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Will virtual and augmented reality move us into the knowledge age? | Zenka | TEDxJacksonHole

Exploring how virtual and augmented reality can transition us from the information age to the knowledge age, transforming learning and experience.

Key Takeaways

  • Virtual and augmented reality will fundamentally change how we learn, work, and interact by creating immersive, experiential knowledge.
  • We are living in a time of exponential change that requires new ways of thinking and adapting socially and politically.
  • Experiential learning through VR/AR leads to deeper understanding and retention compared to traditional methods.
  • Technology is democratizing access to experiences and knowledge, breaking down barriers of time, space, and cost.
  • Embracing change and fostering nimbleness in institutions and individuals is essential to harness the full potential of these emerging technologies.

What the video covers

  • The speaker, a sculptor and street artist, introduces virtual and augmented reality as transformative technologies that can move humanity from the information age into the knowledge age.
  • Humans have existed for a very short time compared to dinosaurs, yet have rapidly advanced through the Stone, Agricultural, Industrial, and Digital ages.
  • Exponential technological growth is accelerating change beyond past experience, impacting not only technology but social and political structures.
  • Virtual and augmented reality allow immersive experiences that feel real, enabling new ways to learn, communicate, and interact regardless of location.
  • These technologies make expensive experiences affordable, replicable, and shareable, allowing people to transcend time and space virtually.
  • Learning through VR/AR is more effective because humans retain more information through doing and simulating than by reading or listening.
  • VR/AR is already revolutionizing industries such as construction, mental and physical rehabilitation, and is influencing social and political change.
  • The speaker emphasizes the need to embrace change and adapt institutions like governments and universities to be more responsive and nimble.
  • The future is seen as the knowledge age, possibly evolving into a wisdom age, where experiential knowledge becomes central to human progress.
  • The talk concludes with a call to action for individuals and society to leverage these technologies to create the future we desire.

Chapters

  1. 00:00Introduction to VR/AR and the Knowledge Age
  2. 01:00Human History and Time Perspective
  3. 02:00From the Information Age to the Knowledge Age
  4. 03:00Exponential Growth and Technological Progress
  5. 04:00Social and Political Impacts of Technology
  6. 05:00Street Art and Public Engagement on Future Topics
  7. 05:55Explaining Virtual and Augmented Reality
  8. 07:20Advantages and Applications of VR/AR
  9. 09:20Experiential Learning and Knowledge Transformation
  10. 10:20Challenges, Change, and Future Opportunities

Answers

Questions about this video

How do virtual and augmented reality contribute to the knowledge age?

VR and AR transform information into experiential knowledge by allowing users to interact with and simulate real-world scenarios, leading to deeper learning and understanding.

What examples illustrate the exponential growth of technology mentioned in the talk?

Examples include the rapid increase in speed from running to space travel, the rise of decentralized companies like Uber and Airbnb, and the swift evolution of digital technologies.

What are some societal challenges posed by rapid technological change?

Challenges include the need for governments and institutions to become more nimble and responsive, social and legislative upheaval caused by new business models, and individual mental preparedness for fast change.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00
Speaker A
Translator: Jenny Carden. Reviewer: Sebastian Betti. I am a sculptor and a street artist, and tonight I want to talk about a magical and mind-blowing new technology called virtual and augmented reality, and how it can catapult us from the information age into the knowledge age.
00:31
Speaker A
But before I talk about what is so incredible about this technology, I want to build some context around the discussion.
00:38
Speaker A
I want to talk about my favorite four-letter word — time. We know where we are on the map — we are familiar with that, but very few of us have stepped back and seen where we are in time.
00:50
Speaker A
And knowing that can give us clues as to what makes all of us sitting here today so special and so unlike any other humans that have come before us.
01:00
Speaker A
And knowing what makes us different can help us see the challenges that we are going to face and the advantages that we can wield to create the world that we want.
01:09
Speaker A
The future of our dreams. I want to start by taking a journey into the past.
01:15
Speaker A
This is a street art piece I did comparing the time dinosaurs and humans have been on Earth.
01:20
Speaker A
Each circle equals a million years. And we have 180 million years of dinosaurs and three dinosaur ages.
01:29
Speaker A
And how long do you think Homo sapiens took? A quarter of a circle. As you can see, we literally just got here.
01:38
Speaker A
I have to admit, dinosaurs seemed minimally important in my mind. I had no idea that Earth was their planet.
01:45
Speaker A
So what have we done in this quarter of a circle? Well, we had a long period of the Stone Age.
01:52
Speaker A
Then, the agricultural age and the industrial age. And all of you sitting here today ended up in that teeny tiny red square.
02:00
Speaker A
The digital age. The information age. Now, what comes next is hotly debated. Will it be the virtual age? The experiential age? The space age? The superhuman age? The maker age? The nuclear age? Well, I believe we are going to look back on this
02:17
Speaker A
and call this the knowledge age, and possibly the wisdom age. In the last few generations, genius minds like Buckminster Fuller, Vernor Vinge, Gordon Moore, of Moore's Law, Heidi and Alvin Toffler, and Ray Kurzweil started mapping progress over time
02:34
Speaker A
and they noticed patterns and they realized something quite astounding. Whether you are talking about inventions on the periodic table or computing or patents, transistors, population, even TED viewership, we are seeing a trend towards exponential change.
02:54
Speaker A
And what this means is — what happened in the last 10 years has nothing to do with what can happen in the next 10 years.
03:02
Speaker A
So even if you understand this trend towards compound growth, if we don't find ways to visualize it, it is going to be hard to change our way of thinking.
03:12
Speaker A
So let's go back to the street. Now, we as humans were able to run at a speed of 15 miles per hour, and we weren't able to go faster than that until finally we rode horses for 30 miles per hour,
03:27
Speaker A
and we did that for thousands and thousands of years and we couldn't go any faster.
03:32
Speaker A
Until one day we invented the Model T. How fast do you think that we can go today?
03:39
Speaker A
17,000 miles per hour in the Space Shuttle. This is what it would look like before we rode horses.
03:48
Speaker A
And all of us ended up in what I call the jackpot generation. Now, let's look at this on a chart.
03:55
Speaker A
We ran, we rode horses, and in a little over just 100 years we went from cars to exploring outer space.
04:04
Speaker A
Now, one of the things we are realizing is that these trends are not just happening in technology; it's happening in companies and social structures.
04:12
Speaker A
I mean, just look at decentralized ideas like Uber, ride sharing, Couchsurfing, and Airbnb — it's causing social and legislative upheaval.
04:22
Speaker A
I mean, we have all seen massive companies like Kodak and Blockbuster struggling to stay relevant.
04:28
Speaker A
And look at food — you've got Coca-Cola selling vitamin water and McDonald's putting kale on the menu.
04:37
Speaker A
So, we have to find ways for even big things like big political parties and governmental systems to transform themselves so they can change more quickly.
04:49
Speaker A
Now, I realized that we as humans individually might not be mentally prepared for all this change.
04:56
Speaker A
So, I went back to the streets to try to start conversations about the future.
05:02
Speaker A
To get people talking about it. To get people thinking about it. So, I put up pranks like organ regeneration flyers to talk about bioengineering.
05:11
Speaker A
I put up fake biometric and retina scanners on abandoned buildings. I put up strange tech terms hoping people would look them up.
05:20
Speaker A
What about artificial intelligence? I created micro timelines and transformed fire into the modern microwave.
05:29
Speaker A
What about abacuses and calculators? It's easy to feel nostalgic about the past because it's so familiar.
05:38
Speaker A
But what's going to happen now that things are moving so quickly? I want to zoom in on a single innovation that I mentioned at the beginning of the talk.
05:47
Speaker A
Virtual reality and augmented reality will change the way that you see and feel the world.
05:55
Speaker A
It's hard to describe it. But basically, you can take a cellphone or a tablet or a headset and move around three-dimensional objects on top of space.
06:05
Speaker A
And in the case of the latest augmented reality headsets, you can actually pick up virtual items and move them around.
06:12
Speaker A
In the case of virtual reality, you can transport yourself to another time and place — put on a headset and look around as if you are actually there.
06:22
Speaker A
And the craziest part about this technology is very recently it's gotten so advanced that when you put on a headset and information is coming into your eyes, your brain and your subconscious are processing that information and your body cannot tell that it's not real.
06:39
Speaker A
So if you are standing on a cliff, your lizard brain won't let you jump.
06:45
Speaker A
Now, this is a whole new operating system just like the Internet and cellphones have been — and we can hardly imagine our life without those!
06:53
Speaker A
Well, this is going to be virtual living in every aspect of your life. From virtual banking, to virtual learning, virtual travel, virtual shopping, virtual communication.
07:08
Speaker A
Of course, virtual gaming, we can't forget that. I mean, it's going to totally revolutionize entire industries like construction and it's already causing breakthroughs in mental and physical rehabilitation.
07:21
Speaker A
So, let's tackle the challenges and the advantages of this new age. Starting with the advantages; very expensive experiences and very expensive things become very inexpensive, replicable, sharable.
07:40
Speaker A
And also location no longer matters. We've always wanted as humans to transcend time and space.
07:47
Speaker A
Well, virtual reality lets us do that. You can literally have great experiences anywhere, anytime, with your friends and family no matter who you are or where you are in the world.
08:01
Speaker A
So if you are a young girl in Kansas and you want to take a field trip to open an Egyptian tomb in the past, for the very first time, you can.
08:11
Speaker A
Want to see how beautiful Earth looks like from the moon but you are not a billionaire living in the future?
08:16
Speaker A
Want to eat dinner with friends and family but they are three thousand miles away?
08:20
Speaker A
Want to recombine molecules but you don't have a fancy lab? Virtual reality will let us learn, feel, remember, and process new ideas in a more experiential and deeper way.
08:38
Speaker A
Humans were hardwired to learn by doing and virtual reality lets us do that.
08:44
Speaker A
Your mind and your body will feel like it was real — and it will be real.
08:50
Speaker A
It is going to be a "new real." We started out with data in the world.
08:54
Speaker A
A bunch of facts and figures and we organized that data into useful information and we put that into stories and books and the Internet.
09:02
Speaker A
Well now, virtual reality can transform that information into knowledge. Knowledge equals information gained through experience. So, Edgar Dale stated that after two weeks the human brain remembers 10 percent of what it reads, 20 percent of what it hears,
09:23
Speaker A
and 90 percent of what it does or simulates. So, instead of cracking open the textbook and having to read complicated theories about physics and construction, we all become foremen.
09:36
Speaker A
Our learning is going to be faster and deeper. And the
09:51
Speaker A
Now does anybody know the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Compassion. And one of the most surprising and unexpected things we're learning about this new medium of virtual reality is when people put on the headset and they become another gender
10:06
Speaker A
in another country, in another place, they immediately feel compassion. So much so that the entire industry has nicknamed the virtual reality as the empathy machine.
10:17
Speaker A
And it's already being used in the United Nations to successfully change votes on the refugee crisis and create conversations about laws about solitary confinement and police training.
10:30
Speaker A
I believe that if we can spread compassion we can see the wisdom age in our lifetime.
10:37
Speaker A
I was so blown over by this technology that I started to incorporate it into my street art and my prints.
10:51
Speaker A
This is a headset based art on top of art. This is a postcard that becomes Harry Potter.
11:05
Speaker A
And my most recent work takes the sounds made by the viewer and creates animations.
11:12
Speaker A
In 2013, I began to create a sculptural timeline of all these VR headsets, starting 60 years ago and running all the way to today.
11:22
Speaker A
I was fascinated by the passionate quest of all these companies to bring this technology to us.
11:28
Speaker A
And look what happened when I put it on a chart. This is that same acceleration curve that is so scary and exciting and prophetic and this right here is the greatest challenge of our age.
11:43
Speaker A
Change. The ability to love and enjoy change. We have to admit that it's happening, otherwise we are not going to be able to leverage its unique abilities.
11:54
Speaker A
And lets start by saying that change is not necessarily scary and bad. Change can be good.
12:00
Speaker A
And in our accelerating world, good things can happen more quickly. You can use a fire to burn a house or cook a meal.
12:08
Speaker A
You can use a pen to write a declaration of war or to write a love poem.
12:13
Speaker A
It's not the tools but how we use them that define where we are striving as humans.
12:19
Speaker A
We've come from a world where only a few elite had access to hand written books that were locked away, to a world where we can take out our second brain and read a book or write down an idea
12:32
Speaker A
and it can spread all over the world in a matter of days, or hours or seconds.
12:38
Speaker A
That has never been possible in any other generation before. The other thing that we need to focus on as a challenge is the ability to become more fluid, less rigid.
12:51
Speaker A
I mean I will admit, it's so hard for me to change my opinion about something that I have already decided upon.
12:59
Speaker A
But we're going to have to rethink solutions to problems that we thought we already solved.
13:05
Speaker A
And nobody knows the mindset of this acrobatic reinvention better than the hardware engineers that are working so passionately to bring this revolution to us.
13:16
Speaker A
The Toffler's stated that the time between the original idea and mass adoption is now momentary.
13:24
Speaker A
The typewriter was invented in 1714 but it was 150 years before the first model became available.
13:32
Speaker A
Virtual realty took a third of that time. In part thanks to 3D printing a single headset like this one from HTC Vive went from prototype to being sold in stores in a matter of years.
13:46
Speaker A
This is what it takes to succeed in a changing world. The ability to scrap our ideas, change our minds and to be curious rather than fearful of the unknown.
13:59
Speaker A
And who knows, we might have to rethink schools. I mean, how to we even teach critical thinking.
14:06
Speaker A
We might have to study teenagers to become less fearful of change. How do we make our governments, and our universities and ourselves more responsive and nimble?
14:18
Speaker A
I hope that in this process of stepping back in time, we can see that most generations were the same as past generations on the order of thousands of years.
14:30
Speaker A
People were born into the same world that they died in. Not anymore. We are experiencing a new way of life.
14:39
Speaker A
You might even say a new way of being human. I hope that I have made you truly curious about your rare position in history and given you the context to see why this is the most exciting time in history to be alive.
14:54
Speaker A
We have the rare opportunity to see the world change, in our lifetime. And now that we're connected, everyday people, we can get together and change the world, in our lifetime.
15:10
Speaker A
I dare us to dream big. Thank you. (Applause)
Topics:virtual realityaugmented realityknowledge ageinformation ageexponential growthexperiential learningtechnology transformationfuture of educationsocial changeinnovation

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