While some science fiction technologies are already here or very close (C3PO, Longevity, AGI, etc) some are very far away or not possible at all. I will try to explain why FDVR is one of these and why it is so hard. Let’s start with the definition of FDVR as portrayed in popular science fiction works like “Matrix” or “3 Body Problem” is the idea of directly sending and receiving signals from the brain to simulate a realistic virtual reality for the brain.
Let’s look at the simplest problem first. If we want to get signals from the brain and use them in virtual reality we have to intercept them and cut off the connection to the real body. There is currently no known way to do this without damaging the body permanently and even if we could, a body without signals is not really functioning. laying in your own piss would be your smallest problem. You wouldn’t even be able to breathe. But even if we manage to do this we would only have solved the easiest part. Now that we have the output, we also need input.
Simulating feelings from every nerve end of your body requires the system to not only simulate the entire virtual reality which would have to be accurate on a molecular level (smell, taste) but also would need to be rendered quite far and needs full simulation of realistic physics (eyes, touch). And not only would the world need to be simulated to such a degree, but your body would also need to be a 1 to 1 simulation. every nerve end and visual receptor needs to be simulated to achieve a realistic experience that would fool your brain. This leads to the next problem: To get all these signals back into the brain we would need to understand the encoding and position of every input signal to the brain. This requires such an in-depth understanding of the brain that FDVR would be the most boring thing we could do with it at this point.
If we had the computing power to simulate all this and the deep understanding of the brain required to do it, It would be easier to simply make a digital copy of your brain and run it as a simulation. And if there is enough computing power to simulate a world to this degree, then we are most likely already living in one. The computing power to do this even for a few people could exceed what is possible with the energy in our solar system, following the law of computational irreducibility.
So in conclusion, if a future ASI would have access to such a deep understanding of biology and so much energy and computing power, using it for FDVR would be a total waste. But who knows maybe we get a fast takeoff soon and ASI will find some ways and we archive FSVR with some compromises in a few decades. I personally would bet that FDVR will never play a huge part in our society.
2022 was an eventful year with lots of ups and downs. While the global economy is struggling, and problems like climate change and social instability continue to grow, there have also been some significant technological and scientific breakthroughs.
The most prominent developments probably happened in deep learning with the appearance of generative models that are able to generate human-level music, art, dialog, and code. In this context, I want to talk about two specific papers that shaped the field this year and most likely next year. The paper “Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models” which is the basis for Dall-E 2, Stable diffusion, and many other generative models, and the chinchilla paper from Deepmind, which demonstrated the importance of high-quality training data over model size. This will likely shape the design and cost of future models, including the anticipated release of OpenAI’s GPT-4 in 2023, which is expected to outperform humans in many text-based tasks. The improvements are not only driven by Moore’s law and architectural improvements but also the money spent to train and develop these systems increases. This is expected as the potential is more and more recognized and the value these systems provide is ever-increasing.
Note that this is a logarithmic chart. the growth is nearly double exponential.
But not just GPT-4. AI will continue to disrupt various industries such as search and creative writing and spark public debate about its impact, even more than is happening right now. It will also lead to the production of high-quality media with fewer people and resources thanks to AI’s assistance. In the field of 3D generation, I expect to see similar progress in 2023, bringing us closer to the quality of 2D generation.
Fusion, the process of combining atomic nuclei to release a large amount of energy, has made significant strides in recent years. This is largely due to the incorporation of machine learning and advancements in various fields such as materials science and engineering. Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that they were able to achieve a positive net outcome from a fusion reaction, which is a major milestone in the pursuit of unlimited clean energy. While I expect to see continued progress in this field, it is unlikely that we will see a commercial fusion reactor within the next two years. However, the upcoming start of the Iter project, an international collaboration to build a fusion reactor, may refuel interest and drive further developments in this promising area.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an important milestone in the field of astronomy because it is designed to be the most powerful and advanced space telescope ever built. It started to operate this year. It is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). One of the main goals of the JWST is to study the early universe and the formation and evolution of galaxies. It will be able to observe some of the most distant objects in the universe, including the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. In addition to studying the early universe, the JWST will also be able to observe exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system) and potentially search for signs of life on these planets. It will have the ability to study the atmospheres of exoplanets and look for biomarkers, such as oxygen and methane, which could indicate the presence of life. The JWST is also expected to make important contributions to our understanding of planetary science, by studying the atmospheres and surfaces of planets in our own solar system and beyond.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
The hardware industry has faced challenges this year due to manufacturing bottlenecks. Despite the continuation of Moore’s law and the development of new alternatives to silicon, it has been difficult to obtain chips at this time. The industry is restructuring in order to better handle future demand for hardware. Specialized hardware, such as AI processors and quantum computers, are seeing rapid development. According to IBM’s roadmap, we can expect to see quantum computers with over 1000 Qbits in the upcoming year. GPUs will become more important with the rise of AI. However, these advancements in hardware technology also come with the need for careful consideration and planning in terms of production and distribution. Ensuring a stable and efficient supply chain will be crucial in meeting the increasing demand for these specialized hardware components.
Virtual Reality (VR) technology has experienced a difficult period in recent years due to overhyping of its potential. While some people may have expected VR to revolutionize the way we interact with and experience the world, it has yet to reach the level of ubiquity and practicality that was promised by Meta. But the year 2023 is shaping up to be a promising one for the VR hardware market, with multiple new headsets, such as the Quest 3, and maybe even an Apple Headset, set to be released. These new products will likely offer improved graphics, more intuitive controls, and a wider range of content and experiences. While it may not fully realize the vision of a “Metaverse”, VR is still likely to be a great entertainment product for many people
2023 will be a critical year for AR. It will be the first time that we can build affordable Hardware in a small form factor. Chips like the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 implement Wifi 7 and low energy usage and will make it possible to build Smart glasses. Depending on the availability and price of the chips and other components I expect glasses from many different companies with even more capabilities than Oppo air Glass 2.
One of the most exciting developments in computer interfaces is the emergence of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These allow for direct communication between the brain and a computer, enabling the possibility of controlling devices with thought alone. While companies like Neuralink are claiming to begin human trials next year, non-invasive BCIs present a much lower barrier to entry and are being actively developed by startups such as Synchron, which has received significant funding. AI will also help the field by decoding brain signals. It is likely that we will see at least one viral video showcasing the capabilities of these non-invasive BCIs, similar to the viral video of a monkey playing pong using a BCI that was released last year. The potential applications for BCIs are vast and diverse, ranging from medical and therapeutic uses to gaming and everyday tasks. As these technologies continue to evolve, it is exciting to consider the possibilities for the future of human-computer interaction.
Researchers from biotech and other fields were able to develop an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 in less than a year. The same technology was also used to create a universal flu vaccine and a vaccine for malaria. The combination of biology and AI has yielded promising results in the development of treatments for various viruses and illnesses. For example, a team led by Chris Jones of the Institute of Cancer Research used AI tools to identify a new drug combination to fight diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a type of incurable childhood brain cancer. The proposed combination extended survival in mice by 14% and has been tested in a small group of children. Additionally, Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine describing a treatment that resulted in complete remission in all 18 rectal cancer patients who took the drug. Overall, the progress in the field is accelerating thanks to advancements in AI, such as Alphafold 2, which are designed to find and develop treatments for various diseases. If this continues we will be able to beat cancer in the next few years, which leads to the next field.
I predict that every person under 60 has the potential to live forever, as I mentioned in my post about longevity escape velocity. The field of aging research has made significant progress in recent years and is more confident than ever in its understanding of the aging process and life itself. For example, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel were able to create fully synthetic mouse embryos in a bioreactor using stem cells cultured in a Petri dish, without the use of an egg or sperm. These embryos developed normally, starting to elongate on day three and developing a beating heart by day eight. This marked a major advancement in the study of how stem cells form different organs and how mutations can cause developmental diseases. This is a promising step toward the end goal: Achieving complete control over all biological processes in the body.
While this was a slow year in some aspects, major progress was made in most fields, and 2023 will be even faster. We are at the knee of an exponential blowup and we are not ready for what is coming. While I am still worried about how society will react and adapt, I am excited for 2023 and the rest of the decade.
After we discussed Virtual Reality (VR) and its implications let’s take a closer look at Augmented Reality (AR). While AR is currently not as present in the news or as developed as VR, it has the potential to be the more disruptive technology. Let us start with the current state of AR, its problems, and challenges, and after that, we take a closer look at its potential in the next few years.
We have to differentiate between devices that have AR capabilities like most recent VR headsets, and AR devices made for everyday use like glasses or contact lenses. While AR functionality in VR devices is important and opens up a lot of useful functionalities they are not the main topic of this post. The goal is a device that is stylish and comfortable enough to be worn all day and that provides a basic set of functionalities.
These devices are difficult to build, which is the reason why we haven’t seen them until now. You need sensors to embed the virtual elements into the real world and displays or lasers that allow you to present them without blocking the field of view and you need a lot of computational power and energy to make that possible. The displays work by either projecting the light directly into the eye or by projecting it on the glasses. the latter has the disadvantage of making it visible to other people around you which should be avoided due to privacy concerns. Some companies tried to build glasses like that. Hololens 2 from Microsoft is a good example of a device like that.
Microsoft trailer for the Hololens 2
This is a good example of a product that has some good functionality but is not built for everyday use and it is not designed or priced for the consumer market. Some “smart” glasses provide audio but are not powerful enough to be called AR devices. Contact lenses are smaller and that makes the problem of fitting everything in even harder which is the reason why we have not seen a smart contact lens until now. So how do we get all the needed technology small enough to fit into a stylish pair of glasses? The answer is we do not. The solution is in our pockets. Companies like Apple spent years putting powerful computers in our pockets. While many argue that today’s smartphones are already more than powerful enough, their capabilities are barely at the point we need for the next step. When we connect our glasses to our phone we can outsource most of the computational power to our phone and can thus focus on sensors and displays that allow us to make the devices smaller. The key idea is a PAN (personal area network) with our phone as the main router and controller.
The smartphone runs the XR application and encodes video data to send them wireless to the device.
Apple is fighting since 2021 to get more bandwidth for Bluetooth to enable such functionality. Let us assume we bring enough power to our smartphones and we get a technology that allows high data rates in our PAN. We still have to fit sensors, displays, antennas, and batteries inside a small form factor. Some companies made incredible steps in this direction like the Mojo lens from Mojo vision, which managed to put everything needed in a contact lens and is confident to start selling them to the consumer market in 1-2 years.
But I think we will most likely see glasses from companies like Apple or Samsung in the next 10-20 months. Especially, Apple is a good candidate for the first AR device since they have all the needed functionality. Powerful chips in their phones and with ARKit already a software framework for this Hardware. The adoption rate will depend on the initial price. If they decide to lower the price as meta did with their meta quest, the glasses could be mainstream in two years. But if they push for the best possible hardware and sell them as a premium product, we will have to wait for the competition to release a cheaper option.
One of the best possible capabilities of AR devices will be what I call synchronized reality. If two people with AR devices meet, it will be important to have the possibility to make things that you see visible to the other person. This feature is important because things only appear real to us if others can see and interact with them too. An early example of something like this would be the “pokemon center” in the popular AR game Pokemon Go. The location of this virtual place is the same for every player, which is a core element of the game. Without this consistency, AR will be limited to the functionality that a modern smartwatch can provide. I am confident that a company like Apple is capable of implementing something like that for their devices. My biggest fear is that virtual objects will stay inside a system and the integration between different systems will not be possible. Considering the current state of message integration between iOS and Android, this scenario is most likely.
people attending a mixed reality meeting using synchronized reality.
My guess is that useful AR technology will be available sometime in 2023 and will not be mainstream until 2025. At this point, some enthusiasts will experiment with the commercial use of Brain-computer interfaces which will then enhance AR devices and later replace them. I do not think that most people will adopt BCIs since the barrier of entry is way higher compared to AR devices and the gain will be marginal for a long time.
I decided to split the metaverse blog post into a mini-series since the topic is so broad, that when I tried to put everything into one post I simply failed.
We start with the currently most relevant part: VR Hardware.
VR is one of the two technologies that will be the platforms for the metaverse soon. Arguably not the most important one, but the one that will be available first.
2023 will be a big year for VR. We will see some new VR devices from Meta, Apple, Pico, and others. Some of these new devices will tackle the most important problems for VR hardware.
The problem with existing VR devices, like the meta quest, is that you cannot use them for extended periods, and it is not a pleasant experience at all. They are too heavy, and they cause eye strain. The movement in VR leads to nausea and the ways to interact with VR are limited. On top of that, the viewing itself is far from reality.
Some of these problems will be fixed this year. Each new headset is lighter than the last one and Apple’s VR headset is supposed to have a way higher resolution than most currently available headsets thanks to apple silicon. Eye tracking is coming in meta’s next headset and in many others, which will help with performance and resolution, and will give us new ways to interact.
Some other problems like contrast, adaptive depth, distortion, and field of view are harder to fix and will take some time, but mark Zuckerberg recently showed some prototypes that tackle some of these problems too.
Mark Zuckerberg presents meta’s prototypes
Most of these solutions require huge amounts of computation power, especially higher resolutions. Standalone Headsets will not be able to perform fast enough, at least not for the next year. I think apple is most likely to be able to bring a good visual experience to a standalone headset thanks to apple silicon, but their first model which is expected to launch in January 2023 will not be able to fix all the existing visual problems. Even PC-VR is still limited by data rates of cables and wireless transmission. We need at least Wi-Fi 6 to reach a point where wireless transmission is viable for realistic-looking VR experiences.
The problem with nausea will become less bad with improved visuals but as long as we use a controller to move the problem persists. I do not think omnidirectional treadmills are the way to go. they are too expensive, and most people do not want to waste that much space, money, and energy in their free time. Some applications use teleporting or walking in place to move, and many other solutions are currently being tested. While treadmills are not likely going to be a standard accessory, full-body tracking will be. The difference in emersion with full body tracking is huge and it gives VR another important input tool. Cheap full-body tracking solutions like slimeVR will become better and better and will give us realistic bodies in VR. The already mentioned eye tracking is another step of emersion that will be important for social VR. Being able to look someone in the eyes and read their mimic is a core element of human interaction and we are sensitive to strange facial movements. But eye tracking can do even more. It improves performance by limiting the resolution in areas that we are not looking at and it serves as an input device for VR. We can look at objects and control elements and the software will be able to extrapolate what we want to touch or click, which will remove frustrating moments like not being able to click the right button because of unprecise hand tracking. This brings me to my last point: hand tracking. It is arguably part of full-body tracking, but it is so important since hands are our primary way to interact with VR. Realistic and precise hand tracking is one of the most important aspects of emersion.
These videos show some of the key papers for hand tracking, published in the last two years. These papers are the foundation of meta’s hand tracking and will most likely continue to improve in the coming year.
If we look at the current development of headsets in the market it looks pretty good.
Sold headsets per year
And the number of Headsets that are used every month for gaming is a good indicator for this upcoming billion-dollar entertainment industry.
actively used headsets on steam
I think we will see an even greater wave of people getting into VR in the next 2 years. Not just for gaming, but with apple joining the market, we will also see increases in areas like education and industry.
In the end, I want to take a short look into the far future of VR and virtual reality. I am talking about 5-10 years, probably after a technological singularity. The final goal of VR is full dive. The ability to simulate all 5 senses directly within the brain and to intercept all outputs from our brain to paralyze our body and redirect all movement into virtual reality. I will not talk about the implications for society that is a topic for another time, but from a pure hardware perspective, this is extremely challenging. While reading the output of the brain is an area where we are currently making a lot of progress, intercepting the signal to prevent our body from moving is not possible right now without a lot of medical expertise and long-lasting effects. Sending signals for all senses directly into the brain is even harder since every brain is different. I do not think we will be able to do this without an AGI, but if in the far future a machine overlord decides to put us all in our own matrix it will hopefully be heaven and not hell.
