of the technology appear to already exist, e.g. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/research-labs/advanced-technology-labs/gvs.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/research-l...
kthejoker2 3y ago
Yeah it seems like it will be much easier to create an AR environment that uses pneumatics, robotics, lighting, AI, maybe technology like this to manipulate the environment around you into an actual physical "playscape" (e.g. creating virtual landscapes with real physical obstacles, hiding spots, ladders, sportsball, etc) while you still retain your sense of balance, motion. Maybe you'll even get an exoskeleton so you can Hulk out :) But yeah AR has a much brighter "active" feature, and VR will be relegated to "passive" reality.
saiya-jin 3y ago
We shall see, no point trying to guess where we will be in few decades. One random idea out of ocean of ideas - we might realize with a bit of training our brain will smooth out the difference and we shall be well immersed even with these mild moves. Maybe 100% immersion is a stupid yardstick, and say 85% is the sweet spot where you feel like you are having tons of fun without actually getting heart attacks. Think about it a bit - action games, shooters etc. put you consistently in situations that would be pure survival. Body goes into fuck-it-all mode where immediate survival is the only goal, side effects are ignored. But if you keep exposing yourself to such experiences regularly without actually having decades of brutal training and experience that real life requires from such a situation, over time you mess up your untrained heart, burn out forever various receptors and fear managing systems in our brains, and you just wreck yourself badly. There is a term 'adrenaline junkies' for a reason, its dependence just like the rest. Maybe... who cares. Good invention, smart approach. Bring more, iterate, thumbs up.

holmesworcester 3y ago

One thing I was thinking recently is that if we get sufficiently good at humanoid robots, perhaps it will be within reach to build a robot around a human that can put arbitrary pressure on different parts of the body sufficient to create the feeling of soccer, jujitsu, or even sex. This is probably a 10-100x harder robot to make than a humanoid robot. But it seems more straightforward than a HBI capable of full VR.

lanewinfield 3y ago
Feels like it might be easier to get direct access to the brain and simulate those feelings at the source
imiric 3y ago
You mean like a suit? I find current HMDs strapped to my head very uncomfortable, and that they're a major hurdle for mass VR adoption. In general, people want to be _less_ physically absorbed by technology, not more. I can't imagine anyone would want to use an exoskeleton robot suit for increased VR immersion. If anything, you would be less immersed because of the suit itself. I think this level of physical immersion is not feasible. It's likely that we'll prefer brain-computer interfaces instead, and the stimulation would be done directly on our nervous system.
- Jcowell 3y ago
  > In general, people want to be _less_ physically absorbed by technology, not more. I’ve found this to not be true. If you were to give people the ability to get mantis blades, they would probably get mantis blades
coryrc 3y ago
You can't physically stimulate inner-ear response without actually accelerating and moving. You'd need to find some way to mask those signals so you actually feel like you're moving. Would also be the only way I could use VR due to awful motion sickness.
- xgkickt 3y ago
  So back to Aerotrims?
Tao3300 3y ago
I am not getting in the VR iron maiden.

Swizec 3y ago

> You want to jump, spin, crouch, crawl, lie down I played Squid Game VR at one of those whole room VR places recently. It was great! We could run, crouch, jump, spin, and interact with others. It all worked. It was even part of the games to do these things. Felt surprisingly immersive. You forgot you were in some dark room in the basement.

armada651 3y ago
I'm surprised something like The Void never caught on. We've had laser tag arenas for decades, just rent a warehouse and construct an arena where any wall in VR is represented in real life. For hygiene you mandate people buy a face gasket from you or bring the one they've used previously. No treadmills needed and you can actually touch and lean on surfaces in VR.
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  it’s not a great business model because it’s a big space with a small number of people at a time… and the games are fun but more arcade like due to needing to get people in and out of there with laser tag (also not a huge money maker) you can have many more people in the space, like 5x easily

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

With a sufficiently large version of this, why couldn't you jump, crouch, crawl, and lie down? The system would move you back towards the center between jumps. A remaining missing piece is possibly some type of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation system. Tell me if I'm totally off-base on this, but this seems like a technological achievable problem. I'm not saying it's perfect (you can't simulate scrambling over a rock, for example), but it would enable a pretty wide range of movements.

bear141 3y ago
Yeah it seems like people are assuming the person engaging with the floor would be kept completely stationary. It seems to me if the floor were covering a larger area and therefore required less manipulation to keep you stationary then it could use minimal inputs to keep you within the borders and still allow your inner ear to receive most of the inertial inputs required to feel realistic.
redcobra762 3y ago
> A remaining missing piece is possibly some type of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation system. That's kind of like saying the missing piece for antigravity is the ability to control gravitons, though.
- riwsky 3y ago
  Both of which problems I could fix, using my mystery machine, if only this planet weren’t so depleted of the necessary Solvtonium.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  As I said, "tell me if I'm totally off-base on this, but [Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation] seems like a technologically achievable problem." I say this because early forms of the technology appear to already exist, e.g. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/research-labs/advanced-technology-labs/gvs.html https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/research-l...

kthejoker2 3y ago

Yeah it seems like it will be much easier to create an AR environment that uses pneumatics, robotics, lighting, AI, maybe technology like this to manipulate the environment around you into an actual physical "playscape" (e.g. creating virtual landscapes with real physical obstacles, hiding spots, ladders, sportsball, etc) while you still retain your sense of balance, motion. Maybe you'll even get an exoskeleton so you can Hulk out :) But yeah AR has a much brighter "active" feature, and VR will be relegated to "passive" reality.

saiya-jin 3y ago

We shall see, no point trying to guess where we will be in few decades. One random idea out of ocean of ideas - we might realize with a bit of training our brain will smooth out the difference and we shall be well immersed even with these mild moves. Maybe 100% immersion is a stupid yardstick, and say 85% is the sweet spot where you feel like you are having tons of fun without actually getting heart attacks. Think about it a bit - action games, shooters etc. put you consistently in situations that would be pure survival. Body goes into fuck-it-all mode where immediate survival is the only goal, side effects are ignored. But if you keep exposing yourself to such experiences regularly without actually having decades of brutal training and experience that real life requires from such a situation, over time you mess up your untrained heart, burn out forever various receptors and fear managing systems in our brains, and you just wreck yourself badly. There is a term 'adrenaline junkies' for a reason, its dependence just like the rest. Maybe... who cares. Good invention, smart approach. Bring more, iterate, thumbs up.