GuestXR partner Reichman University has celebrated on June 13th a symposium to discuss the applications and implications that Extended Reality can have in the society. The event, called “XR for the people”, took place in the Sammy Ofer School of Communications building of the Reichman University, located in Herzliya (Israel).
Doron Friedman, head of the Advanced Reality Lab, hosted the session “Remote virtual discussion / live performance: Is virtual reality genuine reality?” where a GPT3 language-model controlled Albert Einstein joined, in a virtual space, philosopher David Chalmers (in Australia) and professor Mel Slater (in Barcelona), Technical Coordinator of the GuestXR project.
The session took place using VR United, a multi-participant VR system developed at the Event Lab of the University of Barcelona by Dr. Ramon Oliva, as part of the ERC MOTIVE project.
The Albert Einstein avatar was designed and implemented by Prof. Doron Friedman and Alon Shoa, from Reichman University. The moderator was Prof. Jeremy Fogel (Tel Aviv) who acted as the interface between the physical audience and the panel. He was facing the physical audience and simultaneously in the VR where he could speak to the panelists, who could therefore hear what was going on in the real theatre.
Moreover, Amir Amedi, Professor of Psychology at the Reichman University gave a speech called “XR, mind, and brain – from science to applications”, where he talked about VR and other immersive environments to study neuroplasticity and to pilot claustrophobia and stress reduction in cancer patients.
The event also included a panel discussion titled “From social media to metaverse (GuestXR)”, moderated by Doron Friedman, in which he presented the project to the audience.
GuestXR works towards the creation of a new machine learning agent, called “The Guest”, addressing conflicts and unlocking interaction between participants in extended reality environments, helping them achieve their goals and address conflicts.
