every day we as humans are integrating

more and more with the technology around

us with the digital world it's

incredible but what we're finding is

that we're starting to blur this line

between virtual and reality I think it's

a pretty interesting thing because as we

integrate more with this technology

around us we're starting to find new

ways to allow it to augment us now we

will all find ourselves somewhere along

this continuum between the real world as

we know it in the virtual world we're

going to be moving into that future very

quickly you don't currently find

yourself telling your friends about the

other day when you were walking around a

couple of social media sites and you

grab some mates from the other side of

the world and sat in an online store

whilst one of them put on some virtual

clothes but the world is changing very

very quickly and so we need to keep up

with that we need to raise the

conversations as to what we could

potentially achieve now in the late

eighties early 90s there was this rise

of virtual reality we had these headsets

my dad got me to try these on these

headsets that would give you an

incredible headache and it's basically

like strapping a TV to your face but you

can look around and what happens then is

it makes it very immersive now back then

it wasn't the right time and it was

overshadowed by the rise of the Internet

but we could still see even then that

there was a future for this technology

so over the last 10 years I've been

working in technologies that can augment

us and most of my work has been in

disability I've worked on a smart

wheelchair for my PhD in 2012 and this

smart wheelchair was allowing you to or

a person who needed it I've mostly

worked in disability on communication

mobility in connection but this allow

do to control the wheelchair rid the

mind and the wheelchair could see and

think for itself like a robot so it had

robotics and artificial intelligence in

there as well now what was really

interesting is the camera that you can

see on the front the yellow camera

that's a stereoscopic vision system now

what it has is two cameras that act just

like our own eyes they take two

different images put them on top of each

other and with that just like we can see

in three dimensions it can project those

pixels into the third dimension giving

it a third ordinate and allowing a very

low quality 3-dimensional photo now this

was something I found on the Front's of

the via the laptop of the wheelchair I

found this the other day from 2008 I

have no idea what I was doing here but

that's me I think I'm holding some

recycling boxes but what you could see

there is you can rotate three

dimensional space because it's a 3d

point cloud so all these pixels reside

in three-dimensional space now that was

very interesting but the technology

itself has actually advanced a lot since

then now the rise of virtual reality

came back again in 2012 with the the

oculus rift has anyone heard of this

great ok this is good so we're on board

with this that's about half the crowd by

the way of what I just saw now when I

first tried the oculus rift I put this

device on my head and like the TV being

strapped to the face it was a lot better

than it used to be much much better what

I found was I found myself in a virtual

apartment and I was watching a virtual

TV and on this TV there was a music

video now I got really immersed in it

and then I started to realize when it

finished that I was still sitting in a

virtual apartment and then I took the

device off back to the real world but

the interesting thing was I remember

this as if it was a memory as if I had

experienced it and that's when I

realized it was so incredibly powerful

so with that type of power in that sort

of technology combined with the

the 3d point clouds from 2008 it made me

realize that we are standing at the

verge of a massive technological

revolution we could potentially realize

certain ideas as wacky as they are

certain ideas like being able to create

a virtual copy of ourselves and I

started thinking about that I thought

this would be amazing if we could create

a virtual copy what we need is 3d but

volumetric recordings volumetric capture

of a human and so this would be a very

realistic shell we give it a virtual

skeleton so that it can move and that

the computer can control it through the

programs then we get artificial

intelligence but not the general type

you don't need to have a very advanced

general artificial intelligence to allow

it to learn everything in go on to

continue to learn you don't need that

you just need an artificial intelligence

that will learn specifics about the

person being copied things like their

gestures their mannerisms the things

that make us us so that the person can

spend a lot of time with the system so

the system can learn what that Peart

what makes up that person and then of

course you're going to need a some voice

emphasizes that are very natural so that

the system can speak on their behalf but

what it will actually do is capture that

person caught in a moment in space and

time so it's kind of like we could

revisit these virtual copies and have

natural conversations with them which is

very intriguing because if we were able

to copy some of the most influential

positive change makers in this world

what if we had Stephen Hawking or Elon

Musk able to be copied so that people

could go and meet them in the virtual

world or even bring them into the real

world through augmented reality

something that was very interesting but

bringing it back to a personal level I

started to realize that I wanted to see

how it could affect us even more

emotionally starting to think about what

would happen if this was a family member

that we could preserve what we have here

is a picture of myself when I was a baby

with my grandfather

now he sounded like an absolutely lovely

man an amazing person and I would very

much love to meet him unfortunately he

passed away when I was just before I was

2 and he never got to meet my lovely

wonderful triplet siblings who are three

and a half years younger than me

so if this idea this concept existed in

the past I would absolutely want to be

able to meet a virtual copy of my

grandfather and be able to to speak with

him to be able to interact with him

because I would get a better idea of who

he was but I wanted to talk to my mum

about this because I had no idea how to

gauge this this idea that I had so I

spoke to my mum and I said what would it

what would you think if I was say you

know the technology is not not what not

available now but wasn't back then

either what would you say if I could

have brought back your grandfather and

we tears in her eyes she said I don't

think I'd want that because I would be

constantly reliving the loss and I

started to realize this idea is actually

very different it's very important to

recognizes there's challenges and

opportunities with every new

technological development so as much as

I would love it my mum would have a

different approach and the reason is

because our prior relationship with the

person being copied will affect the

response that we have having said that

it would be the best thing for me if I

was able to meet my grandfather so if we

take it to an even more personal level

what if we could copy ourselves

throughout time and be able to go back

and revisit ourselves in the past and

really understand the sort of dreams the

visions that we had did you ever have

those big ideas to do so much for the

world what would happen if your past

self were saying how are you going with

that

I think it's incredibly powerful what

would you say to your previous self and

what was your past self say to you now I

really would like to show you something

that we've been working on so this is a

amazing collaboration that we've had

from my guys at psychokinetic and the

brilliant people at humans to bring

together I'll put this in my pocket this

little demo and you can see the work

that's gone into it thanks buddy

now wait till you guys can see what I

can see let me know when you can yeah

you can see my little virtual stage here

yes now how would you respond think

about it for a moment how would you

respond if you found yourself face to

face with yourself

it's incredibly weird and realistic that

I am currently walking around a virtual

version of me now if this wasn't you

if this wasn't your own coffee here's

another interesting thing the amazing

response that we can have from this in

terms of empathy think about what would

happen if you can step directly into

someone else's shoes and see through

their eyes I'm currently wearing

something different now thank

now this was just a glimpse of what we

could potentially go on to achieve but

the exciting thing about this is

whenever we have these massive

technological advances the exciting

thing is that it makes us realize it

makes us reflect what it means to be

human

it makes us reflect on ourselves and at

the core of humanity is empathy and

connection so if you had a coffee of you

floating around potentially having

conversations with people I want you to

think about it what sort of stories

would you tell what sort of vision and

values would you share and what sort of

legacies would you like to leave for

future generations thank you very much