Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Jacobson-VR-User-Conf

Text File | 1994-11-11 | 32KB | 490 lines

EPUB: Unrequited Desire and Virtual [e-mail]  -
sci.virtual-worlds  - Dec  7, 1993

Keynote for VR USERS CONFERENCE London, December 1, 1993

UNREQUITED DESIRE AND VIRTUAL WORLDS: TRANSFORMING THE PURSUIT OF THE
INEFFABLE

Dr. Robert Jacobson President and CEO, Worldesign Inc.*

It is a pleasure to come before this historic gathering of technologists and
designers, to give you your charge for this day and share with you my impression of
our field's prospects for the future. This is a moment we can rightfully savor, that
instant just before victory when we know we have run the course and the finish
line is in sight. Waiting on the other side of the ribbon is public acclaim for our
dedication and accomplishments, and the concomitant professional and financial
rewards.

Donning the wreath of olive leaves will bring changes. The champion is measured by
standards of excellence to which others need not adhere. In the instant before we
cross the line, perhaps we should consider the implications of our imminent success
and what will be expected of us.

With that thought in mind, this morning I would like to speak to the deeper
philosophical and spiritual themes that are an inescapable backdrop to the
technology that has the leading role at this conference. These themes  may seem
almost mystical, but in fact they complement the pragmatic Anglo-Saxon tradition
that finds expression here today and tomorrow.

If one keeps one's nose too closely pressed to the engineering or business
grindstone, one may miss the unfurling emotional drama surrounding virtual
worlds. When in late 1989 I arrived in Seattle to help Tom Furness found the HIT Lab
at the Washington Technology Center, my intent was to do serious research on the
design aspects of virtual worlds. I expected to spend my days peacefully learning
to craft virtual environments for generating desired experiences. My innocence
lasted precisely two weeks, until a Japanese television journalist knocked on our
door and started making metaphysical inquiries about something called "virtual
reality."  When our existence became public knowledge, the floodgates of public
curiosity and miracle-seeking opened wide. Quickly we instituted policies to
buffer our staff from interruptions -- impromptu in- person visits, phone calls,
faxes, email, you name it -- but the more we attempted to pass unnoticed, the
more mystery attached to our work, inciting even more the press's insatiable need
to know.

Four years later, the hysteria has abated but not the pursuit of a panacea. My days
are filled with telephone calls and visitors who want information about my firm's
work in "virtual reality" (this is not how we describe ourselves) and how these
individuals might become involved, to better themselves personally and the world.
These adventurers are touchingly nave. Their naivet, however, conceals an almost
desperate search for a modern-day Holy Grail: the key to a better social order,
technological supremacy, a way to make lots of money, electronic altered states,
or whatever theme currently dominates the individual's engagement with life.

Regrettably, the technology with which we work, while it is powerful, is not a
magic wand. When I reveal this, immediately there is a palpable bursting of the
psychic bubble -- I can hear it on the other end of the line or see it in their faces --
whose "Pop!" is loud enough to obscure the rest of my message, which is that we
can and will do remarkable things...just not the impossible!  Often, this isn't good
enough. I've wondered why for a long time and I think I have some answers which I
will share with you.

Before I go further, however, I must share with you my understanding of the
virtual world and its paradigmatic character, which differs considerably from my
conception of the oxymoron "virtual reality" and certain familiar assemblies of
technology -- data gloves, headsets, big computers, and so forth -- which are part
and parcel of virtual reality. For me, virtual worlds are larger constructs, the
spaces within our minds wherein we organize knowledge of our physical and social
environments. This virtual world can be represented using various devices of
communications, including novels, films, art, sculpture, photographs, dance, good
stories, and of course computer-generated imagery. Depending on how skillfully it
has been created, this representation resonates within those who partake of it,
providing them with memetic components with which to build virtual worlds of
their own. Computer-generated virtual worlds have the advantage of being able to
better approximate the spatial characteristics of data, including their apparent
location within the cognitive cosmos. By the turn of the century,
computer-generated virtual worlds will become the preferred tool for
communicating complex knowledge among human beings.

Virtual worlds are powerful internal systems of organization and understanding.
Well-done representations of virtual worlds can increase productivity, enhance
learning, and heighten enjoyment of experience. This is a fact:  for example, good
literature -- art that conveys well the artist's particular vision -- can change the
way we view things and live our lives. We might then use the degree of change in
our own virtual worlds to measure how effective are the representations created
by others.

Computer-generated virtual worlds are a subset of representations. For the
purposes of this presentation, hereafter when I use the term "virtual worlds," I
am referring only to our internalized virtual worlds and the computer- generated
versions with which we attempt to convey understanding.

We hypothesize that computer-generated virtual worlds are more effective in
most situations at conveying complex information than are other types of
representations, especially where spatialized knowledge is of the essence. This
hypothesis is about to be tested. The virtual worlds industry is poised to deliver.
Our tools improve everyday with a speed that would seem more impressive where
we not held to the impossible standards of the public's heightened expectations.
The applications that we will discuss today, tomorrow, and for days to come are
marvelous, especially when we realize that most of them were the stuff of science
fiction as recently as a decade ago. In fact, with due respect for the early work of
Krueger, Sutherland, Furness, and others who pioneered the technological concepts
with which we work, it was a mere five years ago that Jaron Lanier captured the
press and the popular imagination with his vision of a "virtual reality" capable of
transforming human existence.

Like all creative people, we tend to expand upon others' dreams. Most individuals
in our societies, because of law, economics, and religious doctrine, are constrained
in their ability to enjoy genuine wonder. Few persons, for example, have the
leisure and resources for extensive travel or resettlement in a foreign land. Other
experiences are taboo, off-limits, or unimaginable. In the United States, students
are not encouraged to employ the tools of critical awareness and reflection. The
nuances of experience and subtler aspects of life go unappreciated.

When "virtual reality" came along, allegedly promising the ability to experience
anything, anywhere and anytime, a public hungry not just for novelty but for
richer experience and even revelation identified "VR" with enlightenment and
hope. A few opportunistic, high-profile individuals on the periphery of our
community willfully advertised the coming availability of inexpressible delight.
Pandering to the sensation-seeking press, hyping "VR," they did considerable
damage to our field's reputation. Worse, they made us seem other than what we
are. We are toilers in the field of technology and communications. They made us
seem magicians.

Our technology, still inchoate, has thus become an object of communal fantasies.
Is education today a pitiful thing, in developed countries as much as in
undeveloped countries?  Perhaps virtual worlds can provide a solution:  the
self-educational environment sans teacher. Is it difficult for industry to
manufacture goods of sufficient quality and standards to adequately serve its
customers? Perhaps virtual worlds can provide a solution:  virtual prototyping that
vastly reduces human error. Does adequate medical care only exist in some parts of
the world, and then in a sadly disparate distribution?  Perhaps virtual worlds can
provide a solution: telesurgery and the virtual hospital that bring the best medical
experts into your own home. Are personal relations stressed by external events
leaving individuals incapable of discovering intimacy?  Perhaps virtual worlds can
provide a solution....

The truth is, we are tantalizing close to realizing some of these "solutions."  The
question is, what difference does it make?

Millenarianism at this late date is tempting, but we owe it to our fans and
supporters, and the generation of developers now in school, to avoid broad claims
and focus instead on the less expansive but necessary benefits that virtual worlds
will instill in various aspects of daily life. Like you, I foresee my work ultimately
playing a role (in some larger story) in making education more effective, industry
more competitive, and so forth. But for now, achieving the goal of a few workable
applications in commercial domains carefully selected for their hospitality is
enough to keep my company busy -- and probably yours, too.

This would be normal practice in most fields. Other researchers and developers are
working on equally dramatic scientific problems:  fusion energy, biotechnological
answers to disease and pollution, saner modes of transportation than the
automobile, and so on. In these fields, discretion is the preferred mode of
operation. Despite a general desire for quick fixes to an array of social and
physical dilemmas, professionals in these other fields are careful to avoid
overblown claims. And to tell the truth, most of us working in virtual worlds are
just as mindful of the consequences that can befall the false prophet.

When, however, one is working with the tools of perception and imagination -- the
"keys to the soul" -- one's every utterance and action takes on magnified meaning.
Until the Next Big Thing comes along, we are in the spotlight. Our technology is
earthly, all wires and circuits and awkward mechanics dedicated to commonplace
achievements:  a more productive and comfortable workplace, easier and more
satisfying communication, and recreation that additionally edifies. But our
audience is not satisfied with these things. The public wants transcendence, and
unfortunately some hucksters feel compelled to reply in kind. It does not matter
that most of these predictions are the work of critics and enthusiasts on the
sideline. They have self-identified with us just as the poets of industrialism
became spokespersons for the factory owners and robber barons, even if we
disclaim their fantasies.


You might interpret my comments only as a plea for modesty as we roll out our
inventions. I contend that there is more to this than just proper appearances. We
cannot divest ourselves of the popular conceptions about us that have been
created by others. For a good part of the literate population, "virtual reality" -- a
term I shun as both a provocation and an oxymoron -- is either miraculous or it is
worthless. Of course, this is irrational, but when faith is invoked with the
intensity we have experienced, we know we are in the grip of irrational forces!  On
the other hand, some of us may really accomplish some wild things in the
systematic pursuit of measured goals, and then shouting our achievements loud
and strong is the right thing to do. It may be a value judgment, when to crow and
when to lay low.

It is within our power to take another tack, by reinventing what it is that we do.
By this I mean that we should acknowledge the adulation with which others view
our work and use this vast energy to propel our enterprise. Rather than pose as
miracle workers or, alternatively, shun public attention, we can put things in a
new light. I propose that we adopt as our model the age-old tradition of alchemy.
Discredited at one time for its arcane writings, unsavory associations with
heretical beliefs, and inability to deliver what kings and bankers desired  -- the
production of gold -- alchemy nevertheless made substantial contributions to
chemistry and, more importantly for our purposes, a philosophy rich in
metaphorical understanding of transmutation and transformation -- the stuff of
virtual worlds. Like the ancient and medieval alchemists, we too are combining
elements -- bits and bytes of information -- to create experiences with the power
to educate and edify, and changing ourselves in the process.

New alchemists are already at work in the fields of biochemistry and ecology,
creating a sustainable agriculture. The inventions of the aptly-named New
Alchemy Institute, in the United States, enable farmers to replace age-old
agrarian rituals with environmentally appropriate growing methods. For example,
the Institute's scientists have adapted flora to capture the energy of the sun and
then to convert it into plant-oil fuels that are safer to burn than the
petrochemicals that pollute our air. This transformation occurs through the
"magical" power of biology. The New Alchemy Institute's talents are as profound
as any wizard's, but its accomplishments are the the product of sturdy science and
craftsmanship.

The greatest craftsman of modern times, the Englishman William Morris, wove
coarse fibers into objects of unsurpassed beauty. From their warp and woof
emanate visual harmonies that resonate deep within us. We are captivated by
Morris's ingenuity and many of us are transported into another realm of experience
as a result.

The tools to create computer-generated virtuality are even more flexible and
malleable. The worlds we craft, in their highest form, also engender resonance and
harmonies. Even when we work with themes that nominally are undramatic --
human anatomy, machinery, corporate communications, or the reactions within a
test tube, for example -- if we do it right, people find our images beautiful and
often transformative. So let us call ourselves New Alchemists and create for our
admirers wonderful things, including turning the mundane into the magnificent.
But we must begin with our feet squarely on the ground from whence we derive
gravity and sense of purpose. Earthiness is a good character trait for New
Alchemists to cultivate:  it emphasizes our link to the "real world" that is most
people's lot. Our first achievements will be appreciated only to the extent that
they better life for most people as they live it today.

As an example, possibly one of our greatest feats, still in prepartion, will be the
transformation of the workplace into an environment whose main features are
empowerment of the worker and joy in the work. We haven't fully mastered all the
tricks necessary to convert tedium into fulfillment, but we are gradually learning
to use virtual worlds to reduce tedium and thereby create the possibility of
fulfillment. At this conference and at each of the three others occurring
simultaneously in New York, Vienna, and Los Angeles, applications are being
displayed that may dramatically reconfigure the workplace, for both information
and more traditional workers. Just this week, for example, Avatar Partners, a
small firm in California, announced vrTrader (TM), a three-dimensional gamelike
environment for visualizing complicated stock-market phenomena. Right now, this
device only serves the financial community, but the transformation of dull jobs
into fun games may be a challenge our industry can meet first.

Last night I signed onto _sci.virtual-worlds,_ the USENET newsgroup -- now a
global tribe of some 50,000 readers -- and felt all around me the bursting forth of
invention and its companions, thoughtful applications. The New Alchemists are at
work!  Here are a few noteworthy examples:

* In the United Kingdom, the birthplace of modern industrial pragmatism, the
Advanced Robotics Research Centre and similar institutions are uniting virtual
worlds technology with the more- developed technologies of computer vision and
robotics. They are making possible telepresence, perhaps the immediately most
useful application of virtual worlds in the industrial domain.

* In Singapore, at the Institute for Systems Science, a small team of researchers is
devising new ways of envisioning structures of knowledge that composed of data
points scattered across vast fields of information. The three-dimensional tools for
knowledge acquisition and production that ISS is building are novel and hold forth
the possibility of broad information literacy among the majority of individuals
whose information-handling skills are underdeveloped.

* In Canada, at the Banff Art Center, artists have created virtual worlds that
mimic actual physical geographies, laying the groundwork for more effective
forms of GIS and atlases that take their audiences to places about which they
want to learn more. Canadian firms and universities are also pursuing
televirtuality as a meta-application for shared virtual worlds.

* In Japan, at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Center, and at
Carnegie-Mellon University, in the United States, mutual virtual worlds joined by
telecommunications networks are providing the first hints of what televirtuality
will be like, once public networks can accommodate it. Similar research at the
Swedish Institute of Computer Science holds forth the possibility of integrating
existing media forms within virtual worlds. Private firms in telecommunications,
manufacturing, and entertainment (like SEGA) continue to press the limits of
existing technology and contribute tools for others' employment.

* In the Netherlands and Germany, the use of virtual worlds as modeling
environments wherein objects can be "produced" as virtual images and evaluated
before being committed to actual production is fast taking on the same
importance once ascribed to CAD/CAM methods. The Fraunhofer Institute and Media
Systems are exploring industrial and communications applications. The surge of
interest in virtual worlds throughout Central Europe is palpable and although not
much is communicated to the Anglophile world, French institutions (particularly
those affiliated with the domestic telecommunications and defense industries)
seem heavily involved in elaborating new uses for virtual worlds.

*  In North America, virtual worlds increasingly find application in a variety of uses
(although it must be said that many of these uses are still prototypes without
commercial application). By now the design work of aircraft manufacturers like
Boeing are well-known; similar projects are being undertaken by the automobile,
furniture, and construction companies. Medicine seems a fertile field for
intriguing uses of virtual worlds. In the case of my own firm, Worldesign, we are
developing a comprehensive manufacturing, distribution, and sales system for a
maker of home products; and a "virtual phone booth" for a large
telecommunications provider. Of course, the United States also is a prolific source
of entertainment applications.

Increment by increment, we are solving problems and creating applications that
will make it easier to do things and, just as importantly, to do them with pleasure.
Productive work is the foremost human social activity. We expect virtual worlds
applications to make work less onerous, more personally fulfilling, and definitely
easier, because (at least hypothetically) the virtual world is conceived as an
easy-to-use "place" that makes use of our inherent capabilities. As we expand our
purview beyond the workplace to the public arena and the private home, we
discover ever more uses for virtual worlds in their full dress, within immersive
environments, or cloaked as data structures embedded in other applications.

Make no mistake, we soon will be changing the way that people live, work, and
play. The virtual world paradigm admits of no halfway measures. Inasmuch as this
is our destiny, we should be better prepared than we are to speak of the social and
personal consequences of virtual worlds. The transformations we catalyze may be
profound.

And so I return to my focus on alchemical principles -- not the literal science, but
rather the philosophy -- and how we can apply it to our work, to prepare us for a
transformational role. Alchemy's ancient Egyptian and Greek roots speak to the
intimate, long- standing relation between alchemical principles and the human
psyche. In fact, Jung found alchemical philosophy to be a vital part of his
psychology. The principles of our "new alchemy" will prove a useful credo, charter,
and manifesto as we begin to alter the fabric of human understanding and
enterprise.

These are the principles I recommend for our New Alchemy of Virtual Worlds:

The First New Alchemical Principle is to be personally involved in the process of
change. Striving to transmutate base metals into pure -- "lead into gold" -- the
alchemist seeks by magical association to perfect his or her own soul. Just as
(theoretically) the alchemist purges impurities from the base elements until only a
purer essence, the _materia prima,_ remains, through the exercise of the arcane
arts the alchemist's soul (that which we today might call the personality)
experiences a similar distillation. This is the basis for the Philosopher's Stone, the
source of immortality.

The materials with which we work may be physically less explosive than the
ancients' reagents, but they are powerful psychologically and socially. Building
virtual worlds that transmutate data into knowledge, the New Alchemist faces his
or her own deep issues of complicity and personal responsibility for the changes
these virtual worlds promote. Resolving these issues will require diligence,
insight, reflection, and self-awareness to a degree unique among scientists,
engineers, developers, and designers.





The Second New Alchemical Principle is to understand fully, within the bounds of
existing knowledge and experimentation, the factors that produce one's
sought-after transmutations. The speculative alchemy taught in the universities
of Fifth-Century Alexandria was built around a complex scheme of relationships. At
its center were the four elements:  air, water, fire, and earth. The "wedding" and
separation of various materials containing or affected by these elements produced
a wide array of effects, including heat and light, smoke, sounds, and the
emergence of new metals including the penultimate and ultimate goals:
_argentum,_ silver, the Queen of the Metals (identified with the Moon); and
_aurum,_ gold, the King of the Metals (symbolized by the Sun). These physical
relationships, however, weren't the cold facts of a denatured science, but deeply
felt metaphors that expressed complex relations between the alchemist and his or
her materials, the planets and stars, and even Heaven and Hell. The allegorical tale
of Dr. Faust, the alchemist who bartered his soul to Mephistopheles in order to
know it all, has become legend.

The virtual worlds we design and implement may appear striking and dramatically
complex or simple and mundane. In either case, when we turn on our workstations
and let the imagery flow, we are tapping into deep-running streams of perception
and belief. We produce metaphors of our own, potent displays whose meaning we
ourselves do not fully cognizant...and then we encapsulate in these constructions
innocents who are even less prepared for the experience!  We must come to know
our profession more completely, or someday these small exploitations may turn
into major legal and societal liabilities.

Each of us possesses individual knowledge about computers, industrial processes,
design, data acquisition, or a similar essential element of virtual worlds. None of
us, however, knows very much about the assemblage, the "wedding" of these
elements, into virtual worlds and the results these worlds produce. We know the
technology and how to put it together, but not yet its result. In Worldesign's
award-winning handbook, _Designing Virtual Worlds,_ we describe the rituals of
world-building:  researching the client, concept formulation, design of imagery,
construction of the physical infrastructure, usability testing, and so forth. It's a
good technical discussion. The discerning reader may note, however, that we
skillfully avoid discussing the metaphorical meaning and experience of worlds
themselves. This is because, like most of you, we are making and will continue for
some time to make new discoveries regarding the experience of virtual worlds in
different settings and with different purposes. Our knowledge about virtual
worlds, to put it mildly, is incomplete.

The Third New Alchemical Principle, then, is that we recognize our common
ignorance and pledge to share our knowledge and resources as widely as possible
with other members of our "guild." Guilds, according to Dr. Michael Cooley, the
dean of British industrial designers, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance provided a
cross- generational repository of crafts knowledge that made even the building of
the great cathedrals possible. Guilds also generated new knowledge, as when their
members left town to roam Europe and the Islamic world on the lookout for new
ideas and processes.

In our own time, we tend to rely on public institutions like universities to
generate new knowledge while in the corporate world everything is proprietary
and secret. The problem with this scheme is that (1) the universities (with a few
exceptions, some of whom are here today) are not well-organized to deal with
interdisciplinary topics like virtual worlds and (2) the corporations for the most
part are locked into an unending cycle of  "reinventing the wheel."  The virtual
worlds community and especially its industry can progress only as quickly as we
can try out new ideas in many venues, promoting the best and discarding the rest.

When Howard Rheingold and I established _sci.virtual-worlds_ on the USENET, we
were subjected to a certain ridicule from some quarters in our community,
beneficiaries of the status quo: universities with a constant source of public
funding, who did not have to compete with other schools for this largesse; and
corporations blessed with ongoing government contracts or plump with
superprofits (since depleted) who felt no obligation to share. I'm pleased to note
that the number of postings on _sci.virtual- worlds_ has increased thirty-fold
since those early days, three years ago, and the number of readers of the
newsgroup -- as good a measure of our community as any -- has risen from a
handful in the U.S. to over 50,000 around the world. To some extent we are curing
the problem of sharing by establishing channels by which information and
knowledge can be shared. Also, we now have in our field several good newsletters
(one of the best of which remains _VR NEWS,_ organizer of this conference); a
journal of record, _PRESENCE;_ regular columns in the various professional
organizations' magazines; and a whole library of books ranging from the
metaphysical to the practical and everything in-between. We even have a second
USENET newsgroup, _sci.virtual-worlds.apps,_ which I now moderate with my
colleague Mark DeLoura and correspondents around the world, focusing on practical
applications of virtual worlds. We can and do share information widely. It is one of
the commendable qualities of our community that distinguishes virtual worlds
from more secretive, property-obsessed fields.






Sharing resources is another matter. We may initiate ourselves and our apprentices
into The Guild of New Alchemists, but like our ancient namesakes we still can't
distill gold from base metals. While it is possible and even likely that some
individuals sitting in this auditorium will strike it rich with well-crafted "killer
app's" -- crucial applications that meet essential needs and hence find markets
very quickly -- for most of us the next few years will remain relatively lean. This is
because in the past there has been little faith outside the virtual worlds
community that we are really onto something, and there will be a lag time while
firms reorient themselves and steer in our direction. There are exceptions, firms
that early-on committed to making virtual worlds work for them -- many are here
today -- and for these we are thankful. For the rest, we will have to wait. But they
are coming.

The other factor contributing to our limited resources is the economic malaise that
has become global in its dimensions. Even when a firm finds the means to take a
stab at a virtual worlds implementation, too often it is a small stab at best. This
makes the teams working at these firms somewhat defensive regarding going
outside for help or collaboration, and in turn this contributes to the "not invented
here" syndrome and redundant developments.

This is ironic. Based on my four years of marketing virtual worlds technology to
businesses and government, to me it appears that demand for our products is
larger than all of the sources of supply taken together. Demand will outstrip
supply into the foreseeable future. In part, this is because our productive base is
so tiny. More importantly, however, we are starting to see a greater awareness of
virtual worlds' usefulness among executives who control the purse-strings, in
addition to continuing support from our advocates among the middle managers and
researchers (bless their persistent hearts!). Even the modest near-term demand
predicted by my good friend, Dr. John Latta, cannot be met by the existing virtual
worlds industry. Which all brings me around to promoting more extensive
collaborations within our industry as it is currently constituted, the better to
deploy and employ our relatively scarce human, capital, and intellectual resources.

On this generally optimistic note -- too much business for everyone! -- permit me
to add a final principle before we stop with all this philosophizing and begin the
day's substantive reports

The Fourth Principle of the New Alchemy is to develop a collective Code of Honor
that creates a public understanding and sets the standards to which we, as
soon-to-be champions, will have to adhere. This Code is simple:

Be proactive, be open, be honest. Slight not your colleagues; cheer their victories
and regret their failures (as we are all in this together). Remind the public, and
remember ourselves, that while the public's aspirations are ethereal, our best
efforts are material. Recognize that the daily world is miraculous and that the
mundane can seem holy -- especially in a well-crafted virtual world -- and we can
make them better. Use our field's charisma, which to stodgier professions might
seem an unbearable affliction, as a way of gaining attention for our real
accomplishments. Most importantly, gain and teach others to appreciate the
genuine value of our work in virtual worlds, which is simply to improve the ways
we in which we live. For you are the New Alchemists and with virtual worlds you
will transform the human world.

--------

* Worldesign Inc., 5348_ Ballard Avenue NW, Seattle, WA 98107- 4009 USA. Phone,
[phone]; fax, [phone]. Email:  [e-mail]

Worldesign designs software tools for the easy construction of virtual worlds and
builds virtual-worlds applications for its primarily industrial and commercial
customers, including entertainment and educational applications.