English subtitles for clip: File:Carolina Cruz on how virtual reality will shape the world of tomorrow-VPRO-The Mind of the Universe.ogv

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Carolina Cruz-neira: I'm Carolina Cruz-Neira,

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and I'm the Director of a research center in virtual reality called the Emerging Analytics Center,

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and we are part of the University of Arkansas in Little Rock.

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And a lot of people ask, why are you in Little Rock, Arkansas doing something that is so much technical events

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and mother.

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And the reason for that is because there's a tremendous, a good infrastructure here to do what I do,

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and there is actually a lot of energy and enthusiasm to support the work that I do.

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And the opportunities for us to do interesting projects and more unique things with less restrictions,

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not only so much legal restrictions, but almost intellectual restrictions.

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Cuz here there is almost nothing, so there is not preconceptions, there is no baggage of any kind, you know.

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There is no, things have to be done in a certain way. So, to me that's always been very exciting.

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Interviewer: It's new for everybody.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: It's new, and we are the cool group on the campus, we're the exciting group on campus.

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That for me, is always a good thing. And this is not the first time in my career.

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I have always been in universities where you would not expect to have the kind of work that I do.

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And it's really, like I said, it's a lot more fun,

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it's harder too because if we run into some complications we don't have a lot of colleagues that we can talk to,

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or an environment where there is a lot of knowledge on the area that we do research of.

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But at the same time it's a lot of fun because, like I said, we have no constraints of any kind in what we do.

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Interviewer: So, you have to find out everything yourself, or your students.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Pretty much, yes, we're kind of-

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Interviewer: Pioneering

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Pioneering to some extent and we hit our head in the wall, we had to hit and hit

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and hit it until eventually, we break the wall.

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Because, like I say, sometimes, we're entirely on our own in some situations.

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But at the same time, because we are the unique group in the compost and in many cases in the state that we are in,

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in the United States.

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Then, we get a lot of support and we get a lot of encouragement

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and we get a lot of positive reactions to a lot of the things that we do.

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And also, we give a lot back because around us, we are always generating other opportunities.

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So, for example, businesses that will not consider coming into Little Rock,

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they consider setting up here because we are here.

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So, for them having that relationship with my group, maybe very exciting and they were like,

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we're not thinking of going to Arkansas, we were thinking of maybe going to California or Boston or something like that.

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But your group been there is for us it's actually wonderful because the cost of living is lot lower,

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the ability for us to financially support the company is much easier than these other areas and, at the same time,

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we have the same intellectual quality on our relationship with a university.

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So, it's a mutually beneficial relationship for us to be and I don't expect it university. [LAUGH]

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Interviewer: But what exactly is your science?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: What exactly is my science?

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I don't know, a lot of people ask me that question

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and I'm not sure if I'm actually a scientist myself because I'm more trained from engineering.

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And engineers were always sort of the weird scientists because we're always very practical.

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So, I think that word science is more of our ability to find the root of a problem

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and find some ways to solve that problem or at least to make it better.

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So, it might not be deeply, deeply theoretical, a lot of the things that we do, but they are deeply,

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technically challenging, the things that we do.

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So, sometimes, it's a struggle because we might be doing something that is unique, nobody has done it before.

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It's incredibly hard to solve the problem.

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But it may not field that we just discover a new way of how the galaxies were formed,

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or some new philosophical theory of how our soul relates to the metauniverse or something like that.

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[LAUGH] So, we are much more practical and down to an specific point that needs a solution, so-

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Interviewer: But altogether, what you do with virtual reality?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: What-

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Interviewer: Can I have your-

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Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

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Interviewer: Theories about it as well?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes, I have my theories and myself, personally,

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I think throughout my entire career I have been a little bit of an outsider to the virtual reality science community.

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Because I always thought very differently than the main trend of thoughts.

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Even today, if you talk about virtual reality today, when somebody says, do you know what virtual reality is about?

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Immediately they are going to identify with putting some sort of goggles on your face and look around,

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some beautiful landscape or something like that. That's not exactly what I do.

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Because to me virtual reality is the ability to create some world in the computer that again solves a problem.

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And in order to do that, sometimes you have to be multiple people sharing the environment with the own bodies,

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not through virtual representation of myself in the world.

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But actually my self physically embedded in the virtual world.

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So, I wanna see your face, and your face, and your face, while I'm seeing the virtual world.

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So, my work is more about building large-

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Interviewer: Can you try to explain that?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

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Interviewer: Again, I think I understand but-

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, when, again,

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when you talk about virtual reality with the majority of the community out there-

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Interviewer: Yeah, that part I did understand, but the part you say-

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Carolina Cruz-neira: With the body?

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Interviewer: How to what you do?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: What I do. Here, I'm going to tell you what happened to me when I first saw a virtual reality.

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Let's go back to the beginning.

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When I first saw virtual reality in 1991, I had the same experience everybody is having today.

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Somebody put some goggles on my face and I start looking around some beautiful world, and, of course,

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I was a young student at that time, I've never seen it before. So, what did I do? Same as everybody does today, guao.

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But like with everything else, after that is over, the excitement is over then, you start thinking,

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what is this thing really? What is it this thing?

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And, again, I'm thinking as an engineer, what is this thing doing for me? Other than just guao.

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So, when I start thinking that, first of all I was, I'm not myself anymore here.

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Because when I'm right here in this room with you, I see my hands, I see my legs, I see a little bit of my head

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and hair. When I put goggles, I lost all that, immediately, I'm not myself anymore.

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I don't know how big something is, I don't know how close something is. Because I can tell this table is here.

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Because I can see my hand going towards that table so that gives me a sense of space and relationship.

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In the virtual world, I'm trying to grab something, but I don't see anything.

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At the most, I see some floating hand that is not connected to my body and is not even my own hand.

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Because most of the virtual environments, they give you a male hand, and I'm a woman.

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I have my little red nails and all that, so it's not even my hand.

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So I lose myself the moment I walk into the virtual reality space. That's number one.

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Number two, as humans, we like to talk to people, we are very social individuals.

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We're a very social, I don't know, animal. I put my goggles on, I lost all of you as well.

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Because I might be seeing something, and I might be saying, look at that, you don't see it.

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Cuz you don't have the goggles on. So, what I see you don't see it.

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There's no way for me to share that with you, in the same way I share this room with you.

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So to me, those kinds of things, since I was very, very, very young,

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were very annoying about the way virtual reality was being approached, in general, the research community.

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So I thought about what can be done to bring myself into the virtual space. What can I do to do that?

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And I was very fortunate because I was starting my PhD.

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And the professor that I was working with gave me a lot of freedom to explore whatever I wanted to do.

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He had some set ideas of what he wanted to do. And I started doing what he wanted me to do.

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But at the same time, in parallel, I started experimenting with some of the things that I was interested on.

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And down the line, the professor was, I guess,

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gracious enough to recognize that the direction that I was going was exciting. And he let me run with those ideas.

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So I ended up developing, in a sense, a Goggle big enough that it was the size of a room.

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So instead of putting it on your head.

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Interviewer: It was like a cave.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, I built a cave. So several, several are still in use today, now 20-something years later.

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So you walk into this room, so because your body comes with you into the virtual environment.

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Your friends come with you into the virtual environment. And you'll see that tomorrow when we go to the laboratory.

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So you come with me, and then, I will be saying, look that. And you'll see my finger pointing at a virtual object.

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The same way I say look at this table or something like that.

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So that social element is part of the virtual experience without any recreation virtually of yourself.

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Which is what people do these days.

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When you do a shared virtual environment, they recreate yourself in a virtual environment. But that's not you.

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Interviewer: Yeah.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: That's a puppet that represents you. Or an avatar, I guess, is the right term.

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So, for me, like I said, since I did that back in 1991.

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Everybody's going this way in virtual reality, and I'm going that way.

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[LAUGH] So that has been always a little bit challenging, to be-

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Interviewer: But with a lot of success.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, that's what I mentioned earlier. I have been very, very successful knowing what I have done.

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But not necessarily my work has been always recognized as science.

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Because it doesn't fit the pattern or the mold that the majority of the community is going.

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But at the same time, the work that I have done has had a significant impact in the industry.

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Today, a lot of the car companies, for example, have caves.

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At different stages of the design and manufacturing of cars. The oil industry uses variations of the cave.

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Not the cave as it was originally created.

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But this concept of having large spaces that you share the immersive space, and many others for training

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and in many other aspects. It's not a commodity or a consumer product.

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Interviewer: I understand.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: It's not something that you can have in your home, obviously. But it's been incredibly successful.

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Another industry that uses this quite a lot and is not very well known in the press is the mining industry,

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for safety training. As you know, underground mines are extremely complex and have a lot of safety issues.

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So that industry uses caves around the world.

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Interviewer: I once filmed in Norway with Rolls-Royce in Marine. And they built cabins from a ship, with a steel ship.

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It had windows all around it, all with projections of the sea.

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So when you were in there, it was in an office, just not at sea.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, so it does have the Marine trainers, yeah. Yeah, mm-hm, yeah.

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Interviewer: Yeah, and even to see what I did, then I'd get seasick.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and I think that's the main, perhaps, scientific contribution,

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if you want to call it that way, of this work.

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Because in a sense, it opened the minds of many people that for maybe 10,

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15 years were thinking virtual reality was a particular platform.

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And my work opened the mind to say virtual reality is a concept.

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And that concept can be realized in a variety of platforms.

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And it's not one platform is the solution, there are different problems.

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So depending on the problem, a cave is a good platform.

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For some other problems, the head-mounted display is a good platform.

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But some other problems, you see it in the lab, other kind of platforms are more appropriate.

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Interviewer: But if we wish to elaborate, suppose I'm a student, and I wanna go study with you.

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What exactly is what I'm going to learn, and what reasons would I have-

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Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

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Interviewer: To study with you?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, I think if you asked me that question maybe four years ago

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when virtual reality was not popular, the answer will be different today. Virtual reality is very popular again.

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It was very popular in the 90s and then it went silent. And now it's popular again.

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And I think the reason to do it is, I guess, some students that come and study with me,

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they just think that if they do something related to virtual reality.

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And in particularly, if they work with me, because of my name recognition then they'll get a very good job.

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And they'll make a lot of money. So those kinda students to be in it with you, I don't want those students in my lab.

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And we have learned very quickly to spot to those students. Because, they don't really care about the work.

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They care that in their minds, they think, I'm doing something that is trendy, that is innovative.

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And just because I'm doing it, and just because I'm doing it with other groups, I'm just gonna graduate.

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And then, I'm just gonna get this very high paying job.

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Interviewer: Yeah, opportunistic.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: But from experience, yeah, they're very opportunistic.

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And they don't really care about what they are doing. They care about making money, at the end of the day.

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Interviewer: Well, what do you care about?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: So we care about students when they come to us and they say,

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can I work with you because I have this idea.

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And I think with your guidance, I could explore this idea and see where it take us.

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So that's an example of a student that we like to find those kinds of students, cuz that's how I was.

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I was doing something, nobody had done it before.

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And I had a professor that For one reason or another, decided to let me run with it.

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Interviewer: When we start at the beginning, just for our understanding, can you explain to me. And I know nothing.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

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Interviewer: What is virtual reality?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: What is virtual reality?

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Okay well, [LAUGH] The way I normally explain to people is just, a way to create worlds with a computer.

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Now for me there is very little difference between virtual reality and augmented reality. There are two fields.

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And when you talk to different professionals there will be people that will be very,

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very adamant that it's two completely different disciplines.

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You do virtual reality, you know nothing about augmented reality, and so on.

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There are some other groups, and I am part of those groups, but I think both of them have a lot of common base concepts.

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And the difference is with virtual reality you create worlds that are entirely in the computer.

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They don't necessarily have any relationship to the real world

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or to the reality that you find yourself in that particular moment.

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So you can be tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny and explore the world at the atomic level, or you can be huge

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and explore at the universe level.

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You can travel to a world that never existed, you can go back in time and you can go into future.

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So, basically, what ever your imagination conceives you can generate that inside the computer.

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And then put yourself inside that world and-

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Interviewer: And what's the difference with the real world?

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Because when you enter a virtual world, why isn't that real?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, and that's a very good question.

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For many of the worlds that we do, they actually become very real to the people that experience those worlds.

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There is something that we study that is called the sense of presence..

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So how much those virtual worlds make you, in a sense, forget that they're virtual,

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And you suddenly became so involved, so engaged in that world that that world becomes real?

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So you forget that you're in my lab, or that you're inside a company, or something like that.

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And you completely get mentally and almost physically transported to that new reality, whatever it is.

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That's what we want to do sometimes. We really want you to feel that those places are real.

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Whether you're there for five minutes or three hours, that you disconnect yourselves from the real world.

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Sometimes they're very disoriented.

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Because we make worlds that intentionally don't behave with the laws of physics as the real world does.

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And it's very interesting sometimes to see people adjusting to those worlds.

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Because something like for example Escher, you've seen the paintings of Escher.

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You have a stair that is going up and then suddenly you're going downstairs. And you don't even know how that happened.

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So we have built some worlds like that that suddenly the laws of physics don't work.

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But people become very functional, it's like they always did that.

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It makes a lot of sense that you're going up the stairs and suddenly you end up in the basement.

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You go upstairs to go to the basement, it's just normal. So to me all these kinds of things are really exciting.

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Of course sometimes-

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Interviewer: And then that's real as well, right?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: On that particular moment on that particular timeframe that you are in the space,

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it might become very real. We have people that are afraid sometimes to move in the virtual space.

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Because we have our floor is also virtual. So sometimes, we might be very high up on a ledge of something.

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Or one of the projects that we have right now has one of those old rope and boards bridges.

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That you have to cross between two very high mountains.

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And we have people that they don't wanna cross that bridge, cuz they are afraid of heights.

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Interviewer: But do you, do you?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Me, personally? No [LAUGH] no.

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Interviewer: You don't like to do that?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: No, I don't.

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For me because I've been doing this so long, sometimes it's hard for me to disconnect myself from the real reality.

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So I know in a sense it's not real, fake to some extent. So no. I can, I walk in water or I walk on the air.

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[CROSSTALK] Yeah, and I don't feel any. [CROSSTALK]

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Interviewer: You cross that bridge.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Any yes. But we do have a lot of people that think twice before they go through that.

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Or again we might have a balcony that doesn't have any railings.

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A lot of people will not take to that step to get out of the balcony.

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Which nothing is gonna happen, I mean they're on solid ground.

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But virtually they are not on solid ground so we have people that even we push them a little bit gently said,

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give it a try. No no no no no no no. It becomes very real, and people do.

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They have this strange dual confusion in their heads. They know it's not real.

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But they behave like it's real so it's a very interesting

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Interviewer: So what's the purpose of [INAUDIBLE] people that kind of environment into a computer?

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Because they have to get used to it [INAUDIBLE] it's not real so I can [INAUDIBLE] real or-

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well again like I told you at the beginning we solve problems through virtual reality.

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So one very typical problem that we're solving all the time is types of training.

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Interviewer: Are those very practical?

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I understand that but somehow with virtual reality we can also live in another world.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes.

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Interviewer: Or think about our own virtual identity.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes, and it's also a way to sometimes communicate your understanding of the world to others.

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For example we have worked with patients that have brain damage.

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That has changed the way they perceive the world and how they function.

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For us it's very look at this table and we know immediately it's a table.

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For people to have some kind of brain damage through accidents or some disease or something.

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They look at the table and they cannot recognize that this is a table, for example.

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So sometimes their behavior feels erratic.

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But it's not erratic because they find themselves in situations that they just, something as simple as a table.

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The brain doesn't process that.

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So we have worked with some patients a few years back,

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where through their verbal descriptions of how they perceive the world.

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Which I had to recreate virtual environments that we could become that person.

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And we could understand how the person perceives the world.

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And why that person has a panic attack when there's a tree on the path, because it does not recognize that as a tree.

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So those kinds of things are-

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Interviewer: Then you could solve that problem?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, you can help people to understand your reality, in a sense in a way.

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And again you can also create a completely new reality that we don't Know what it is at this moment,

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that you might imagine and build, it and make an experience. I have a good colleague, that his sort of perspective.

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Is that virtual reality allows you to be not only somebody else, but something else.

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So he always gives the example, he always wanted to be a lobster.

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So one of his first virtual reality applications, over 20 something years ago.

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Was to understand the world, from the perspective of a lobster. And you use virtual reality, and you become a lobster.

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So that's not really my area of work.

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It's more, I guess I'm more from a practical perspective of, how do we solve a problem.

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But certainly, you want to feel the world, let's say you were some sort of bacteria.

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How do bacteria understand the world, and how do they spread themselves through another organism?

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Well, you can use virtual reality, and become a bacteria.

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And live in the world of microorganisms, and see how that world-

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Interviewer: Well, that's all very practical, and I can understand that.

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But if you try to look at the borders of your science, what's possible right now, what would,

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we can expect in the future? That this virtual world, will become so real. Or am I wrong?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah.

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Interviewer: When you try to think about it, not in a practical way.

285
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But in a way, in the direction we're going with these developments.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and I think there is a little bit of.

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With every new science, there is always the positive part, that the science can bring to society.

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And some of the potential dangers that can bring to society.

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And certainly there is a concern that we might create some realities that become much more pleasant.

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Much more rewarding, or satisfactory, than the real reality.

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Especially in the world that we live today, there are so many frustrations.

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We all have a lot of frustrations in our daily life.

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And then you can go into virtual reality, and you can be, I don't know.

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Some beautiful, wealthy person with a beautiful virtual yacht, going to some beautiful virtual island.

295
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Not your small, tiny basement apartment, that you can barely pay the rent.

296
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So there is certainly a concern, and it's a growing concern.

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That we might, in the long-term future, not in the next, maybe five years, but really looking far into the future.

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That we might create this alternate reality, to some extent, that is better than our real reality.

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And we might all start living more those alternate realities, versus the real life, or something.

300
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And how we are going to handle that?

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And that at this moment, we are, I think, so early on what we are doing, that I don't think none of us has a very good.

302
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I don't know how to say, understanding, or picture, of how all of this is going to happen.

303
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Because right now, with the technology that we have? I am personally convinced that will never really happen.

304
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Because the technology is still-

305
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Interviewer: It will never happen [CROSSTALK]

306
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Carolina Cruz-neira: With the way we have it right now. We haven't-

307
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Interviewer: But you know, it's, who's going to develop it?

308
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Carolina Cruz-neira: We haven't, I don't think we have found the right solution at all, yet.

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All the platforms that we have right now and right now I'm talking about physical platforms.

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The different helmets, or the different projectors, or the different, all these things that we have.

311
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They're not transparent, it takes a conscious effort to put them on.

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You have to have a specific technology, computers, this, that.

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It's not comfortable, it doesn't fit well on your head, it crashes. All those kinds of things, so it is a good novelty.

314
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But I think that as we move forward, people will, like other novelties, in a couple of years, everybody will calm down.

315
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And then, everybody is gonna have their virtual reality set at the bottom of the drawer.

316
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Like has happened with some of the gaming technologies.

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Interviewer: You think so? This will happen?

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Again, with the current platforms, as we have them today, I think so.

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Because, again, there were some gaming platforms which I'm not gonna mention.

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Interviewer: But they're [CROSSTALK]

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Carolina Cruz-neira: But they were gonna change, they were gonna change the world a few years ago, and what happened?

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Yes it was a great innovation.

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But who wants to spend three, four, five, six hours playing a video game standing on your feet?

324
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Interviewer: Yeah.

325
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Carolina Cruz-neira: It was a really cool platform.

326
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Interviewer: I think that's 20 years ago

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Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

328
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Interviewer: But in the future, I can imagine that as virtual reality becomes so real or so perfect

329
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or without any bugs. Because in real life, we can also get sick.

330
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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes.

331
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Interviewer: Or we can

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Interviewer: Crash, too, like the car.

333
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Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and that's what I say. With the technology that we have today, no.

334
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But in the direction that we're going, whatever might come down the line, that is certainly a concern.

335
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And there are starting to be, around the world, movements related to ethics and the use of virtual reality.

336
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So there are some committees and groups, and they are starting.

337
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There is some here in the US, there are some in Europe, that are starting to appear, there are some in Asia.

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Where, at this moment, are being more kind of like, coffee-shop conversations, a small group.

339
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But they are starting to appear, because there is a concern.

340
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Now, at the same time, is it a concern to say, hey, we should stop doing what we're doing and not do it anymore?

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I don't think so, because the benefits are so much.

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And at so many levels, that I think this is something that is more education, like drugs.

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Everybody knows that drugs are bad, but there are people who are still taking drugs.

344
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Well, that's their own responsibility to make that decision, so-

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Interviewer: But I think in every science, and every development, there is-

346
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Carolina Cruz-neira: There is always something like that.

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Interviewer: Should we do this or not?

348
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Carolina Cruz-neira: But on the other hand, it's also good.

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Because we also have done some work related to stress and depression. And again, creating this alternative reality.

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That for a short period of time, you become, again, some person, whatever is your fantasy.

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A very famous singer, a very wealthy person, a famous explorer going somewhere. A lobster, whatever your fantasy is.

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Just fifteen minutes' exposure to that type of alternate reality significantly decreases stress levels and depressions.

353
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And that has been demonstrated, by not only my group and other groups. That we have [CROSSTALK]

354
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Interviewer: [CROSSTALK] because I would like to.

355
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Of course, there is a discussion of ethics, and that's in every science.

356
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But, since the discussion will be there, or come, anywhere.

357
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But if we explore the path of development into virtual reality.

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It seems to me, that in the future, you can have more identity than only your own real identity.

359
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So you've become, and it's not about ethics or something, but How will that look like?

360
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Suppose its 2050 and we have more then our own real identity.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: Well we have that today. I mean look at what people are doing in Facebook. Is it you in Facebook?

362
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Its not really you, I mean, you are the one doing the postings but you're, in a sense,

363
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maybe exaggerating some of your postings. Not necessarily lying, but embellishing the situation.

364
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We already, to some extent, are using some technologies that are giving us multiple personalities

365
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or multiple identities.

366
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You see a lot of discussions on how people represent themselves in chatrooms, and in Twitter,

367
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and some other things like that.

368
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So, I think at that level, of course with virtual reality is much more powerful because it's not just you're,

369
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let's say posting a picture and say, look, big deal about this.

370
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But it's actually living that experience that you're actually creating or something like that.

371
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So I don't know, personally, that's something that doesn't worry me too much because,

372
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again the benefits are really what I'm focused on.

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Interviewer: So it's not about race, not at all. It's more like, I try to have an image of how future will look like.

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Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't know.

375
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Interviewer: Me having other identity. I'm curious.

376
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Carolina Cruz-neira: We might be, in many ways, maybe happier than healthier because as we're getting older,

377
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for example, we don't have as much energy as we used to have.

378
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But one of my entities can be a very energetic woman that kinda still go and dance in pointe shoes.

379
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Which I haven't danced in over 30 years now, but I can still virtually maybe do that.

380
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Maybe your other identity is that you used to go and swim ten kilometers or something across some strait somewhere

381
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and you cannot do that right now but that virtual reality might allow you to do it. So I think it's-

382
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Interviewer: What will that do to us if we have those choices in virtual reality? [CROSSTALK]

383
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Carolina Cruz-neira: We're also gonna have, life is gonna change to because again, some of the virtual reality helps,

384
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like any other again, new technology too, I think the way we work is gonna change. So as we are all having more.

385
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Right now, we're in a strange, in my opinion, transition technology era.

386
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Where we are having a lot of technologies that make our jobs easier. But at the same time, they're giving us more work.

387
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Like, for example, email. Email has facilitated communications tremendously. But at the same time.

388
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Our community in so we can never clear that inbox queue.

389
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We're always busy trying to clear our email, so we communicate so much now that it's keeping us busier, but again,

390
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looking into the future, many of these things get resolved

391
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and that translates into us having other time that we can use for more quality time or something else.

392
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So I think maybe in the future virtual reality is gonna help us to do our normal everyday work life easier in some ways.

393
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Like we have worked with companies for example that in the last ten years,

394
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their timeframe from the concept of a product to the product being in the market was in between seven

395
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and nine years period.

396
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With the introduction of virtual reality, doing virtual testing, the virtual prototyping,

397
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bringing customers from the virtual status of the [INAUDIBLE] and all that,

398
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their cycle now has reduced to about two years.

399
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That has released a lot of the people in that company a tremendous amount of work that they can use for something else.

400
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I don't know, it's hard to imagine a future, but at the same time,

401
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I think it could potentially be a more relaxed future, maybe a happier future, because again,

402
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it's a few minutes of escaping being, doing. You know, I love the ocean. And we don't live by the ocean.

403
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We live in the middle of Arkansas right now.

404
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So it would be great if I could spend 30 minutes every day sitting by the ocean and feeling the breeze,

405
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that alone just, I'll be happy for the rest of the afternoon,

406
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or something like that versus kind of here like it's hot and humid.

407
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It's been six months since I've seen the ocean or something like that. I don't know. I think.

408
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Interviewer: Do you still have to do things when you have virtual

409
00:36:47,11 --> 00:36:51,86
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, of course. Of course because-

410
00:36:51,86 --> 00:36:55,87
Interviewer: What is left? What do you have to do yourself?

411
00:36:55,87 --> 00:37:04,05
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, same as what you do in life. I mean, the virtual reality is not a passive reality.

412
00:37:04,05 --> 00:37:12,5
It's an active reality, so in real life you don't sit on a chair and stare at the ceiling.

413
00:37:12,5 --> 00:37:18,84
[LAUGH] You have to do things. You have to open a can of Coke. You have to turn on the lights.

414
00:37:19,54 --> 00:37:24,71
You have to look out the window. You have to do something.

415
00:37:24,71 --> 00:37:28,99
Interviewer: What if you live in a virtual world, maybe you neglect your self? I don't know.

416
00:37:28,99 --> 00:37:29,64
Carolina Cruz-neira: No.

417
00:37:29,64 --> 00:37:31,13
Interviewer: You can get to drink or

418
00:37:31,13 --> 00:37:37,79
Carolina Cruz-neira: No, you mean neglect your physical needs. Yes. That's a good point yes.

419
00:37:38,02 --> 00:37:42,91
You might, I don't know, it would be, I don't think anybody has done any studies on that

420
00:37:42,91 --> 00:37:50,57
but I'm assuming the physical part of your body, the sensation of being hungry or thirsty

421
00:37:50,58 --> 00:37:55,17
or wanting to go to the restroom or something that would probably is still kicking.

422
00:37:55,17 --> 00:38:05,62
I mean, I don't think that virtual reality will override some of our basic survival instincts, or something like that.

423
00:38:06,05 --> 00:38:08,89
I will surprised if that happens.

424
00:38:09,4 --> 00:38:15,51
We talk about sensory substitution, but I don't think that you can do a virtual space is so real

425
00:38:15,51 --> 00:38:19,21
and so exciting that you don't feel hungry or something like that.

426
00:38:19,21 --> 00:38:22,8
Interviewer: But you can imagine that you have another reality that you go to a restaurant and you eat a lot of food

427
00:38:22,8 --> 00:38:24,13
and not get fat.

428
00:38:24,13 --> 00:38:35,93
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah I don't know, but I still there is the there are.

429
00:38:35,93 --> 00:38:38,01
Interviewer: But it's possible will have right?

430
00:38:38,01 --> 00:38:40,16
Carolina Cruz-neira: There are groups that are actually developing

431
00:38:40,16 --> 00:38:40,75
Interviewer: Okay.

432
00:38:40,75 --> 00:38:44,27
Carolina Cruz-neira: Virtual taste and virtual smells you know?

433
00:38:44,27 --> 00:38:51,58
So potentially yes or potentially you might beyond the virtual environment and just have virtual tastes of the food

434
00:38:51,59 --> 00:38:53,02
and actually not be eating anything.

435
00:38:53,77 --> 00:38:59,78
But I still think that there is some primordial, basic survival instincts that sooner

436
00:38:59,79 --> 00:39:05,00
or later your stomach is gonna be like, okay, this virtual taste is delicious

437
00:39:05,01 --> 00:39:07,87
but my tummy still has not received anything [LAUGH]

438
00:39:07,87 --> 00:39:13,2
Interviewer: What's the difference then between our own reality, virtual reality, and our instincts?

439
00:39:13,53 --> 00:39:17,2
What's the difference? Why can't wait fake our instincts?

440
00:39:17,2 --> 00:39:22,61
Carolina Cruz-neira: I think that we can fake a lot.

441
00:39:22,73 --> 00:39:30,41
Like I told you, we get people that will not walk off a balcony In the virtual environment.

442
00:39:30,61 --> 00:39:34,31
So that's a survival instinct that the virtual environment actually figures.

443
00:39:34,31 --> 00:39:34,67
Interviewer: But that's one we can't get used to because we know we can really fall down.

444
00:39:34,69 --> 00:39:38,49
So it's just a trick and if you know the trick Then you can walk

445
00:39:38,49 --> 00:39:48,87
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well I can, it depends on how real is real, the virtual world because we can make you fall down

446
00:39:48,88 --> 00:39:53,74
and we can hit you pretty hard if we can put you in a motion platform

447
00:39:53,75 --> 00:39:59,11
or put you in some kind of Device that actually makes you feel the fall and actually hurt yourself,

448
00:39:59,37 --> 00:40:05,43
if we wanna go to that level. So, in my lab we don't do that right now, [LAUGH] you know?

449
00:40:06,37 --> 00:40:08,55
But in previous locations that I was before,

450
00:40:08,8 --> 00:40:19,88
we actually had robotic type of systems that were around your body that as you were interacting in the virtual space,

451
00:40:20,1 --> 00:40:24,48
the robotics were giving you physical feedback of the world, you know so.

452
00:40:24,48 --> 00:40:27,38
Interviewer: Physical feed back. That's nicely said.

453
00:40:27,38 --> 00:40:33,34
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, yeah so you could actually touch a virtual object and feel, or you could grab something

454
00:40:33,35 --> 00:40:39,63
and feel the weight of that virtual object. Again, depending on how real is real, you can actually make it happen.

455
00:40:39,83 --> 00:40:47,11
But assuming, again, with the technology that we have today you know there are some instincts that again we trigger.

456
00:40:47,23 --> 00:40:53,59
We don't necessarily intentionally do it when we build the worlds, but we observe that

457
00:40:53,6 --> 00:40:57,24
when we have people testing our spaces, you know.

458
00:40:57,33 --> 00:41:05,29
So sometimes we don't realize something and then when we have people in our virtual spaces we notice things

459
00:41:05,3 --> 00:41:07,69
and we're like whoa, we didn't think about that one, you know?

460
00:41:08,24 --> 00:41:12,81
Because, like I said earlier, there's a lot of things we don't know yet,

461
00:41:12,81 --> 00:41:20,01
we don't understand yet what this technology really does to our head.

462
00:41:20,01 --> 00:41:22,68
Interviewer: Of course that's what interests me.

463
00:41:22,68 --> 00:41:23,35
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

464
00:41:23,35 --> 00:41:34,49
Interviewer: Because we try to explore the borders of science and what's there in the future waiting for us.

465
00:41:34,82 --> 00:41:42,7
And if you, if you continue the way it does like this with the development of virtual reality,

466
00:41:42,7 --> 00:41:51,58
you can imagine that we have realities which are so real, where you can live in

467
00:41:51,58 --> 00:41:56,54
or you can create a new identity for yourself. It kind of makes of reality. What is still real and what is not?

468
00:41:56,74 --> 00:41:59,6
So at some point virtual reality becomes real reality.

469
00:41:59,6 --> 00:42:11,75
Carolina Cruz-neira: And they might become, for you or for me or for other people,

470
00:42:12,27 --> 00:42:15,97
the reality that you prefer to be versus the real reality.

471
00:42:16,47 --> 00:42:19,5
And as you know, that has been around in science fiction for a long time.

472
00:42:19,88 --> 00:42:20,53
There are,

473
00:42:21,03 --> 00:42:30,38
for example Asimov has a few novels where it's a society in which humans don't wanna have face-to-face contact anymore

474
00:42:30,39 --> 00:42:33,34
because they prefer the virtual contact.

475
00:42:33,61 --> 00:42:39,41
It's to them almost a physical contact, almost repulsive, they don't wanna do that anymore.

476
00:42:39,92 --> 00:42:51,27
So certainly, like I said earlier, if we want to think on the pessimistic extreme side of things,

477
00:42:51,47 --> 00:42:52,88
maybe we can go that way.

478
00:42:52,88 --> 00:42:54,22
Interviewer: Or optimistic.

479
00:42:54,22 --> 00:43:01,67
Carolina Cruz-neira: On a positive way, hey, if your virtual reality makes you a better person,

480
00:43:01,95 --> 00:43:11,36
makes you enjoy your life better, then what's the big deal about it? I don't know.

481
00:43:11,36 --> 00:43:12,03
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

482
00:43:12,03 --> 00:43:24,08
Interviewer: I have another, I have a virtual identity which I like and I created that identity myself, right?

483
00:43:24,08 --> 00:43:28,42
Is it logical to think that any virtual identity I create myself,

484
00:43:28,42 --> 00:43:36,08
or is it also possible that my identity will be influenced by other elements or other people? Do we have control?

485
00:43:36,08 --> 00:43:43,92
Carolina Cruz-neira: I think-

486
00:43:43,92 --> 00:43:46,59
Interviewer: You know about my virtual identity.

487
00:43:46,59 --> 00:43:51,35
Carolina Cruz-neira: My personal opinion is probably yes, because, again,

488
00:43:51,35 --> 00:43:55,62
it's an identity that you are creating digitally in a computer.

489
00:43:55,99 --> 00:44:03,61
So you can decide how much you let others to influence your identity versus you have full control of your identity.

490
00:44:03,99 --> 00:44:08,48
Again, at a very simplistic level, look at people doing social media.

491
00:44:08,7 --> 00:44:15,23
Some of us share everything with entire world and we let the world sort of, in a sense,

492
00:44:15,45 --> 00:44:21,2
influence how we appear to the world in our social media

493
00:44:21,24 --> 00:44:27,32
and some of us have a lot of restrictions where we have a very limited group of people that can influence our

494
00:44:27,55 --> 00:44:28,34
conversations

495
00:44:28,94 --> 00:44:34,35
and in that way maybe we don't necessarily are informed of everything else that happens because we didn't do it.

496
00:44:34,57 --> 00:44:43,41
So that's a simplistic level but again, it's a digital reality, so you can define,

497
00:44:45,08 --> 00:44:53,39
in the future you could say I want to be a virtual hermit, so my reality is mine and mine alone

498
00:44:53,83 --> 00:45:06,36
and I just don't want anybody else to distort it to some extent or you know, hey I have a really cool reality

499
00:45:06,37 --> 00:45:13,22
and I want to share that with my friends or with the rest of the world and let us see where this goes.

500
00:45:14,63 --> 00:45:19,39
I let other people evolve it with me and see where this takes us.

501
00:45:19,39 --> 00:45:27,73
Because I think everything at this moment is an open possibility again mediated by.

502
00:45:27,73 --> 00:45:28,38
Interviewer: Sorry.

503
00:45:28,38 --> 00:45:35,87
Carolina Cruz-neira: Again, thinking as an engineer mediated by how we build the tools and the systems

504
00:45:35,88 --> 00:45:41,49
and the platforms and all those kinds of things to make these things happen because today is not possible.

505
00:45:43,03 --> 00:45:50,87
And normal, let's say an average person that is not at the level of technology that we have

506
00:45:50,88 --> 00:45:54,86
and other people around the world has, they cannot do that right now.

507
00:45:57,18 --> 00:46:02,68
It's not very easy to create these realities right now. You have to have a certain training to be able to do it.

508
00:46:02,74 --> 00:46:09,37
But you know that it will be possible in the future? In a very far future, yes.

509
00:46:09,37 --> 00:46:13,74
Interviewer: So now everybody has a computer but there were days that people thought well,

510
00:46:13,74 --> 00:46:16,48
computers are only for experts, or for companies.

511
00:46:16,48 --> 00:46:17,3
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well,

512
00:46:17,84 --> 00:46:21,86
if I can digress for a moment I'm gonna talk about a little bit about what you're mentioning right now,

513
00:46:21,93 --> 00:46:28,2
because that something that right now is a very big concern of mine. A personal concern that I have.

514
00:46:28,2 --> 00:46:28,74
Interviewer: What is?

515
00:46:28,74 --> 00:46:32,69
Carolina Cruz-neira: Which is, the fact that many people today,

516
00:46:32,69 --> 00:46:42,34
they think they are virtual reality developer experts because everybody today, as you say,

517
00:46:42,6 --> 00:46:47,64
has a computer because gaming industry has proliferated very quickly.

518
00:46:48,13 --> 00:46:55,62
Everybody has a fairly good computer at home that can do pretty good graphics, pretty good animations

519
00:46:55,62 --> 00:46:58,92
and those kinds of things.

520
00:46:59,69 --> 00:47:03,73
So there are some tools out there that are open source,

521
00:47:03,97 --> 00:47:09,48
or free licence tools that people can get their hands on pretty easily.

522
00:47:10,63 --> 00:47:19,2
And now suddenly we're seeing all these virtual reality experts popping up everywhere because they think that because

523
00:47:19,21 --> 00:47:27,25
they grabbed the tool, they do a few pretty 3D models and they put it on Google Cardboard for example.

524
00:47:27,49 --> 00:47:31,35
Suddenly, [SOUND] I'm the big virtual reality expert, well.

525
00:47:31,99 --> 00:47:37,25
I, this is something that is a frustration of mine because this is not.

526
00:47:37,25 --> 00:47:38,23
Interviewer: Is it hard for the development?

527
00:47:38,23 --> 00:47:40,49
Carolina Cruz-neira: There is many other things behind that.

528
00:47:40,8 --> 00:47:47,45
Because you guys are producing a documentary, so you know that everybody nowadays can get a digital camera.

529
00:47:48,25 --> 00:47:52,96
But am I gonna produce a documentary at the level of quality that you're gonna do it? No.

530
00:47:53,27 --> 00:47:57,57
Because the further I can get a camera and I shoot off somebody's face

531
00:47:57,57 --> 00:48:02,61
and hold it still that doesn't make me a good director.

532
00:48:02,85 --> 00:48:08,31
Because there is all the lights, there is the questions that you are making me and the experience that we all have.

533
00:48:09,25 --> 00:48:16,00
The same thing happens in virtual reality. Yeah you can get it too. But do you know what your technical parameters are?

534
00:48:16,00 --> 00:48:19,00
Interviewer: Is it necessary that these developments also have

535
00:48:19,00 --> 00:48:22,5
Carolina Cruz-neira: Absolutely,

536
00:48:22,77 --> 00:48:31,72
for example if you generate a world there is a certain speed at which that world needs to be presented to the user.

537
00:48:31,95 --> 00:48:37,09
Otherwise the user plain and simple is going to get really, really, really sick right off the bat.

538
00:48:38,19 --> 00:48:45,7
Now many, many people don't understand that, they just start putting 3D worlds in their 3D models and all that.

539
00:48:45,89 --> 00:48:49,35
They have a horrible performance. They are not even synchronized.

540
00:48:49,71 --> 00:48:51,44
One eye is going this way, the other eye is going the other way.

541
00:48:51,78 --> 00:48:52,11
[LAUGH]

542
00:48:53,97 --> 00:49:01,37
And my issue is that those kinds of applications sometimes aren't the first virtual reality experience for many people.

543
00:49:02,01 --> 00:49:10,83
And we're starting to see more and more people coming in our laboratory saying, no, no, I don't wanna try a thing here.

544
00:49:10,95 --> 00:49:16,44
I already tried virtual reality and it made me very, very sick. So there's this immediate rejection.

545
00:49:16,88 --> 00:49:22,91
And I'm, well I'm not a high school kid that just got my hands on some free license something

546
00:49:22,92 --> 00:49:25,51
and just slapped together a pretty model.

547
00:49:25,92 --> 00:49:35,71
We have been doing this very scientifically, very consciously with all the right approach and constraints and years

548
00:49:35,72 --> 00:49:39,78
and years of experience. So please try it. No, no, no, no, no.

549
00:49:40,14 --> 00:49:43,54
And that is unfortunately happening more and more and more.

550
00:49:43,54 --> 00:49:47,62
And all these sort of things that we've been talking about, when they'll happen.

551
00:49:48,33 --> 00:49:54,53
If this other thing continues proliferate, because if the experience that the people have are negative experiences,

552
00:49:54,91 --> 00:49:58,28
there's going to be rejection. And that happened back in the 90's.

553
00:49:58,28 --> 00:50:01,17
Interviewer: So can you tell me again what time are living in?

554
00:50:01,17 --> 00:50:01,84
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes!

555
00:50:02,29 --> 00:50:08,86
So I was mentioning to you that I do talk a lot around the world about what I do

556
00:50:08,87 --> 00:50:13,82
and also my vision of what I think virtual reality is gonna go.

557
00:50:14,18 --> 00:50:21,3
And I am pretty convinced that we're living in one of those human history changing times, you know?

558
00:50:21,3 --> 00:50:24,81
That right now we don't see it because we're living it.

559
00:50:24,81 --> 00:50:30,52
But I think generations into the future, maybe 200 years from now, 300 years from now,

560
00:50:30,89 --> 00:50:36,34
people might be referring to this time as the virtual reality revolution like the industrial revolution

561
00:50:36,34 --> 00:50:37,34
and information revolution.

562
00:50:39,8 --> 00:50:46,82
I think, we're at a point that what we are doing I think is going to change our world as we know it.

563
00:50:46,82 --> 00:50:53,17
It's going to change how we live as humans and how we identify ourselves as humans.

564
00:50:53,97 --> 00:50:56,11
And of course we don't know it because we're living here right now.

565
00:50:56,27 --> 00:51:02,89
But again, I'm pretty convinced that we won't see it, but in a few 100 years or no we'll be in the textbooks and say,

566
00:51:03,14 --> 00:51:12,22
the 2015's, the 2020's was the peak of the virtual reality revolution where all this was happening.

567
00:51:13,65 --> 00:51:18,37
It's hard like always to imagine how the future is going to look like but again is, I think is

568
00:51:18,37 --> 00:51:19,61
Interviewer: Can you give it a try to for me?

569
00:51:19,61 --> 00:51:21,35
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] I can give it try.

570
00:51:21,35 --> 00:51:23,35
Interviewer: So suppose in 200 years, there you are.

571
00:51:23,35 --> 00:51:25,43
Carolina Cruz-neira: There we are. I think.

572
00:51:25,43 --> 00:51:27,39
Interviewer: What are you doing?

573
00:51:27,39 --> 00:51:33,94
Carolina Cruz-neira: I'm doing a lot of things. I mean right now there's a lot of things that I cannot do.

574
00:51:34,27 --> 00:51:37,94
Either because of physical limitations.

575
00:51:37,94 --> 00:51:38,77
Interviewer: I mean that suppose

576
00:51:38,77 --> 00:51:39,27
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yep.

577
00:51:39,27 --> 00:51:40,78
Interviewer: In 200 years what are you doing?

578
00:51:40,78 --> 00:51:42,11
Carolina Cruz-neira: What am I be doing?

579
00:51:42,26 --> 00:51:47,38
Well you know I will be right now and saying it's super hot at this particular moment.

580
00:51:47,86 --> 00:51:55,14
And I really want to go to the beach. So, I'll see you there in five seconds. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to the beach.

581
00:51:55,32 --> 00:52:00,32
I'm gonna get the cool breeze of the ocean. I'm gonna smell the beautiful, salty air.

582
00:52:00,96 --> 00:52:07,42
And I'm gonna forget about all this fogginess and humidity of July in Arkansas, for whatever time I'm in there.

583
00:52:09,14 --> 00:52:13,56
My child might decide that he wants to go to some amusement park,

584
00:52:13,95 --> 00:52:22,01
but I don't have the time to physically take him there or maybe we don't have the finances to go there.

585
00:52:22,01 --> 00:52:29,00
But my son might say, okay, mommy, I'm just gonna go and visit this amusement park for the next two hours,

586
00:52:29,00 --> 00:52:32,98
so don't bother me. [LAUGH] So I think that's an example.

587
00:52:33,27 --> 00:52:38,91
Or my car just broke down and I have no idea how to fix this car.

588
00:52:39,11 --> 00:52:46,02
But I'm just gonna go into some reality that is just gonna somehow help me fix that car and get it better.

589
00:52:46,41 --> 00:52:51,4
Or since I cannot go with my real car, then I'm gonna go into some virtual reality

590
00:52:51,4 --> 00:52:56,88
but I'm gonna go what I was gonna go, but I cannot go. So I think that it's gonna be.

591
00:52:56,88 --> 00:53:05,66
Carolina Cruz-neira: I tend to tell people what we can do with virtual reality we're limited somebody's imaginations.

592
00:53:06,27 --> 00:53:10,07
And I think right now our imagination is still very constrained by real life.

593
00:53:10,46 --> 00:53:18,74
So it's very hard to imagine a world that is not physically constrained. And it might not be my generation.

594
00:53:18,74 --> 00:53:27,13
It might be the next generation after us that actually has a much more free mind to imagine,

595
00:53:27,39 --> 00:53:31,33
because I think right now we're so tangled on developing the technology,

596
00:53:31,66 --> 00:53:35,2
that we have not freed up our minds yet of what this thing really can do.

597
00:53:35,39 --> 00:53:42,97
But again the ability to go there, whatever that there is, it just opens.

598
00:53:43,57 --> 00:53:49,51
Again, a time in human history that is completely different from everything else that we have right now.

599
00:53:49,51 --> 00:53:50,7
Interviewer: That sounds very exciting.

600
00:53:50,7 --> 00:53:55,52
Carolina Cruz-neira: To me it's very exciting. Here I am. I've been doing this since I was a younger student.

601
00:53:56,03 --> 00:53:59,17
And people say hey don't you get bored? And I'm like no.

602
00:53:59,17 --> 00:54:06,13
As a difference for example lets say, with maybe a biologist that spends his

603
00:54:06,14 --> 00:54:11,06
or her entire career looking for a particular drug to cure a disease.

604
00:54:11,94 --> 00:54:21,65
I had to spend my entire life in 100s, 1,000s of different realities, experiences, worlds.

605
00:54:21,72 --> 00:54:26,44
I have seen things that I have never seen before. I've been in places that I can not be otherwise.

606
00:54:26,61 --> 00:54:29,64
I've been in 15th century India for example

607
00:54:29,65 --> 00:54:35,75
and I have participated in some religious ritual that doesn't happen any more in real life.

608
00:54:36,02 --> 00:54:42,00
We have been into the future and trying to figure out how life in Mars is going to be.

609
00:54:42,73 --> 00:54:44,45
I have traveled through galaxies.

610
00:54:45,16 --> 00:54:50,18
I had gone down inside a plant cell and I actually travelled inside a water molecule

611
00:54:50,19 --> 00:54:53,56
and see photosynthesis from the inside. Do I get bored?

612
00:54:53,56 --> 00:55:02,3
No, I don't because I live many, many lives and I've experienced worlds that don't exist, in a way.

613
00:55:02,62 --> 00:55:06,66
And I experience worlds that exist. But I can not physically experience them.

614
00:55:07,09 --> 00:55:16,09
So to me, is really cool, is really exciting. Like I said, what are we gonna do 100 years from now, 200 years from now?

615
00:55:16,53 --> 00:55:17,12
I don't know.

616
00:55:17,41 --> 00:55:22,73
I mean, it's hard to imagine because again, could you imagine riding a water molecule

617
00:55:22,74 --> 00:55:24,97
and follow the water molecule inside a plant cell.

618
00:55:25,64 --> 00:55:31,28
You couldn't imagine that, well we've done it and we done that routine in our lab for example.

619
00:55:31,82 --> 00:55:44,48
So, how to see beyond that is, sometimes it feels like having broken my iron chains here yet. But we're trying. [LAUGH]

620
00:55:44,48 --> 00:55:49,14
Interviewer: Well, that's a promising thought that we now. Learn the techniques.

621
00:55:49,48 --> 00:55:54,47
But we don't accidentally use our imagination of what's possible with those new techniques.

622
00:55:54,47 --> 00:56:06,98
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah and to me that's what's exciting to see the little ones.

623
00:56:06,98 --> 00:56:19,19
I have a six year old son and to me sometimes watching him in virtual reality opens my own mind sometimes.

624
00:56:19,54 --> 00:56:23,83
Because his mind is not constrained as my mind is.

625
00:56:24,92 --> 00:56:26,98
Because we have, right now,

626
00:56:27,1 --> 00:56:33,34
I think we have four generations concurrently living as it relates not only to virtual reality,

627
00:56:33,58 --> 00:56:35,25
but to technology in general.

628
00:56:35,72 --> 00:56:40,93
And again it's a unique time in history because all the issues related to health

629
00:56:40,94 --> 00:56:44,43
and quality of life have been are the best in human history,

630
00:56:44,66 --> 00:56:50,41
so now we have people that are living well into their 80s and 90s having a perfectly functional life.

631
00:56:50,69 --> 00:57:06,67
So we have elderly people that have been their entire life without technology, and now in their '60s, '70s,,

632
00:56:59,7 --> 00:57:06,67
'80s are facing technology.,

633
00:57:02,45 --> 00:57:09,8
So when you put those people in virtual reality [LAUGH] my best way to describe it is just adorable.

634
00:57:10,34 --> 00:57:22,4
It's just adorable [LAUGH] because they're just like, they just sit there and they're like [LAUGH] and they just don't,

635
00:57:22,95 --> 00:57:28,22
they can not even comprehend what it is that they're looking at, they are very afraid of moving,

636
00:57:28,79 --> 00:57:32,51
they just kinda look around and they are like, thank you dear but that's it.

637
00:57:32,7 --> 00:57:41,39
Then you get people like us, the next sorta group of people where technology came when we were already professionals,

638
00:57:41,91 --> 00:57:48,52
very young professionals. So we have to develop our professional life with this technology around us.

639
00:57:48,86 --> 00:57:55,01
So I think we are the tinkers. Because we are the ones that were like, how this thing works.

640
00:57:56,44 --> 00:57:57,99
What can I do with this thing?

641
00:57:58,67 --> 00:58:09,7
So for us, the mystery is not so much on more of the vision of what this thing is gonna do for the life of the humans.

642
00:58:10,28 --> 00:58:15,02
For us, the mystery is, what's under the hood? And how this thing works.

643
00:58:15,55 --> 00:58:18,37
And that's really what my generation is really focused on.

644
00:58:18,93 --> 00:58:23,84
Then there's the next generation, which is the people that are now maybe in their 20s or so.

645
00:58:24,62 --> 00:58:32,16
And this technology came to them when they were kids, but older kids like teenagers or so.

646
00:58:32,73 --> 00:58:40,52
So for them it was like this I have it whatever. I'm texting, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

647
00:58:40,63 --> 00:58:48,56
It's cool, I can play video games, I can do this. So for them it's something that is a cool factor.

648
00:58:49,4 --> 00:58:53,16
And then you have the little ones that are being born into this, like my son.

649
00:58:53,32 --> 00:59:00,42
My son, because we are researchers, he's literally been in virtual reality since he was even,

650
00:59:00,74 --> 00:59:07,66
I have pictures of him in the little basket as a newborn inside a cave and things like that. For him, it's just

651
00:59:07,66 --> 00:59:12,67
Carolina Cruz-neira: It's just like a refrigerator, it's just there.

652
00:59:13,81 --> 00:59:18,84
So he doesn't wonder about it, he's not afraid of it.

653
00:59:19,44 --> 00:59:28,2
He's not curious about how it works, where he is curious is what happens in here.

654
00:59:28,2 --> 00:59:36,52
His perspective is he gets into a virtual environment and he just wants to do things in there.

655
00:59:37,21 --> 00:59:42,81
He doesn't think about how difficult it is or how uncomfortable the gear is.

656
00:59:43,52 --> 00:59:48,68
He is immediately mentally there and he just wants to be there.

657
00:59:49,26 --> 00:59:54,25
And then he started asking a lot of interesting questions because he wants to do things that he can not do.

658
00:59:55,1 --> 00:59:56,9
And for him, that doesn't have any logic.

659
00:59:57,19 --> 01:00:07,36
Because, again, he's mentally there, so he has, in his mind he has a concept of how this thing needs to respond to him,

660
01:00:07,53 --> 01:00:10,25
and its not responding to him, so sometimes he gets frustrated.

661
01:00:10,25 --> 01:00:12,45
Interviewer: He's the first one with limitations.

662
01:00:12,45 --> 01:00:17,63
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, because his mind is way beyond my mind.

663
01:00:19,38 --> 01:00:28,09
So when he sees my constraints implemented on the system, he gets frustrated, because he wants to really go a dare,

664
01:00:28,52 --> 01:00:34,05
but it's a dare that I don't understand it yet. Because I'm still busy looking under the hood.

665
01:00:34,7 --> 01:00:41,97
So I think for me, the fact that I think in our case, we're very fortunate, because he's the whole family.

666
01:00:42,22 --> 01:00:46,97
[LAUGH] Cuz my husband is part of the the same research that I do

667
01:00:46,97 --> 01:00:52,99
and now our son pretty much lives with us in the lab whenever he's not in school.

668
01:00:53,18 --> 01:00:57,2
So we have an interesting perspective on doing this.

669
01:00:57,3 --> 01:01:04,55
And in some cases like I said, he, our little son, sometimes opens our minds just because we see his frustrations,

670
01:01:04,55 --> 01:01:12,1
cuz he expects some things that are not happening. But we didn't even think about them.

671
01:01:12,59 --> 01:01:19,5
Because we were too busy tinkering. So this is, as he is getting a little older, I think it's gonna be.

672
01:01:20,22 --> 01:01:26,41
If he continues being interesting, because who knows what he's gonna develop [LAUGH] as he grows up.

673
01:01:26,41 --> 01:01:34,87
But I think it's gonna interesting to see his unrestricted mind, and I do mention earlier,

674
01:01:35,34 --> 01:01:42,1
he might develop different identities that I'm not thinking about, but he might decide that.

675
01:01:43,24 --> 01:01:45,75
We just got some recent equipment in our laboratory,

676
01:01:46,18 --> 01:01:52,01
and he mastered that equipment before any of our graduate students.

677
01:01:53,01 --> 01:01:58,21
And watching him using that particular equipment, it was absolutely amazing.

678
01:01:58,7 --> 01:02:09,23
The students got the technology, look around, and couldn't think of anything to do with it.

679
01:02:10,5 --> 01:02:19,33
He could have spent hours, days, doing things with it. And we were like, where did he learn to do that?

680
01:02:19,33 --> 01:02:24,75
It's amazing, it's just amazing to see that. So I think we have those different generations.

681
01:02:25,39 --> 01:02:30,36
And it's very very interesting because again, I have my other partners

682
01:02:30,83 --> 01:02:34,7
and watching them sometimes their reaction is the total opposite.

683
01:02:34,7 --> 01:02:38,65
They're more constrained, because they don't even wanna move.

684
01:02:39,11 --> 01:02:46,73
Because they fear they're gonna break something or they're not sure what to expect..

685
01:02:44,46 --> 01:02:50,06
Where then the little ones [SOUND] There's someone else that we don't even know [LAUGH] where they are.

686
01:02:50,51 --> 01:02:51,88
So that's amazing.

687
01:02:51,88 --> 01:02:57,16
Interviewer: Yeah, that sounds beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing him playing with the things.

688
01:02:57,47 --> 01:03:00,58
Well playing, it's not even playing. It's.

689
01:03:00,58 --> 01:03:02,14
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, it's.

690
01:03:02,14 --> 01:03:08,66
He travels with us sometimes when we do professional events and he actually he is in the booth doing demos

691
01:03:09,39 --> 01:03:17,13
and its really, really fun watching him explaining his interpretation of our work.

692
01:03:17,13 --> 01:03:26,13
It's just really amazing, because in most cases he just observes a little bit, what the grad students are doing

693
01:03:26,13 --> 01:03:30,39
and he just takes it to a complete different level immediately.

694
01:03:31,57 --> 01:03:39,02
I mean he doesn't even know how to read, but it's just again, his mind is somewhere else that I cannot go there.

695
01:03:39,02 --> 01:03:48,08
I'm too constrained with my own knowledge of the technology to let me go there. Where he doesn't care.

696
01:03:48,08 --> 01:03:50,74
Interviewer: Is he reading an old reality?

697
01:03:50,74 --> 01:03:52,41
Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't, what?

698
01:03:52,41 --> 01:03:54,41
Interviewer: Reading and alter reality.

699
01:03:54,41 --> 01:03:58,69
Carolina Cruz-neira: What do you mean by that?

700
01:03:58,69 --> 01:04:04,44
Interviewer: Well, he cannot even read and he doesn't even need to read to-

701
01:04:04,44 --> 01:04:08,93
Carolina Cruz-neira: No, He doesn't need, no, he just.

702
01:04:08,93 --> 01:04:15,82
Again he's, not only he, we talk about my son because I probably see him all the time, but

703
01:04:16,13 --> 01:04:20,92
when he brings his little friends to the lab sometime, it's the same thing.

704
01:04:21,25 --> 01:04:33,74
They all, they are little kindergartener's and they again, then they start doing things, manipulating the space.

705
01:04:33,87 --> 01:04:41,61
Creating their own worlds in there with a freedom that we don't have.

706
01:04:41,61 --> 01:04:46,78
And again, they don't know how to read, they don't know how to write yet. They're learning that in kindergarten.

707
01:04:47,57 --> 01:04:53,83
But it's not about that. It's about their mental understanding of the world or something.

708
01:04:55,21 --> 01:04:57,48
They grew up with TVs, with iPads, with all those things.

709
01:04:57,48 --> 01:05:04,37
So for them it's just as normal as a refrigerator in the house.

710
01:05:04,37 --> 01:05:08,71
Interviewer: Is that what he is developing in other children from his age?

711
01:05:09,04 --> 01:05:12,7
Can you call that like the minds of the universe?

712
01:05:12,7 --> 01:05:18,09
Carolina Cruz-neira: Certainly, it would be the mind of the universe for the future of course, because,

713
01:05:18,1 --> 01:05:27,61
I mean every generation has a new mind set on, not only technology, but just humanity and the world.

714
01:05:27,61 --> 01:05:30,46
So yeah, these are the new minds of the new universe.

715
01:05:31,21 --> 01:05:36,72
Because the new universe is not going to be on the, the universe as we know it today with the planets

716
01:05:36,73 --> 01:05:39,6
and the galaxies and all the beautiful formations.

717
01:05:39,6 --> 01:05:49,11
It's a completely limitless universe because it's going to come out of our imagination. So it's new minds, absolutely.

718
01:05:49,11 --> 01:05:52,38
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] What?

719
01:05:52,38 --> 01:05:58,02
Interviewer: I was thinking because it is beautiful, because our new universe is coming from our imagination.

720
01:05:58,02 --> 01:05:58,91
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes.

721
01:05:58,91 --> 01:06:00,7
Interviewer: That's what you said.

722
01:06:00,7 --> 01:06:07,81
Carolina Cruz-neira: That's what I said. The new universe, it doesn't have physical constraints.

723
01:06:08,82 --> 01:06:12,12
Because again, we can't create it in the computer.

724
01:06:14,52 --> 01:06:21,85
The real universe will still be there, and all the real problems like pollution, global warming, crime,

725
01:06:21,85 --> 01:06:30,08
socialist status, of course those are going to be there and that's outside my expertise to prepare the work for it,

726
01:06:30,18 --> 01:06:30,51
but.

727
01:06:30,51 --> 01:06:33,59
Interviewer: Since you are making it there your comment,

728
01:06:33,59 --> 01:06:37,59
that we won't recognize the virtual world anymore as a virtual one.

729
01:06:37,59 --> 01:06:40,97
Carolina Cruz-neira: We might get to the point. I think we will get to the point.

730
01:06:41,14 --> 01:06:45,6
Not in my generation, but we are getting to the point because again we go back to what I was.

731
01:06:45,6 --> 01:06:46,72
Interviewer: Which point?

732
01:06:46,72 --> 01:06:49,92
Carolina Cruz-neira: Were we don't know the difference between real and virtual.

733
01:06:50,15 --> 01:06:55,3
Because we go back to my earlier comment that is people that differentiate between virtual reality

734
01:06:55,31 --> 01:07:00,71
and augmented reality, and I don't, I think it's in a sense the same.

735
01:07:01,08 --> 01:07:08,99
Because the virtual reality and the computer with augmented reality, you can blend it into the real world.

736
01:07:10,83 --> 01:07:13,85
So that's really for me where the future is.

737
01:07:13,85 --> 01:07:20,43
Where virtual reality and augmented reality converge, because now your real reality

738
01:07:20,47 --> 01:07:27,77
and your virtual reality are intermingled and not different from each other.

739
01:07:29,04 --> 01:07:36,92
So again, we can be looking out that window and I'm looking at the river, but through augmented reality I might see,

740
01:07:36,93 --> 01:07:45,7
I don't know, some mythical dragon flying by instead of the birds. It's my reality.

741
01:07:46,56 --> 01:07:51,88
Because I want to see dragons flying around through my window. I still see the river.

742
01:07:52,04 --> 01:07:56,6
I still see the same things you see. I see the real trees. I see the barges coming down the river.

743
01:07:56,74 --> 01:07:59,58
But I have my dragons flying around. That's my reality.

744
01:07:59,58 --> 01:08:06,91
Interviewer: What is that? If we have a real identity, a physical identity, we have a virtual identity.

745
01:08:06,91 --> 01:08:14,24
What is the common thing we keep untouched? Is that the mind or is that instinct or what is it?

746
01:08:14,24 --> 01:08:18,57
What is it that which makes us, us with all our identities.

747
01:08:18,57 --> 01:08:34,68
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] I don't know, I think the definition of us again changes the history

748
01:08:37,6 --> 01:08:41,27
and again we are on that changing time in history so.

749
01:08:41,27 --> 01:08:43,27
Interviewer: What is the thing that's-

750
01:08:43,27 --> 01:08:46,32
Carolina Cruz-neira: What makes me? [LAUGH]

751
01:08:46,32 --> 01:08:50,31
Interviewer: And you with definite identities, but it's still you.

752
01:08:50,31 --> 01:09:03,67
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well I think what's gonna make me is based on whatever situation I wanna be me.

753
01:09:04,00 --> 01:09:10,22
I don't think, I might not be just one me. I might be multiple mes and that defines me. I don't know.

754
01:09:11,09 --> 01:09:18,8
The essence is my change of what we think as individuals, because again you can be different things.

755
01:09:19,13 --> 01:09:21,45
You can be in different places. You can

756
01:09:21,45 --> 01:09:26,78
Interviewer: But it's always one person or one me who chooses to go to different identities.

757
01:09:27,12 --> 01:09:31,45
What do you mean, that your me also develops different personalities?

758
01:09:31,45 --> 01:09:32,11
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes

759
01:09:32,11 --> 01:09:33,78
Interviewer: It becomes two?

760
01:09:33,78 --> 01:09:50,2
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] Yeah, again we might get into the realm of almost multiple personalities

761
01:09:50,21 --> 01:09:51,07
or something like that.

762
01:09:51,07 --> 01:10:03,48
But there is might be a dominant personality of dominant individual that I think perhaps a way to look at it is we

763
01:10:03,49 --> 01:10:09,34
might have a choice. Right now we don't have a choice, me is me, it's this one. Whether I like it or not this is.

764
01:10:09,34 --> 01:10:10,28
Interviewer: But you make the choice.

765
01:10:10,28 --> 01:10:11,56
Carolina Cruz-neira: This is the one.

766
01:10:11,56 --> 01:10:24,65
Interviewer: You make the choice. You make the choice of making the choice for all the personalities.

767
01:10:24,65 --> 01:10:24,68
But it's still you who makes the choice.

768
01:10:24,68 --> 01:10:24,69
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah.

769
01:10:24,69 --> 01:10:24,74
Interviewer: That's something which you could, like DNA or something.

770
01:10:24,74 --> 01:10:28,7
Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't think DNA works in virtual reality [LAUGHS] so I don't think so.

771
01:10:28,7 --> 01:10:30,15
I think it might be yes, maybe

772
01:10:30,15 --> 01:10:30,54
Interviewer: There's nothing unique then?

773
01:10:30,54 --> 01:10:34,29
Because if everybody thinks he was a all kinds of identities or personalities

774
01:10:34,29 --> 01:10:36,96
and then people will become like each other.

775
01:10:37,3 --> 01:10:41,97
And what's the difference between all these people with different identities and personalities,

776
01:10:41,97 --> 01:10:44,63
there must be something you can do.

777
01:10:44,63 --> 01:10:55,63
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah but I guess like I said [LAUGH] I think that there's probably gonna be that person,

778
01:10:55,63 --> 01:11:02,2
that,individual that maybe is the, I don't know,

779
01:11:02,2 --> 01:11:08,88
we end up having some supreme individual that is our main character that we decide.

780
01:11:09,39 --> 01:11:16,55
This is the boss of all my individual's representations and this is the one that makes all the decisions. I don't know.

781
01:11:16,63 --> 01:11:22,61
Like I said, to me, it's hard to envision that at this moment because there are again,

782
01:11:25,28 --> 01:11:29,36
I feel I'm a little bit constrained on what I know I can do.

783
01:11:29,36 --> 01:11:30,82
Interviewer: I would like to know

784
01:11:30,82 --> 01:11:31,3
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

785
01:11:31,3 --> 01:11:33,01
Interviewer: Which personality I can trust.

786
01:11:33,01 --> 01:11:39,65
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, but again I go back to what we have today, with the situations with social media.

787
01:11:40,63 --> 01:11:49,05
There are many, potentially many means out there because many of us maybe we have one social media persona,

788
01:11:49,74 --> 01:11:53,82
but there are people that have multiple social media personas in there and.

789
01:11:54,08 --> 01:12:02,36
And I might be talking to you on my social media persona when I'm some young teenager boy that goes surfing.

790
01:12:02,83 --> 01:12:08,05
And you have no way to know you're talking with a 50-something year-old woman.

791
01:12:08,85 --> 01:12:17,13
But behind all those personas I'm still me making that supreme me making the decision, okay, I have these multiple,

792
01:12:17,13 --> 01:12:17,75
I don't know.

793
01:12:17,75 --> 01:12:19,41
Interviewer: I would like to know what,

794
01:12:19,41 --> 01:12:22,72
Carolina Cruz-neira: There are times I may be very philosophical, and I'm not philosophical. [LAUGH]

795
01:12:22,72 --> 01:12:24,17
Interviewer: I'm not philosophical as well.

796
01:12:24,17 --> 01:12:28,1
I'd like think about it because if I cannot trust one of my identities, I get lost. You-.

797
01:12:28,1 --> 01:12:28,48
Carolina Cruz-neira: No.

798
01:12:28,48 --> 01:12:30,83
Interviewer: Would know what I mean, right?

799
01:12:30,83 --> 01:12:45,58
Carolina Cruz-neira: I know what you mean

800
01:12:45,59 --> 01:12:50,04
but I think you can trust your identities because you are building those identities.

801
01:12:50,35 --> 01:12:53,52
The problem is with the other people can trust your identities.

802
01:12:54,63 --> 01:12:58,62
You are building those identities so I don't see any issues in you

803
01:12:58,62 --> 01:13:03,9
or me trusting my identities because I'm defining those, I'm building those. I'm making those happening.

804
01:13:04,38 --> 01:13:10,67
So I don't seem to have any issues. Again, I can be a lobster and I totally trust myself as a lobster.

805
01:13:11,12 --> 01:13:17,63
Now, would you trust me as a lobster? That would be a big question.

806
01:13:18,22 --> 01:13:25,23
So I think it's more, and again, going back to the simple situation with social media, it's the same thing.

807
01:13:25,77 --> 01:13:29,86
Do you trust that person that you're meeting through social media?

808
01:13:29,86 --> 01:13:33,21
You don't, cuz you really don't know who that person is.

809
01:13:33,21 --> 01:13:40,72
You see what the postings are, what the blogs are, what the maybe fake pictures that person is putting in there.

810
01:13:40,99 --> 01:13:44,87
Not that person is trusting himself or herself because they are building that.

811
01:13:45,61 --> 01:13:54,42
The problem is not so much us, it's gonna be them, the others. And yes, there is again there is-

812
01:13:54,42 --> 01:13:58,42
Interviewer: How do you know if another virtual reality isn't real?

813
01:13:58,42 --> 01:14:03,07
Carolina Cruz-neira: We might reach a point where we don't.

814
01:14:03,23 --> 01:14:10,1
And again science fiction has already discussed this heavily in a lot of different books where you get into these

815
01:14:10,1 --> 01:14:12,07
alternate realities, these alternate universes.

816
01:14:13,05 --> 01:14:17,27
And you get to a point that you don't know which one is the real one anymore, and which one is a dream

817
01:14:17,28 --> 01:14:23,43
and which one is real. And potentially we can get into that direction again.

818
01:14:24,36 --> 01:14:32,56
Not in the very short-term, but in a very long-term, potentially we can go that way. When we get there, I don't know.

819
01:14:32,56 --> 01:14:38,3
We would probably, neither you or me will be alive by then. [LAUGH] At that time. But there is-

820
01:14:38,3 --> 01:14:40,24
Interviewer: How to create your identity was useful?

821
01:14:40,24 --> 01:14:44,73
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes, then maybe we can create some of us, some persona that stays,

822
01:14:45,15 --> 01:14:50,1
even though we are physically no longer here. And again that's a possibility. That's a completely feasible-

823
01:14:50,1 --> 01:14:53,61
Interviewer: What you're saying now? And this is the last question, because-

824
01:14:53,61 --> 01:14:59,38
Carolina Cruz-neira: I'm saying are we going to be immortal in virtual reality? Maybe we are. I don't know.

825
01:14:59,38 --> 01:15:05,17
Same as for robotics, people that are starting to develop robots that you can transfer your mind to the robot.

826
01:15:05,51 --> 01:15:08,52
So, our physical body might be gone

827
01:15:08,52 --> 01:15:15,87
but maybe many years from now we might continue living on through our robotic replica of ourselves. Who knows?

828
01:15:15,87 --> 01:15:25,74
So, all these things are out there for our imaginations to really explode, I guess. [LAUGH]

829
01:15:25,74 --> 01:15:27,75
Interviewer: It's up to your son.

830
01:15:27,75 --> 01:15:33,69
Carolina Cruz-neira: I think that it's gonna be a lot more people out there than my son trying to be your.

831
01:15:34,00 --> 01:15:38,77
[LAUGH] But again for us, for me it's just been fun.

832
01:15:38,77 --> 01:15:48,49
It's been an amazing career, I guess, or life or way of living that I have.

833
01:15:48,49 --> 01:15:52,56
And it was not chosen, some people choose their path. Mine was not chosen.

834
01:15:52,56 --> 01:15:57,12
Mine was totally random, I came from here and I'm from there and I'm from there,

835
01:15:57,21 --> 01:16:00,81
and I landed into this virtual reality thing without even knowing what I landed.

836
01:16:01,18 --> 01:16:07,22
And I just enjoy it tremendously, but it was not a planned path.

837
01:16:08,62 --> 01:16:15,98
Like I have some students that come with a very planned path to do this. It just happened, you know it's been fun.

838
01:16:17,89 --> 01:16:21,11
And it's fun to be able to open the door.

839
01:16:21,11 --> 01:16:29,38
Carolina Cruz-neira: And see what happens to the next generations that don't have those constraints,

840
01:16:29,38 --> 01:16:37,3
or their imaginations really can fly free. And that is when real progress is gonna happen.

841
01:16:37,92 --> 01:16:45,2
Right now, we're just starting. And we are, again, sometimes constrained from our own.

842
01:16:45,41 --> 01:16:49,28
Our own knowledge today constrains sometimes how we can think.

843
01:16:50,07 --> 01:16:55,82
And the new generations of that knowledge is a matter-of-fact. It's not a discovery anymore.

844
01:16:56,23 --> 01:17:00,84
Then they can take it to the next level. Some of us we live from the previous generations, from us,

845
01:17:00,84 --> 01:17:02,84
Interviewer: Clear, very clear.

846
01:17:02,84 --> 01:17:04,17
Carolina Cruz-neira: Very practical.

847
01:17:04,17 --> 01:17:05,51
Interviewer: [LAUGH] Yeah.

848
01:17:05,51 --> 01:17:10,82
Carolina Cruz-neira: I'm very practical. I'm not, like I said, I don't philosophize very much [LAUGH]

849
01:17:10,82 --> 01:17:13,41
Interviewer: Well, I like the way we philosophize about it very much, because,

850
01:17:13,41 --> 01:17:20,08
Interviewer: A list of people who watch this program also think about what, does it mean in the future?

851
01:17:20,41 --> 01:17:22,41
Or what could it mean?

852
01:17:22,41 --> 01:17:23,41
Or what,

853
01:17:23,41 --> 01:17:30,42
I think it's interesting to raise a lot of questions without answering them because we will know in the future.

854
01:17:30,42 --> 01:17:41,44
Carolina Cruz-neira: But I think that fundamentally,

855
01:17:42,03 --> 01:17:51,04
what makes virtual reality to me an exciting science is that there are no physical rules limiting what we can do.

856
01:17:51,23 --> 01:17:57,72
Again, if we go back to the example of a biologist or something like that that is trying to find a cure for a disease,

857
01:17:57,72 --> 01:18:03,92
his or her creativity Is bound by the laws of physics.

858
01:18:04,59 --> 01:18:13,81
No matter how many ideas they can have, at the end of the day, it has to have some sort of molecular bonding, protein,

859
01:18:13,81 --> 01:18:20,74
something, vitals whatever, DNA something. It has very clear rules of behavior.

860
01:18:21,35 --> 01:18:24,18
The nice thing about virtual reality is we don't have that.

861
01:18:25,55 --> 01:18:32,86
Like I said earlier, the limit is what we can imagine, what we can think. We have no physical constraints.

862
01:18:33,19 --> 01:18:38,71
The physical world does not constrain what we can do in the virtual reality.

863
01:18:38,71 --> 01:18:42,05
Interviewer: In what sense is what you do magic?

864
01:18:42,05 --> 01:18:50,58
Carolina Cruz-neira: Is magic because again I am not bound by the laws of physics, so I-

865
01:18:50,58 --> 01:18:51,9
Interviewer: Why is it magic? I don't understand.

866
01:18:51,9 --> 01:18:58,04
Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, it's magic because here if I wanna walk on the ceiling I can't.

867
01:18:58,54 --> 01:19:00,38
Because gravity's gonna make me fall.

868
01:19:01,68 --> 01:19:06,79
In virtual reality, nothing prevents me from starting walking out the wall and walking up the ceiling.

869
01:19:06,79 --> 01:19:09,73
Interviewer: So now, that is magic. But in the future, it's not magic anymore.

870
01:19:09,73 --> 01:19:11,97
Carolina Cruz-neira: It might be a matter of fact.

871
01:19:13,46 --> 01:19:20,35
It's magic because, for example I'm here with you right now, and in two seconds I can be in China.

872
01:19:20,35 --> 01:19:26,36
Carolina Cruz-neira: That's poof, magic, like you would put-

873
01:19:26,36 --> 01:19:28,03
Interviewer: Do [INAUDIBLE] understand that?

874
01:19:28,03 --> 01:19:31,24
Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't know, you can ask my father about it?

875
01:19:31,24 --> 01:19:34,26
[LAUGH] I think that they are starting more and more.

876
01:19:34,44 --> 01:19:41,97
When I started doing this many, many years ago they were very worried

877
01:19:41,98 --> 01:19:44,65
and skeptical that I was doing something that was worth anything.

878
01:19:44,95 --> 01:19:49,24
Because of course when I started, it was the tinker, the really tinkering time.

879
01:19:49,24 --> 01:19:54,47
So I was totally covered from head to toe in cables and hanging myself in a scaffolding

880
01:19:54,47 --> 01:19:57,19
and a screwdrivers on my hands all the time,

881
01:19:57,39 --> 01:20:03,37
so But I think over the years they've seen a lot of the experiences that we have built.

882
01:20:04,57 --> 01:20:14,51
They've seen how the work that I do has been spread out in a lot of industry, in a lot of different parts of society.

883
01:20:15,04 --> 01:20:29,19
And I think they to understand it better. Again, their perspective is always like, for them it's truly magic.

884
01:20:29,71 --> 01:20:36,36
I have no idea how you do this honey, but it looks great. [LAUGH] So for them it's truly, truly magic.

885
01:20:37,7 --> 01:20:44,93
For me, again, it's magic in the sense that you can just, in a split second be somewhere else.

886
01:20:45,3 --> 01:20:53,73
And again, that somewhere else could be real, a reconstruction of a real place, or a complete imagination place.

887
01:20:54,06 --> 01:21:04,88
And you can see sometimes again on the little ones, you can hear my son sometimes say, this is magic, I'm doing magic.

888
01:21:05,84 --> 01:21:11,68
Because he does something and presses a button or shakes his hand or something, and something else happens.

889
01:21:11,68 --> 01:21:24,03
That of course in real life is impossible to do. So it is magic, and it is magical because it just enchants people.

890
01:21:25,25 --> 01:21:28,8
When you got to Disney World, it's just the magical place.

891
01:21:29,99 --> 01:21:37,1
When people go to virtual reality, it's the same feeling is this enchantment like, this is very cool.

892
01:21:37,1 --> 01:21:37,25
This is very nice. It's fun.

893
01:21:37,25 --> 01:21:37,64
Interviewer: And suppose if we discontinue. Is it also possible that because now it's magic, but magic anymore.

894
01:21:37,67 --> 01:21:40,52
Is it possible that we create our own virtual-

895
01:21:40,52 --> 01:21:41,52
Interviewer: God?

896
01:21:41,52 --> 01:21:42,19
Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH]

897
01:21:42,19 --> 01:21:48,86
Interviewer: Will there always be something in us humans if we want to create some kind of creature control.

898
01:21:48,86 --> 01:22:21,35
Carolina Cruz-neira: Almighty being maybe, I'm not really religious, I don't know. But maybe.

899
01:22:22,00 --> 01:22:27,26
I mean it's all what everybody individually can believe.

900
01:22:29,3 --> 01:22:37,12
Like I say I don't believe that if I step on my virtual balcony, I'm going to fall down the cliff.

901
01:22:37,6 --> 01:22:41,97
There are many people that come and they cannot take that step.

902
01:22:41,97 --> 01:22:42,05
Interviewer: How far to the units together they create which nobody can see.

903
01:22:42,05 --> 01:22:42,11
But it's there because we believe that it's there.

904
01:22:42,11 --> 01:22:42,22
So it's all the virtual identities that also create something which they cannot see or touch what they believe in.

905
01:22:42,22 --> 01:23:11,75
Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't know. I think that I'm a bit skeptical about that because it's still digital.

906
01:23:11,75 --> 01:23:21,74
It's in the computer. [INAUDIBLE] I mean.

907
01:23:21,74 --> 01:23:21,95
Interviewer: What will be different between us in digital?

908
01:23:21,95 --> 01:23:23,41
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, I think for something like that-

909
01:23:23,41 --> 01:23:28,61
Carolina Cruz-neira: For something like that you're talking I think it might have to be.

910
01:23:29,14 --> 01:23:33,45
If you look in the history, every time there's a new religion or a new god or something.

911
01:23:33,92 --> 01:23:38,14
Something very drastic happening in human history that this new god appears.

912
01:23:38,14 --> 01:23:46,77
So it might be a possibility if again some massive drastic who knows what happens in human history.

913
01:23:47,07 --> 01:23:52,02
That the digital world supersedes the physical world in some manner.

914
01:23:52,28 --> 01:23:59,55
And then at that point maybe there should be maybe so me new groups of people that start creating this.

915
01:24:01,87 --> 01:24:04,65
Almighty being that is never seen or something.

916
01:24:04,9 --> 01:24:10,06
But I think with the world as we know it today, I don't see that happening.

917
01:24:10,06 --> 01:24:17,98
Unless again some major something happens to humanity. That they need to believe in something new.

918
01:24:18,67 --> 01:24:21,17
You look at the history of religion, that's really what happens.

919
01:24:21,17 --> 01:24:26,45
The new gods come out when something else happens and there is something else that people need to hold on to.

920
01:24:27,2 --> 01:24:31,57
As we are right now, I don't think that will happen. I mean-

921
01:24:31,57 --> 01:24:34,91
Interviewer: But you said something that, I remembered.

922
01:24:34,91 --> 01:24:42,24
Because I was just wondering, our reality right now, who says that is not a digital reality as well?

923
01:24:42,24 --> 01:24:53,34
Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes..

924
01:24:51,67 --> 01:24:53,01
Interviewer: Some virtual [INAUDIBLE]

925
01:24:53,34 --> 01:24:57,77
Carolina Cruz-neira: For all we know, we can be some computer that somebody else built.

926
01:24:57,92 --> 01:25:04,47
That we are just enjoying a little bit of battery life. Yes, yes of course, of course.

927
01:25:05,22 --> 01:25:11,58
And then we get into the argument, do you believe in a Christian God or do you believe in a Buddhist God?

928
01:25:11,83 --> 01:25:21,11
Or are you completely an atheist and all those kinds of things. I think that's more individual beliefs.

929
01:25:23,96 --> 01:25:26,64
My family is traditionally a Catholic family.

930
01:25:28,35 --> 01:25:34,96
So we, I guess, believe that we are humans and the reality

931
01:25:34,97 --> 01:25:41,34
and hopefully there will be some other reality on our next stage in life. [LAUGH]

932
01:25:41,34 --> 01:25:44,01
Interviewer: Is virtual reality able to believe?

933
01:25:44,01 --> 01:25:49,96
Carolina Cruz-neira: No, I don't have an answer for that. I have no idea.

934
01:25:50,45 --> 01:25:58,92
I think that again, it's gonna be a very, very individualized mindset for that. Same as all the religions.

935
01:25:59,18 --> 01:26:05,52
There are some traditions that are, to some people feel very crazy but that have a lot of followers.

936
01:26:06,17 --> 01:26:10,72
And some other religions, we are more comfortable, and we are the followers of something.

937
01:26:11,06 --> 01:26:15,91
I think that's just part of human life, part of humanity.

938
01:26:16,29 --> 01:26:19,7
Some of us believe in things, and some of us don't believe in things.

939
01:26:20,08 --> 01:26:26,57
I don't think we all collectively will believe just the one thing. Because that will never happen.

940
01:26:26,57 --> 01:26:31,11
You'll never have the entire world believing the same thing all together.

941
01:26:31,37 --> 01:26:40,63
So I think in virtual reality, it might develop some cults, sects, communities, parishes,

942
01:26:40,63 --> 01:26:47,91
whatever it is you want to call it. Maybe, I can't say most have religions.

943
01:26:48,34 --> 01:26:53,92
Sometimes you hear something on television, some preaching that happens.

944
01:26:54,59 --> 01:26:59,58
And you're like, I wonder how these people actually follow this.

945
01:27:00,2 --> 01:27:08,95
And then, sometimes you hear some others that go, this is really good..

946
01:27:04,02 --> 01:27:08,61
But, maybe somebody else thinks, Carolina, you're crazy. How you can believe in that? I don't know [LAUGH]

947
01:27:08,95 --> 01:27:12,62
Interviewer: We'll see. We'll wait for the future to happen.