Will Virtual Reality Revolutionize Education?

ChatGPT is getting a lot of attention, and one area driving dialog is education. While the attention is warranted, another innovation is quietly making advances. Historically, education has been a bridge between eras – something that I explored in depth here. If you accept that signals point to a transition between eras, then education will be looked at to provide a bridge. But the question that must be answered is this: can education in its current form be that bridge? I maintain that the answer is no. Can that other innovation help? Virtual reality has quietly advanced. This article explores those advances.

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Virtual Society

Throughout history, the world has experienced tipping points – or a fundamental change in the nature of being human. How many have occurred throughout human history is subject to debate. From my perspective, we have experienced two and could be heading towards a third. Several forces are converging to create the possibility of a third tipping point. When we consider the advances of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, human-machine convergence, advances in brain science, and new computing paradigms – it’s not a stretch. Add to that list the evolution of virtual societies.

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Our Immersive Future

I have long believed that the way we interact as humans is on an accelerating journey towards massive change. Whether the next interaction frontier involves the brain or a broad Metaverse vision, it is almost certain that how we interact will change. There have been several waves of change to our interaction paradigm through at least three stages of transformation. However, the next transformation will alter many long-standing beliefs, and as we explore possibilities, emerging scenarios can be very illuminating.

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The Future Of Poker

When exploring how evolving technology will affect different aspects of our lives and society more broadly, one of the most interesting things we tend to find is that consequences are not wholly positive or negative.

This is perhaps clearest in the constant debates about what technology will do to job markets. Common logic dictates (to many at least) that increasing automation and new tech will eliminate opportunities and bring about massive net losses in employment. On the other hand, there are more and more arguments suggesting that automation and AI will also create new jobs. One particularly optimistic piece on The Washington Post in 2018 even predicted that machines would create 58 million more jobs than they would displace over a four-year span!

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Virtual and Augmented Reality Likely To Accelerate

In early 2019, I described the Three Focus Themes for the year. They were Acceleration, Convergence, and Possibilities. Little did I know that one of those themes would factor so prominently in 2020. In a recent Presentation, Mehlman, Castagnetti, Rosen & Thomas – a full-service, bipartisan government relations firm – describes 2020 as the year where forces already in play experience a great acceleration. One of those forces is mixed reality.

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