Will VR Avatars of RL People Make Us Feel Less Lonely?

From a company called 8i, here's an impressive video showcasing technology that converts real people into digitized avatars which you can then interact with in virtual reality:

Super-cool! Also (on first glance): Super creepy! As you'll see in the demo video, one of the VR experts excited about this tech is our friend Jacki Morie of All These Worlds (a virtual reality pioneer) so I wanted to ask her about the creep factor:

"I'm getting an uncanny valley feel from the 3D avatars," I asked her, "especially in the eyes. What's your take?"

"Actually I thought they were quite compelling 'in person'," Jacki tells me. "I experienced the mom and baby (and a few others) inside an HMD and to me they brought the otherwise lonely VR spaces to life. You can't really interact with them, but you can move all around them -- almost 360, but not quite. When these start to populate virtual environments they will be the start of a 'less lonely VR' revolution, which, IMHO we desperately need!"

If they were someone I knew and missed in real life, I tend to think watching these avatars would make me feel more lonely. But then again, imagine VR videos like these viewed of people who have since died, and are left for their loved ones. "And they're going to become part of us that we leave behind," as Jackie suggests.

Via /Oculus.

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Comments

[Iggy]

I am not old enough to remember it, but I have read that broadcast TV was promoted as providing free university-quality educations, opera, and ballet to uplift the masses.

Add the haptic suit and you know where this technology will go in an instant.

[Mr Happy]

Sir Hamlet,might you check to see if LL will support this device,it may do well in Project Sansar?.

Do not let link scare you!,its very relative upon inspection of the article.

http ://www .huffingtonpost.com/entry/ejaculator-sex-toy-lets-you-feel-porn-star-bump-and-grind_560d6f87e4b076812701129e

[sirhc deSantis]

So I can either go through this interesting sort of green screen thingy (remembering a clean shirt and blusher/eyeliner) or strap on a scuba mask tethered to my fridge with a 2 meter cable and stumble around my kitchen. Sounds fun either way :)

(Side note to Iggy - the open university was offering uni courses on the telly when i was a kid and now on the web, in fact currently enrolled in an entry level intro to data analysis using Python of all things. Of course, was it intiated under a UK socialist government... )