How Long Until Virtual Reality Becomes Our Daily Reality?
I came across some news today that an Australian virtual reality education start-up called Academy Xi has just secured a large chunk of its first round of capital raising.
Academy Xi currently runs classes for companies and individuals wanting to learn more about virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. It now has hubs in Sydney and Melbourne, but has a vision to expand its educational reach globally.
In the article, the author references a statement by the co-founder and chief executive of Academy Xi, Ben Wong, who says 60% of Australian students are currently studying or training for jobs that won’t exist or will be unrecognisable in the next 10 to 15 years. He also says that within only 7 or 8 years, as many as 40% of current job roles will no longer exist.
I’ve written before here about how we are facing an education crisis in the western world, and it’s good to see new companies like Academy Xi working to address it. As state schools continue to lag behind, they will become increasingly more irrelevant. I have no problem with that because history has shown that the less government controls education the better.
But all of this made me ponder how long it will be before virtual reality becomes our daily reality.
How long will it be until we no longer show up for business meetings, but instead meet in a virtual world?
How long until our children no longer go to school, but instead attend a virtual school, one that can offer not only head knowledge but experiential learning?
How long, if ever, until virtual reality is indistinguishable from our current daily reality?
Will virtual reality ever be able to bring full immersion – the full range of the human experience that we enjoy in the real world – movement, touch, smell, taste?
Here’s what well-known futurist and Google head of engineering Ray Kurzweil believes:
"In the 2030s, we are going to send nano-robots into the brain (via capillaries) that will provide full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud. Just like how we can wirelessly expand the power of our smartphones 10,000-fold in the cloud today, we'll be able to expand our neocortex in the cloud."
Source
Apparently, Kurzweil has an 86% accuracy rate when it comes to his 147 predictions since the 1990s. Will this one be in the 86% or the 14%?
What do you think?
Will the 2020’s bring us a partial immersion virtual reality experience that is real and useful enough that it becomes functional, and not just entertaining?
How far off are we until a full immersion virtual reality experience? Or is it even possible?
How long until virtual reality becomes our daily reality?