1 00:00:00,00 --> 00:00:01,63 Carolina Cruz-neira: I'm Carolina Cruz-Neira, 2 00:00:01,96 --> 00:00:08,08 and I'm the Director of a research center in virtual reality called the Emerging Analytics Center, 3 00:00:08,6 --> 00:00:11,82 and we are part of the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. 4 00:00:12,23 --> 00:00:19,48 And a lot of people ask, why are you in Little Rock, Arkansas doing something that is so much technical events 5 00:00:20,9 --> 00:00:21,86 and mother. 6 00:00:22,62 --> 00:00:29,09 And the reason for that is because there's a tremendous, a good infrastructure here to do what I do, 7 00:00:29,49 --> 00:00:35,36 and there is actually a lot of energy and enthusiasm to support the work that I do. 8 00:00:35,62 --> 00:00:42,86 And the opportunities for us to do interesting projects and more unique things with less restrictions, 9 00:00:43,4 --> 00:00:48,27 not only so much legal restrictions, but almost intellectual restrictions. 10 00:00:48,4 --> 00:00:58,85 Cuz here there is almost nothing, so there is not preconceptions, there is no baggage of any kind, you know. 11 00:00:59,17 --> 00:01:05,04 There is no, things have to be done in a certain way. So, to me that's always been very exciting. 12 00:01:05,04 --> 00:01:07,49 Interviewer: It's new for everybody. 13 00:01:07,49 --> 00:01:13,17 Carolina Cruz-neira: It's new, and we are the cool group on the campus, we're the exciting group on campus. 14 00:01:13,28 --> 00:01:18,27 That for me, is always a good thing. And this is not the first time in my career. 15 00:01:18,78 --> 00:01:25,32 I have always been in universities where you would not expect to have the kind of work that I do. 16 00:01:25,59 --> 00:01:28,94 And it's really, like I said, it's a lot more fun, 17 00:01:28,94 --> 00:01:36,45 it's harder too because if we run into some complications we don't have a lot of colleagues that we can talk to, 18 00:01:36,69 --> 00:01:43,85 or an environment where there is a lot of knowledge on the area that we do research of. 19 00:01:44,23 --> 00:01:50,13 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. 20 00:01:50,13 --> 00:01:53,3 Interviewer: So, you have to find out everything yourself, or your students. 21 00:01:53,3 --> 00:01:55,71 Carolina Cruz-neira: Pretty much, yes, we're kind of- 22 00:01:55,71 --> 00:01:56,18 Interviewer: Pioneering 23 00:01:56,18 --> 00:02:02,34 Carolina Cruz-neira: Pioneering to some extent and we hit our head in the wall, we had to hit and hit 24 00:02:02,34 --> 00:02:04,15 and hit it until eventually, we break the wall. 25 00:02:04,37 --> 00:02:09,75 Because, like I say, sometimes, we're entirely on our own in some situations. 26 00:02:10,12 --> 00:02:19,72 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, 27 00:02:19,92 --> 00:02:20,93 in the United States. 28 00:02:21,39 --> 00:02:27,21 Then, we get a lot of support and we get a lot of encouragement 29 00:02:27,22 --> 00:02:32,93 and we get a lot of positive reactions to a lot of the things that we do. 30 00:02:33,52 --> 00:02:40,5 And also, we give a lot back because around us, we are always generating other opportunities. 31 00:02:40,5 --> 00:02:46,52 So, for example, businesses that will not consider coming into Little Rock, 32 00:02:46,8 --> 00:02:50,63 they consider setting up here because we are here. 33 00:02:50,81 --> 00:02:56,28 So, for them having that relationship with my group, maybe very exciting and they were like, 34 00:02:57,01 --> 00:03:01,99 we're not thinking of going to Arkansas, we were thinking of maybe going to California or Boston or something like that. 35 00:03:02,27 --> 00:03:10,52 But your group been there is for us it's actually wonderful because the cost of living is lot lower, 36 00:03:11,09 --> 00:03:21,03 the ability for us to financially support the company is much easier than these other areas and, at the same time, 37 00:03:21,24 --> 00:03:25,49 we have the same intellectual quality on our relationship with a university. 38 00:03:25,99 --> 00:03:34,62 So, it's a mutually beneficial relationship for us to be and I don't expect it university. [LAUGH] 39 00:03:34,62 --> 00:03:42,91 Interviewer: But what exactly is your science? 40 00:03:42,91 --> 00:03:43,55 Carolina Cruz-neira: What exactly is my science? 41 00:03:43,78 --> 00:03:45,73 I don't know, a lot of people ask me that question 42 00:03:45,74 --> 00:03:51,04 and I'm not sure if I'm actually a scientist myself because I'm more trained from engineering. 43 00:03:51,68 --> 00:03:58,05 And engineers were always sort of the weird scientists because we're always very practical. 44 00:03:59,03 --> 00:04:07,03 So, I think that word science is more of our ability to find the root of a problem 45 00:04:07,51 --> 00:04:12,7 and find some ways to solve that problem or at least to make it better. 46 00:04:12,7 --> 00:04:19,13 So, it might not be deeply, deeply theoretical, a lot of the things that we do, but they are deeply, 47 00:04:19,66 --> 00:04:21,88 technically challenging, the things that we do. 48 00:04:22,06 --> 00:04:29,82 So, sometimes, it's a struggle because we might be doing something that is unique, nobody has done it before. 49 00:04:29,82 --> 00:04:32,42 It's incredibly hard to solve the problem. 50 00:04:33,00 --> 00:04:39,21 But it may not field that we just discover a new way of how the galaxies were formed, 51 00:04:40,23 --> 00:04:48,16 or some new philosophical theory of how our soul relates to the metauniverse or something like that. 52 00:04:48,34 --> 00:04:56,07 [LAUGH] So, we are much more practical and down to an specific point that needs a solution, so- 53 00:04:56,07 --> 00:05:00,39 Interviewer: But altogether, what you do with virtual reality? 54 00:05:00,39 --> 00:05:01,74 Carolina Cruz-neira: What- 55 00:05:01,74 --> 00:05:03,29 Interviewer: Can I have your- 56 00:05:03,29 --> 00:05:03,92 Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] 57 00:05:03,92 --> 00:05:06,09 Interviewer: Theories about it as well? 58 00:05:06,09 --> 00:05:10,45 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes, I have my theories and myself, personally, 59 00:05:10,48 --> 00:05:17,38 I think throughout my entire career I have been a little bit of an outsider to the virtual reality science community. 60 00:05:18,77 --> 00:05:25,43 Because I always thought very differently than the main trend of thoughts. 61 00:05:26,41 --> 00:05:33,37 Even today, if you talk about virtual reality today, when somebody says, do you know what virtual reality is about? 62 00:05:33,75 --> 00:05:39,51 Immediately they are going to identify with putting some sort of goggles on your face and look around, 63 00:05:39,89 --> 00:05:45,68 some beautiful landscape or something like that. That's not exactly what I do. 64 00:05:45,82 --> 00:05:53,29 Because to me virtual reality is the ability to create some world in the computer that again solves a problem. 65 00:05:54,2 --> 00:06:01,31 And in order to do that, sometimes you have to be multiple people sharing the environment with the own bodies, 66 00:06:01,31 --> 00:06:05,88 not through virtual representation of myself in the world. 67 00:06:06,08 --> 00:06:09,75 But actually my self physically embedded in the virtual world. 68 00:06:09,87 --> 00:06:15,53 So, I wanna see your face, and your face, and your face, while I'm seeing the virtual world. 69 00:06:15,9 --> 00:06:18,2 So, my work is more about building large- 70 00:06:18,2 --> 00:06:20,25 Interviewer: Can you try to explain that? 71 00:06:20,25 --> 00:06:20,76 Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] 72 00:06:20,76 --> 00:06:22,81 Interviewer: Again, I think I understand but- 73 00:06:22,81 --> 00:06:25,91 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, when, again, 74 00:06:25,92 --> 00:06:32,4 when you talk about virtual reality with the majority of the community out there- 75 00:06:32,4 --> 00:06:34,77 Interviewer: Yeah, that part I did understand, but the part you say- 76 00:06:34,77 --> 00:06:36,06 Carolina Cruz-neira: With the body? 77 00:06:36,06 --> 00:06:37,59 Interviewer: How to what you do? 78 00:06:37,59 --> 00:06:42,5 Carolina Cruz-neira: What I do. Here, I'm going to tell you what happened to me when I first saw a virtual reality. 79 00:06:42,92 --> 00:06:44,43 Let's go back to the beginning. 80 00:06:44,76 --> 00:06:51,42 When I first saw virtual reality in 1991, I had the same experience everybody is having today. 81 00:06:52,04 --> 00:06:58,78 Somebody put some goggles on my face and I start looking around some beautiful world, and, of course, 82 00:06:58,94 --> 00:07:06,5 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. 83 00:07:09,57 --> 00:07:17,08 But like with everything else, after that is over, the excitement is over then, you start thinking, 84 00:07:17,86 --> 00:07:21,55 what is this thing really? What is it this thing? 85 00:07:21,55 --> 00:07:28,01 And, again, I'm thinking as an engineer, what is this thing doing for me? Other than just guao. 86 00:07:28,01 --> 00:07:36,95 So, when I start thinking that, first of all I was, I'm not myself anymore here. 87 00:07:37,47 --> 00:07:46,41 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 88 00:07:46,41 --> 00:07:53,24 and hair. When I put goggles, I lost all that, immediately, I'm not myself anymore. 89 00:07:54,1 --> 00:07:59,06 I don't know how big something is, I don't know how close something is. Because I can tell this table is here. 90 00:07:59,45 --> 00:08:05,44 Because I can see my hand going towards that table so that gives me a sense of space and relationship. 91 00:08:06,23 --> 00:08:10,38 In the virtual world, I'm trying to grab something, but I don't see anything. 92 00:08:10,88 --> 00:08:16,12 At the most, I see some floating hand that is not connected to my body and is not even my own hand. 93 00:08:16,23 --> 00:08:20,8 Because most of the virtual environments, they give you a male hand, and I'm a woman. 94 00:08:20,96 --> 00:08:23,24 I have my little red nails and all that, so it's not even my hand. 95 00:08:23,77 --> 00:08:27,83 So I lose myself the moment I walk into the virtual reality space. That's number one. 96 00:08:27,94 --> 00:08:33,75 Number two, as humans, we like to talk to people, we are very social individuals. 97 00:08:34,25 --> 00:08:42,37 We're a very social, I don't know, animal. I put my goggles on, I lost all of you as well. 98 00:08:43,04 --> 00:08:48,18 Because I might be seeing something, and I might be saying, look at that, you don't see it. 99 00:08:48,18 --> 00:08:52,56 Cuz you don't have the goggles on. So, what I see you don't see it. 100 00:08:52,63 --> 00:08:57,84 There's no way for me to share that with you, in the same way I share this room with you. 101 00:08:58,25 --> 00:09:02,36 So to me, those kinds of things, since I was very, very, very young, 102 00:09:02,81 --> 00:09:11,3 were very annoying about the way virtual reality was being approached, in general, the research community. 103 00:09:12,64 --> 00:09:22,89 So I thought about what can be done to bring myself into the virtual space. What can I do to do that? 104 00:09:23,44 --> 00:09:27,33 And I was very fortunate because I was starting my PhD. 105 00:09:27,33 --> 00:09:34,65 And the professor that I was working with gave me a lot of freedom to explore whatever I wanted to do. 106 00:09:34,95 --> 00:09:41,4 He had some set ideas of what he wanted to do. And I started doing what he wanted me to do. 107 00:09:41,67 --> 00:09:46,69 But at the same time, in parallel, I started experimenting with some of the things that I was interested on. 108 00:09:47,24 --> 00:09:50,43 And down the line, the professor was, I guess, 109 00:09:50,55 --> 00:09:57,54 gracious enough to recognize that the direction that I was going was exciting. And he let me run with those ideas. 110 00:09:58,28 --> 00:10:04,32 So I ended up developing, in a sense, a Goggle big enough that it was the size of a room. 111 00:10:04,58 --> 00:10:06,25 So instead of putting it on your head. 112 00:10:06,25 --> 00:10:06,77 Interviewer: It was like a cave. 113 00:10:06,77 --> 00:10:14,51 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, I built a cave. So several, several are still in use today, now 20-something years later. 114 00:10:15,26 --> 00:10:20,82 So you walk into this room, so because your body comes with you into the virtual environment. 115 00:10:21,42 --> 00:10:26,32 Your friends come with you into the virtual environment. And you'll see that tomorrow when we go to the laboratory. 116 00:10:26,48 --> 00:10:34,13 So you come with me, and then, I will be saying, look that. And you'll see my finger pointing at a virtual object. 117 00:10:34,67 --> 00:10:37,28 The same way I say look at this table or something like that. 118 00:10:37,58 --> 00:10:46,62 So that social element is part of the virtual experience without any recreation virtually of yourself. 119 00:10:46,8 --> 00:10:48,52 Which is what people do these days. 120 00:10:48,66 --> 00:10:55,62 When you do a shared virtual environment, they recreate yourself in a virtual environment. But that's not you. 121 00:10:55,62 --> 00:10:56,00 Interviewer: Yeah. 122 00:10:56,00 --> 00:11:00,41 Carolina Cruz-neira: That's a puppet that represents you. Or an avatar, I guess, is the right term. 123 00:11:00,83 --> 00:11:04,79 So, for me, like I said, since I did that back in 1991. 124 00:11:06,32 --> 00:11:10,21 Everybody's going this way in virtual reality, and I'm going that way. 125 00:11:10,21 --> 00:11:14,99 [LAUGH] So that has been always a little bit challenging, to be- 126 00:11:14,99 --> 00:11:16,71 Interviewer: But with a lot of success. 127 00:11:16,71 --> 00:11:22,66 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, that's what I mentioned earlier. I have been very, very successful knowing what I have done. 128 00:11:23,14 --> 00:11:27,62 But not necessarily my work has been always recognized as science. 129 00:11:28,23 --> 00:11:36,79 Because it doesn't fit the pattern or the mold that the majority of the community is going. 130 00:11:36,95 --> 00:11:43,17 But at the same time, the work that I have done has had a significant impact in the industry. 131 00:11:43,84 --> 00:11:48,2 Today, a lot of the car companies, for example, have caves. 132 00:11:48,2 --> 00:11:57,58 At different stages of the design and manufacturing of cars. The oil industry uses variations of the cave. 133 00:11:57,76 --> 00:11:59,68 Not the cave as it was originally created. 134 00:12:00,37 --> 00:12:09,81 But this concept of having large spaces that you share the immersive space, and many others for training 135 00:12:09,82 --> 00:12:14,74 and in many other aspects. It's not a commodity or a consumer product. 136 00:12:14,74 --> 00:12:15,84 Interviewer: I understand. 137 00:12:15,84 --> 00:12:23,1 Carolina Cruz-neira: It's not something that you can have in your home, obviously. But it's been incredibly successful. 138 00:12:24,73 --> 00:12:30,16 Another industry that uses this quite a lot and is not very well known in the press is the mining industry, 139 00:12:30,16 --> 00:12:41,72 for safety training. As you know, underground mines are extremely complex and have a lot of safety issues. 140 00:12:41,72 --> 00:12:44,79 So that industry uses caves around the world. 141 00:12:44,79 --> 00:12:52,79 Interviewer: I once filmed in Norway with Rolls-Royce in Marine. And they built cabins from a ship, with a steel ship. 142 00:12:52,79 --> 00:12:57,46 It had windows all around it, all with projections of the sea. 143 00:12:57,46 --> 00:13:03,46 So when you were in there, it was in an office, just not at sea. 144 00:13:03,46 --> 00:13:12,00 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, so it does have the Marine trainers, yeah. Yeah, mm-hm, yeah. 145 00:13:12,00 --> 00:13:15,23 Interviewer: Yeah, and even to see what I did, then I'd get seasick. 146 00:13:15,23 --> 00:13:17,08 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and I think that's the main, perhaps, scientific contribution, 147 00:13:17,08 --> 00:13:19,83 if you want to call it that way, of this work. 148 00:13:20,02 --> 00:13:27,08 Because in a sense, it opened the minds of many people that for maybe 10, 149 00:13:27,08 --> 00:13:31,74 15 years were thinking virtual reality was a particular platform. 150 00:13:32,68 --> 00:13:36,81 And my work opened the mind to say virtual reality is a concept. 151 00:13:37,3 --> 00:13:41,76 And that concept can be realized in a variety of platforms. 152 00:13:42,16 --> 00:13:47,07 And it's not one platform is the solution, there are different problems. 153 00:13:47,07 --> 00:13:50,38 So depending on the problem, a cave is a good platform. 154 00:13:50,78 --> 00:13:54,4 For some other problems, the head-mounted display is a good platform. 155 00:13:55,53 --> 00:14:01,15 But some other problems, you see it in the lab, other kind of platforms are more appropriate. 156 00:14:01,15 --> 00:14:07,59 Interviewer: But if we wish to elaborate, suppose I'm a student, and I wanna go study with you. 157 00:14:07,59 --> 00:14:12,19 What exactly is what I'm going to learn, and what reasons would I have- 158 00:14:12,19 --> 00:14:12,8 Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] 159 00:14:13,11 --> 00:14:14,95 Interviewer: To study with you? 160 00:14:14,95 --> 00:14:20,11 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, I think if you asked me that question maybe four years ago 161 00:14:20,12 --> 00:14:27,57 when virtual reality was not popular, the answer will be different today. Virtual reality is very popular again. 162 00:14:27,9 --> 00:14:31,41 It was very popular in the 90s and then it went silent. And now it's popular again. 163 00:14:32,19 --> 00:14:42,62 And I think the reason to do it is, I guess, some students that come and study with me, 164 00:14:42,62 --> 00:14:46,85 they just think that if they do something related to virtual reality. 165 00:14:47,19 --> 00:14:53,52 And in particularly, if they work with me, because of my name recognition then they'll get a very good job. 166 00:14:53,74 --> 00:15:01,18 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. 167 00:15:01,4 --> 00:15:08,43 And we have learned very quickly to spot to those students. Because, they don't really care about the work. 168 00:15:08,43 --> 00:15:14,48 They care that in their minds, they think, I'm doing something that is trendy, that is innovative. 169 00:15:17,01 --> 00:15:22,16 And just because I'm doing it, and just because I'm doing it with other groups, I'm just gonna graduate. 170 00:15:22,42 --> 00:15:25,57 And then, I'm just gonna get this very high paying job. 171 00:15:25,57 --> 00:15:26,03 Interviewer: Yeah, opportunistic. 172 00:15:26,03 --> 00:15:29,87 Carolina Cruz-neira: But from experience, yeah, they're very opportunistic. 173 00:15:30,24 --> 00:15:35,91 And they don't really care about what they are doing. They care about making money, at the end of the day. 174 00:15:35,91 --> 00:15:36,73 Interviewer: Well, what do you care about? 175 00:15:36,73 --> 00:15:40,34 Carolina Cruz-neira: So we care about students when they come to us and they say, 176 00:15:40,86 --> 00:15:43,32 can I work with you because I have this idea. 177 00:15:43,91 --> 00:15:49,23 And I think with your guidance, I could explore this idea and see where it take us. 178 00:15:49,89 --> 00:15:54,94 So that's an example of a student that we like to find those kinds of students, cuz that's how I was. 179 00:15:55,09 --> 00:15:57,11 I was doing something, nobody had done it before. 180 00:15:57,54 --> 00:16:03,25 And I had a professor that For one reason or another, decided to let me run with it. 181 00:16:03,25 --> 00:16:04,3 Interviewer: When we start at the beginning, just for our understanding, can you explain to me. And I know nothing. 182 00:16:04,3 --> 00:16:04,96 Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] 183 00:16:04,96 --> 00:16:18,6 Interviewer: What is virtual reality? 184 00:16:18,6 --> 00:16:21,62 Carolina Cruz-neira: What is virtual reality? 185 00:16:21,62 --> 00:16:28,57 Okay well, [LAUGH] The way I normally explain to people is just, a way to create worlds with a computer. 186 00:16:29,39 --> 00:16:37,95 Now for me there is very little difference between virtual reality and augmented reality. There are two fields. 187 00:16:38,5 --> 00:16:42,1 And when you talk to different professionals there will be people that will be very, 188 00:16:42,31 --> 00:16:46,45 very adamant that it's two completely different disciplines. 189 00:16:46,64 --> 00:16:51,51 You do virtual reality, you know nothing about augmented reality, and so on. 190 00:16:51,81 --> 00:16:58,55 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. 191 00:17:00,58 --> 00:17:06,32 And the difference is with virtual reality you create worlds that are entirely in the computer. 192 00:17:07,05 --> 00:17:12,03 They don't necessarily have any relationship to the real world 193 00:17:12,1 --> 00:17:15,25 or to the reality that you find yourself in that particular moment. 194 00:17:15,43 --> 00:17:23,01 So you can be tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny and explore the world at the atomic level, or you can be huge 195 00:17:23,08 --> 00:17:25,81 and explore at the universe level. 196 00:17:26,64 --> 00:17:33,24 You can travel to a world that never existed, you can go back in time and you can go into future. 197 00:17:33,55 --> 00:17:41,87 So, basically, what ever your imagination conceives you can generate that inside the computer. 198 00:17:42,43 --> 00:17:44,63 And then put yourself inside that world and- 199 00:17:44,63 --> 00:17:47,63 Interviewer: And what's the difference with the real world? 200 00:17:51,12 --> 00:17:54,51 Because when you enter a virtual world, why isn't that real? 201 00:17:54,51 --> 00:17:56,77 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well, and that's a very good question. 202 00:17:56,99 --> 00:18:03,45 For many of the worlds that we do, they actually become very real to the people that experience those worlds. 203 00:18:03,83 --> 00:18:16,9 There is something that we study that is called the sense of presence.. 204 00:18:08,83 --> 00:18:16,66 So how much those virtual worlds make you, in a sense, forget that they're virtual, 205 00:18:17,36 --> 00:18:22,89 And you suddenly became so involved, so engaged in that world that that world becomes real? 206 00:18:23,44 --> 00:18:28,64 So you forget that you're in my lab, or that you're inside a company, or something like that. 207 00:18:28,74 --> 00:18:36,91 And you completely get mentally and almost physically transported to that new reality, whatever it is. 208 00:18:39,84 --> 00:18:45,16 That's what we want to do sometimes. We really want you to feel that those places are real. 209 00:18:46,07 --> 00:18:52,94 Whether you're there for five minutes or three hours, that you disconnect yourselves from the real world. 210 00:18:53,76 --> 00:18:54,96 Sometimes they're very disoriented. 211 00:18:55,3 --> 00:19:01,96 Because we make worlds that intentionally don't behave with the laws of physics as the real world does. 212 00:19:02,84 --> 00:19:08,68 And it's very interesting sometimes to see people adjusting to those worlds. 213 00:19:08,93 --> 00:19:13,44 Because something like for example Escher, you've seen the paintings of Escher. 214 00:19:13,78 --> 00:19:18,51 You have a stair that is going up and then suddenly you're going downstairs. And you don't even know how that happened. 215 00:19:18,72 --> 00:19:24,61 So we have built some worlds like that that suddenly the laws of physics don't work. 216 00:19:25,61 --> 00:19:30,73 But people become very functional, it's like they always did that. 217 00:19:31,21 --> 00:19:34,93 It makes a lot of sense that you're going up the stairs and suddenly you end up in the basement. 218 00:19:35,36 --> 00:19:41,44 You go upstairs to go to the basement, it's just normal. So to me all these kinds of things are really exciting. 219 00:19:42,05 --> 00:19:43,07 Of course sometimes- 220 00:19:43,07 --> 00:19:45,51 Interviewer: And then that's real as well, right? 221 00:19:45,51 --> 00:19:50,71 Carolina Cruz-neira: On that particular moment on that particular timeframe that you are in the space, 222 00:19:50,71 --> 00:19:55,99 it might become very real. We have people that are afraid sometimes to move in the virtual space. 223 00:19:56,45 --> 00:20:04,74 Because we have our floor is also virtual. So sometimes, we might be very high up on a ledge of something. 224 00:20:05,3 --> 00:20:14,62 Or one of the projects that we have right now has one of those old rope and boards bridges. 225 00:20:14,93 --> 00:20:18,09 That you have to cross between two very high mountains. 226 00:20:18,57 --> 00:20:22,43 And we have people that they don't wanna cross that bridge, cuz they are afraid of heights. 227 00:20:22,43 --> 00:20:23,79 Interviewer: But do you, do you? 228 00:20:23,79 --> 00:20:28,35 Carolina Cruz-neira: Me, personally? No [LAUGH] no. 229 00:20:28,35 --> 00:20:28,95 Interviewer: You don't like to do that? 230 00:20:28,95 --> 00:20:29,4 Carolina Cruz-neira: No, I don't. 231 00:20:29,55 --> 00:20:38,00 For me because I've been doing this so long, sometimes it's hard for me to disconnect myself from the real reality. 232 00:20:38,33 --> 00:20:49,66 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. 233 00:20:49,66 --> 00:20:52,34 [CROSSTALK] Yeah, and I don't feel any. [CROSSTALK] 234 00:20:52,34 --> 00:20:53,15 Interviewer: You cross that bridge. 235 00:20:53,15 --> 00:20:59,95 Carolina Cruz-neira: Any yes. But we do have a lot of people that think twice before they go through that. 236 00:20:59,95 --> 00:21:04,02 Or again we might have a balcony that doesn't have any railings. 237 00:21:05,26 --> 00:21:08,96 A lot of people will not take to that step to get out of the balcony. 238 00:21:09,2 --> 00:21:12,1 Which nothing is gonna happen, I mean they're on solid ground. 239 00:21:12,1 --> 00:21:20,48 But virtually they are not on solid ground so we have people that even we push them a little bit gently said, 240 00:21:20,95 --> 00:21:29,79 give it a try. No no no no no no no. It becomes very real, and people do. 241 00:21:31,27 --> 00:21:36,72 They have this strange dual confusion in their heads. They know it's not real. 242 00:21:38,19 --> 00:21:41,49 But they behave like it's real so it's a very interesting 243 00:21:41,49 --> 00:21:46,49 Interviewer: So what's the purpose of [INAUDIBLE] people that kind of environment into a computer? 244 00:21:46,82 --> 00:21:52,82 Because they have to get used to it [INAUDIBLE] it's not real so I can [INAUDIBLE] real or- 245 00:21:52,82 --> 00:22:02,1 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well again like I told you at the beginning we solve problems through virtual reality. 246 00:22:02,1 --> 00:22:08,08 So one very typical problem that we're solving all the time is types of training. 247 00:22:08,08 --> 00:22:09,75 Interviewer: Are those very practical? 248 00:22:10,08 --> 00:22:15,42 I understand that but somehow with virtual reality we can also live in another world. 249 00:22:15,42 --> 00:22:22,58 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes. 250 00:22:22,58 --> 00:22:28,06 Interviewer: Or think about our own virtual identity. 251 00:22:28,06 --> 00:22:37,35 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes, and it's also a way to sometimes communicate your understanding of the world to others. 252 00:22:37,69 --> 00:22:41,45 For example we have worked with patients that have brain damage. 253 00:22:42,29 --> 00:22:48,89 That has changed the way they perceive the world and how they function. 254 00:22:49,29 --> 00:22:53,84 For us it's very look at this table and we know immediately it's a table. 255 00:22:54,43 --> 00:22:59,05 For people to have some kind of brain damage through accidents or some disease or something. 256 00:22:59,37 --> 00:23:03,09 They look at the table and they cannot recognize that this is a table, for example. 257 00:23:04,79 --> 00:23:07,62 So sometimes their behavior feels erratic. 258 00:23:07,92 --> 00:23:14,25 But it's not erratic because they find themselves in situations that they just, something as simple as a table. 259 00:23:14,25 --> 00:23:16,42 The brain doesn't process that. 260 00:23:16,8 --> 00:23:21,61 So we have worked with some patients a few years back, 261 00:23:21,61 --> 00:23:25,81 where through their verbal descriptions of how they perceive the world. 262 00:23:26,05 --> 00:23:31,09 Which I had to recreate virtual environments that we could become that person. 263 00:23:31,57 --> 00:23:35,82 And we could understand how the person perceives the world. 264 00:23:36,34 --> 00:23:44,42 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. 265 00:23:44,76 --> 00:23:45,91 So those kinds of things are- 266 00:23:45,91 --> 00:23:47,44 Interviewer: Then you could solve that problem? 267 00:23:47,44 --> 00:23:53,48 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, you can help people to understand your reality, in a sense in a way. 268 00:23:53,96 --> 00:23:59,61 And again you can also create a completely new reality that we don't Know what it is at this moment, 269 00:23:59,61 --> 00:24:08,62 that you might imagine and build, it and make an experience. I have a good colleague, that his sort of perspective. 270 00:24:09,74 --> 00:24:14,97 Is that virtual reality allows you to be not only somebody else, but something else. 271 00:24:15,24 --> 00:24:19,15 So he always gives the example, he always wanted to be a lobster. 272 00:24:19,62 --> 00:24:26,91 So one of his first virtual reality applications, over 20 something years ago. 273 00:24:26,99 --> 00:24:32,98 Was to understand the world, from the perspective of a lobster. And you use virtual reality, and you become a lobster. 274 00:24:33,25 --> 00:24:37,98 So that's not really my area of work. 275 00:24:37,98 --> 00:24:43,66 It's more, I guess I'm more from a practical perspective of, how do we solve a problem. 276 00:24:43,85 --> 00:24:49,64 But certainly, you want to feel the world, let's say you were some sort of bacteria. 277 00:24:49,9 --> 00:24:57,21 How do bacteria understand the world, and how do they spread themselves through another organism? 278 00:24:57,5 --> 00:25:00,37 Well, you can use virtual reality, and become a bacteria. 279 00:25:00,95 --> 00:25:03,8 And live in the world of microorganisms, and see how that world- 280 00:25:03,8 --> 00:25:03,88 Interviewer: Well, that's all very practical, and I can understand that. 281 00:25:03,88 --> 00:25:03,99 But if you try to look at the borders of your science, what's possible right now, what would, 282 00:25:03,99 --> 00:25:08,39 we can expect in the future? That this virtual world, will become so real. Or am I wrong? 283 00:25:08,39 --> 00:25:26,21 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah. 284 00:25:26,21 --> 00:25:31,38 Interviewer: When you try to think about it, not in a practical way. 285 00:25:31,38 --> 00:25:36,05 But in a way, in the direction we're going with these developments. 286 00:25:36,05 --> 00:25:41,38 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and I think there is a little bit of. 287 00:25:41,71 --> 00:25:48,39 With every new science, there is always the positive part, that the science can bring to society. 288 00:25:49,01 --> 00:25:53,68 And some of the potential dangers that can bring to society. 289 00:25:54,01 --> 00:26:00,69 And certainly there is a concern that we might create some realities that become much more pleasant. 290 00:26:01,24 --> 00:26:06,45 Much more rewarding, or satisfactory, than the real reality. 291 00:26:06,79 --> 00:26:09,61 Especially in the world that we live today, there are so many frustrations. 292 00:26:09,78 --> 00:26:12,99 We all have a lot of frustrations in our daily life. 293 00:26:13,4 --> 00:26:17,36 And then you can go into virtual reality, and you can be, I don't know. 294 00:26:17,36 --> 00:26:24,6 Some beautiful, wealthy person with a beautiful virtual yacht, going to some beautiful virtual island. 295 00:26:25,44 --> 00:26:30,31 Not your small, tiny basement apartment, that you can barely pay the rent. 296 00:26:30,72 --> 00:26:34,29 So there is certainly a concern, and it's a growing concern. 297 00:26:34,55 --> 00:26:42,34 That we might, in the long-term future, not in the next, maybe five years, but really looking far into the future. 298 00:26:42,57 --> 00:26:49,43 That we might create this alternate reality, to some extent, that is better than our real reality. 299 00:26:49,86 --> 00:26:57,75 And we might all start living more those alternate realities, versus the real life, or something. 300 00:26:58,19 --> 00:26:59,13 And how we are going to handle that? 301 00:26:59,3 --> 00:27:07,53 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 00:27:10,18 --> 00:27:13,58 I don't know how to say, understanding, or picture, of how all of this is going to happen. 303 00:27:13,75 --> 00:27:19,81 Because right now, with the technology that we have? I am personally convinced that will never really happen. 304 00:27:20,84 --> 00:27:22,68 Because the technology is still- 305 00:27:22,68 --> 00:27:23,4 Interviewer: It will never happen [CROSSTALK] 306 00:27:23,4 --> 00:27:27,16 Carolina Cruz-neira: With the way we have it right now. We haven't- 307 00:27:27,16 --> 00:27:29,53 Interviewer: But you know, it's, who's going to develop it? 308 00:27:29,53 --> 00:27:37,22 Carolina Cruz-neira: We haven't, I don't think we have found the right solution at all, yet. 309 00:27:37,4 --> 00:27:42,16 All the platforms that we have right now and right now I'm talking about physical platforms. 310 00:27:43,19 --> 00:27:46,48 The different helmets, or the different projectors, or the different, all these things that we have. 311 00:27:46,81 --> 00:27:55,95 They're not transparent, it takes a conscious effort to put them on. 312 00:27:56,24 --> 00:28:02,62 You have to have a specific technology, computers, this, that. 313 00:28:02,83 --> 00:28:10,73 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 00:28:11,65 --> 00:28:18,44 But I think that as we move forward, people will, like other novelties, in a couple of years, everybody will calm down. 315 00:28:19,33 --> 00:28:25,18 And then, everybody is gonna have their virtual reality set at the bottom of the drawer. 316 00:28:25,35 --> 00:28:28,14 Like has happened with some of the gaming technologies. 317 00:28:28,14 --> 00:28:30,45 Interviewer: You think so? This will happen? 318 00:28:30,45 --> 00:28:34,87 Carolina Cruz-neira: Again, with the current platforms, as we have them today, I think so. 319 00:28:35,01 --> 00:28:39,08 Because, again, there were some gaming platforms which I'm not gonna mention. 320 00:28:39,08 --> 00:28:39,68 Interviewer: But they're [CROSSTALK] 321 00:28:39,68 --> 00:28:45,03 Carolina Cruz-neira: But they were gonna change, they were gonna change the world a few years ago, and what happened? 322 00:28:45,27 --> 00:28:46,81 Yes it was a great innovation. 323 00:28:47,31 --> 00:28:53,56 But who wants to spend three, four, five, six hours playing a video game standing on your feet? 324 00:28:53,56 --> 00:28:54,21 Interviewer: Yeah. 325 00:28:54,21 --> 00:28:56,13 Carolina Cruz-neira: It was a really cool platform. 326 00:28:56,13 --> 00:28:58,15 Interviewer: I think that's 20 years ago 327 00:28:58,15 --> 00:28:58,72 Carolina Cruz-neira: [LAUGH] 328 00:28:58,72 --> 00:29:04,2 Interviewer: But in the future, I can imagine that as virtual reality becomes so real or so perfect 329 00:29:04,2 --> 00:29:08,82 or without any bugs. Because in real life, we can also get sick. 330 00:29:08,82 --> 00:29:09,69 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yes. 331 00:29:09,69 --> 00:29:10,84 Interviewer: Or we can 332 00:29:10,84 --> 00:29:13,15 Interviewer: Crash, too, like the car. 333 00:29:13,15 --> 00:29:17,23 Carolina Cruz-neira: Yeah, and that's what I say. With the technology that we have today, no. 334 00:29:17,42 --> 00:29:24,1 But in the direction that we're going, whatever might come down the line, that is certainly a concern. 335 00:29:24,62 --> 00:29:31,39 And there are starting to be, around the world, movements related to ethics and the use of virtual reality. 336 00:29:32,00 --> 00:29:36,81 So there are some committees and groups, and they are starting. 337 00:29:37,46 --> 00:29:42,12 There is some here in the US, there are some in Europe, that are starting to appear, there are some in Asia. 338 00:29:42,3 --> 00:29:49,34 Where, at this moment, are being more kind of like, coffee-shop conversations, a small group. 339 00:29:50,1 --> 00:29:53,13 But they are starting to appear, because there is a concern. 340 00:29:54,07 --> 00:30:00,56 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? 341 00:30:00,83 --> 00:30:05,17 I don't think so, because the benefits are so much. 342 00:30:05,67 --> 00:30:12,84 And at so many levels, that I think this is something that is more education, like drugs. 343 00:30:13,97 --> 00:30:17,00 Everybody knows that drugs are bad, but there are people who are still taking drugs. 344 00:30:17,00 --> 00:30:20,34 Well, that's their own responsibility to make that decision, so- 345 00:30:20,34 --> 00:30:23,2 Interviewer: But I think in every science, and every development, there is- 346 00:30:23,2 --> 00:30:25,32 Carolina Cruz-neira: There is always something like that. 347 00:30:25,32 --> 00:30:26,54 Interviewer: Should we do this or not? 348 00:30:26,54 --> 00:30:29,08 Carolina Cruz-neira: But on the other hand, it's also good. 349 00:30:29,27 --> 00:30:36,95 Because we also have done some work related to stress and depression. And again, creating this alternative reality. 350 00:30:36,95 --> 00:30:43,75 That for a short period of time, you become, again, some person, whatever is your fantasy. 351 00:30:44,61 --> 00:30:54,36 A very famous singer, a very wealthy person, a famous explorer going somewhere. A lobster, whatever your fantasy is. 352 00:30:55,16 --> 00:31:05,96 Just fifteen minutes' exposure to that type of alternate reality significantly decreases stress levels and depressions. 353 00:31:06,52 --> 00:31:13,23 And that has been demonstrated, by not only my group and other groups. That we have [CROSSTALK] 354 00:31:13,23 --> 00:31:16,2 Interviewer: [CROSSTALK] because I would like to. 355 00:31:16,2 --> 00:31:21,2 Of course, there is a discussion of ethics, and that's in every science. 356 00:31:21,53 --> 00:31:26,2 But, since the discussion will be there, or come, anywhere. 357 00:31:26,2 --> 00:31:30,2 But if we explore the path of development into virtual reality. 358 00:31:30,2 --> 00:31:37,54 It seems to me, that in the future, you can have more identity than only your own real identity. 359 00:31:37,54 --> 00:31:43,54 So you've become, and it's not about ethics or something, but How will that look like? 360 00:31:43,87 --> 00:31:48,2 Suppose its 2050 and we have more then our own real identity. 361 00:31:48,2 --> 00:32:14,00 Carolina Cruz-neira: Well we have that today. I mean look at what people are doing in Facebook. Is it you in Facebook? 362 00:32:14,00 --> 00:32:19,9 Its not really you, I mean, you are the one doing the postings but you're, in a sense, 363 00:32:19,9 --> 00:32:28,32 maybe exaggerating some of your postings. Not necessarily lying, but embellishing the situation. 364 00:32:28,89 --> 00:32:35,92 We already, to some extent, are using some technologies that are giving us multiple personalities 365 00:32:35,93 --> 00:32:37,28 or multiple identities. 366 00:32:37,69 --> 00:32:43,57 You see a lot of discussions on how people represent themselves in chatrooms, and in Twitter, 367 00:32:43,83 --> 00:32:45,2 and some other things like that. 368 00:32:45,2 --> 00:32:52,69 So, I think at that level, of course with virtual reality is much more powerful because it's not just you're, 369 00:32:52,69 --> 00:32:59,13 let's say posting a picture and say, look, big deal about this. 370 00:32:59,45 --> 00:33:05,29 But it's actually living that experience that you're actually creating or something like that. 371 00:33:05,41 --> 00:33:11,01 So I don't know, personally, that's something that doesn't worry me too much because, 372 00:33:11,17 --> 00:33:15,33 again the benefits are really what I'm focused on. 373 00:33:15,33 --> 00:33:22,48 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. 374 00:33:22,48 --> 00:33:23,81 Carolina Cruz-neira: I don't know. 375 00:33:23,81 --> 00:33:26,2 Interviewer: Me having other identity. I'm curious. 376 00:33:26,2 --> 00:33:31,59 Carolina Cruz-neira: We might be, in many ways, maybe happier than healthier because as we're getting older, 377 00:33:31,74 --> 00:33:35,01 for example, we don't have as much energy as we used to have. 378 00:33:35,33 --> 00:33:42,75 But one of my entities can be a very energetic woman that kinda still go and dance in pointe shoes. 379 00:33:43,39 --> 00:33:48,99 Which I haven't danced in over 30 years now, but I can still virtually maybe do that. 380 00:33:49,18 --> 00:34:00,48 Maybe your other identity is that you used to go and swim ten kilometers or something across some strait somewhere 381 00:34:00,49 --> 00:34:06,74 and you cannot do that right now but that virtual reality might allow you to do it. So I think it's- 382 00:34:06,74 --> 00:34:12,41 Interviewer: What will that do to us if we have those choices in virtual reality? [CROSSTALK] 383 00:34:12,41 --> 00:34:19,26 Carolina Cruz-neira: We're also gonna have, life is gonna change to because again, some of the virtual reality helps, 384 00:34:20,16 --> 00:34:27,41 like any other again, new technology too, I think the way we work is gonna change. So as we are all having more. 385 00:34:28,72 --> 00:34:32,43 Right now, we're in a strange, in my opinion, transition technology era. 386 00:34:32,43 --> 00:34:40,87 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 00:34:40,87 --> 00:34:46,74 Like, for example, email. Email has facilitated communications tremendously. But at the same time. 388 00:34:46,74 --> 00:34:51,4 Our community in so we can never clear that inbox queue. 389 00:34:51,99 --> 00:34:59,27 We're always busy trying to clear our email, so we communicate so much now that it's keeping us busier, but again, 390 00:34:59,88 --> 00:35:02,76 looking into the future, many of these things get resolved 391 00:35:02,77 --> 00:35:08,81 and that translates into us having other time that we can use for more quality time or something else. 392 00:35:09,83 --> 00:35:19,64 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 00:35:19,64 --> 00:35:25,23 Like we have worked with companies for example that in the last ten years, 394 00:35:25,23 --> 00:35:34,11 their timeframe from the concept of a product to the product being in the market was in between seven 395 00:35:34,12 --> 00:35:35,37 and nine years period. 396 00:35:36,15 --> 00:35:40,2 With the introduction of virtual reality, doing virtual testing, the virtual prototyping, 397 00:35:40,65 --> 00:35:45,1 bringing customers from the virtual status of the [INAUDIBLE] and all that, 398 00:35:45,1 --> 00:35:49,25 their cycle now has reduced to about two years. 399 00:35:50,64 --> 00:35:58,5 That has released a lot of the people in that company a tremendous amount of work that they can use for something else. 400 00:35:59,59 --> 00:36:02,08 I don't know, it's hard to imagine a future, but at the same time, 401 00:36:02,24 --> 00:36:12,18 I think it could potentially be a more relaxed future, maybe a happier future, because again, 402 00:36:12,7 --> 00:36:19,89 it's a few minutes of escaping being, doing. You know, I love the ocean. And we don't live by the ocean. 403 00:36:20,12 --> 00:36:22,1 We live in the middle of Arkansas right now. 404 00:36:22,35 --> 00:36:29,54 So it would be great if I could spend 30 minutes every day sitting by the ocean and feeling the breeze, 405 00:36:29,75 --> 00:36:34,32 that alone just, I'll be happy for the rest of the afternoon, 406 00:36:34,32 --> 00:36:38,49 or something like that versus kind of here like it's hot and humid. 407 00:36:38,7 --> 00:36:43,24 It's been six months since I've seen the ocean or something like that. I don't know. I think. 408 00:36:43,24 --> 00:36:47,11 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.