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The Role of Education in the Era of Virtual Reality
and AI
Working Paper
· March 2016
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2140.0082
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The Role of Education in the Era of Vi rtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence

“Reality is merely an illusion, al beit a very persistent one.” ― Albert Einstein

Abstract:

In our paper we propose to analyze some questions regarding the role of education in the era
of Virtual Reality and AI, in order to pull an alarm signal. The VR and AI will have a major
impact in transforming all aspects of contemporary social life and the education system must
be prepared for these changes.

Introduction

The emergence of the knowledge and information into society has forced us to live in a society
based on the creation, disseminati on and utilization of mass amount s of technology and ideas at
an unprecedented rate. A few decades ago term s like cyberspace, virt ual reality a nd artificial
intelligence were used more often in science fiction literature, but now we can see that these terms are today part of the scie ntific and academic literature.

The question that arises, is why do we so often n eed to use terminology from fiction literature to
explain all the developments from the real worl d. Is contemporary society ready to introduce fast
enough (in real life) all the developments and acquisitions from science and technology at the
necessary accelerated rates? What impact will all these acquisitions have to real life of a common
citizen? How will we relate towards a humanoid r obot? Will we perceive it like a device or in
same way like another human person? What is the ro le of education in prep aring the educated to
cope with these changes, what role will upper educa tion step into to make us ready to “live” in a
virtual world.

We know that some people have lost contact with reality when they have played virtual games in
a 2d or 3d world; they have even lost their liv es, or have killed other people due of this.
What will happen when people like this enter into a virtual world? Will we lose them in that
world? All these justified questions require an answ er, and the educators need to be ready to give
answers, because education is the domain that is building and rebuilding itself through a
permanent adaptation to the societal changes. Sc hools need to be a field that reacts promptly to
any changes produced in society, they need to be ready to pr ovide solutions to the problems
facing contemporary society.

Immersive technologies: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Before starting to expose our view about the investment and innovation in Immersive
technologies we consider that is necessary to study the difference and similarities between
augmented reality and virtual reality.

Augmented Reality – A technology that superim poses a computer-generated
image on a user’s view of the real wo rld, thus providing a composite view. [4]
Virtual Reality – The computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional
image or environment that can be interact ed with in a seemingly real or physical
way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors. [4] Immersive – (Of a computer display or system ) generating a three-dimensional
image which appears to surround the user. [4]
In our opinion, AR and VR are similar in th e goal of immersing the user in a Virtual
Reality Environment (VRE) even if those syst ems do this in different ways. With each
technology having it’s own level of immersi on – starting from a Semi-Immersive Virtual
Reality and ending with a Fully Immersive Environment – and features. Taking these arguments into consideration, in our articl e we will use the term Immersive Reality
Systems, or refer to with the abbreviation IRS when we refer to both: AR and VR.

Investment and Innovation in IRS and AI

„Which comes first, investment or innovation? Does an infusion of cash spur innovation, or is it
the innovation that brings in the i nvestment?” (Donald J. 2016) [1]
During the last period one can observe an intensifica tion of research in the fields of virtual reality
as well as artificial intelligence; research that is now encompassing more areas of society than
was imagined possible 10-15 years ago. This recent research has been mainly focused on developing the Immersive Reality Systems, the
development of Immersive Virtual Environment, a world that seems to be slowly getting closer
to our real world.

Our opinion is that the developm ent of these new technologies at such a rapid pace is,
partially, due to the economic collapse generate d by the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the worst
financial crisis since the Great Depressi on of the 1930s. Besides the many negative
consequences, the global financ ial crisis opened the door to reconstruction and paved the way
for new investments and innovations.

Even if, as a state policy, many leaders have understood that th e key to overcome the crisis is
the drastic reduction of costs, some companies like Facebook, Google, Mi crosoft etc. decided
that the best way to go forward for „reconstruc tion” is not to reduce the spendings, but to
accelerate investments in research and innovation.

The massive influx of advancements throughout th e realms of artific ial intelligence and
virtual reality create new chal lenges for understanding where the potential advancements will

continue to lead. Society views are changing at unprecedented rate, assisted by AI and VR, the
line between acceptable practices and st udies continues to grow hazier.
Nowadays, the major investments are made in augmented reality, but these things could be changing in the near future with the release of Oculus Rift, the first consumer VR headset
capable of delivering true presence (Michael A. 2016) [9]. Taking into consideration that a
company like Facebook who has 1+ billion users on hi s social network and in tends to draw more
users into interactive networking though such techniques as live video, bot assisted user
interfaces and cutting edge algorithms; (Rachel M., Tom S. 2016)  [10] and given the fact that VR
might work better for social networking and video games  (Vamien Mc. 2016) [5], it is possible
in the future for the investors to expand their in terests into innovation for VR systems. At same
time other big companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung are working to develop their
own systems of VR headsets and these will make the gaming/softtware companies to join in the
creation of new games, softwares.

Artificial intelligence – the study of how to produce machines that have some of
the qualities that the human mind has, such as the ability to understand language,
recognize pictures, solve pr oblems, and learn. [16]

Most of the scientists who are wo rking in the developing of the AI suggest that a computer could
be as smart as a human being – within this centu ry (Nick B. 2014). [18] Th is optimistic attitude
received a great impetus this year after the Google DeepMind Challenge Match or AlphaGo
versus Lee Sedol . Some of the scientists or media started to say that a computer will be as smart
as a human being in the next 10-15 years, a nd all seemed to agree with these opinions.

After a short time, however, the ease of corruptibility was exposed to us, proving to
programmers and the public alike that we are not so close as we thought we were, when an
artificial intelligence chatterbot (Tay) for the Twitter platform released by Microsoft Corporation
caused controversy by releasing inflammatory tweets and it was taken offline around 16 hours
after its launch. This event made us to think if “conversational computing” (Satya N. 2016) [19]
will be the new major paradigm in computing.

From our point of view, the Tay episode was not such a bad thing at all. The problems began
because some of the Intern et users saw the Chatbot Tay just like a player in a new game, they did
not see it like a Microsoft proj ect for improving of the AI.

In a cyberworld where some people are enjoying harassing one another, where people like to see
hours of work completely destroyed (e.g. Minecraf t griefing), where thousa nds of people like to
watch griefing youtube videos, dem onstrate to us that the Alpha Go victory against Lee Sedol
was a big step in the study of AI but we are still far away from th at point from where AI can deal
with all the people from a social network. We still have a lot of research to do until we can build
a (ro)bot who can really think like a person, but at the same time we need to take into
consideration that we need to find a way to make people think a bit differently, to be able to
build a society ready for an Era of AI. For the building of this so ciety, could the analysis of the
role of social media in social mobilization help us to find a way in wh ich we can make changes
in society’s way of thinking? Analyzing the c onnection between how people abused Chatbot Tay

and the griefing from some games could make Tay work better?

Metamodernism – a new way of thinking emerges

We live now in a world where we are „intoxicated” every day with apocalyptical information. If
we turn on the television or if we search the internet most news stories are about a world in
crisis, wars, migrants or about how the c limate change will destroy our environment.
Only in the last 15 years we can remember that there were foretold 2-3 apocalypses. We live in a
world where there is mostly promoted a „no hope attitude”. Where people are buying bunkers
to survive one apocalypse after another; a world without hope, where we forgot to dream, to use
our imagination. In our opinion, this apocalyptical thinking emerges from the postmodern way of
thinking where the critic attitude, probl ematization and “deconstruction” [Koma ńda M. 2016]
was the key. Problematization of these challeng es or problems invite the people involved to
transform those situations. It is a met hod of defamiliarization of common sense.
„We live in a world where the postmodern man is characterized by existential and
epistemological doubt and skepticism as a mental attitude in general, being a person with an
attitude towards life characte rized by distrust, skepticism, subjectivism, doubt, conflictual
situations, negativism” (C . Baciu et al., 2015). [13]
Our postmodern world is like a domino game, even a rumor can make a global crisis:
“So, when one country runs into problems there is always the risk of contagion. That was true of
Thailand in 1997, when the collapse of its currency, the baht, quickly had a domino effect across
south-east Asia”. (Larry E., 2016). [14]

Table 1. Comparison of postmodernism and metamodernism in view of challenges of the social sciences – from
Komańda M. 2016. [12]

Criterion Postmodernism Metamodernism
Description of
reality Lack of meta-narration; there is
only the individual perception and
comprehension of reality Search for narration based on
intersubjectivism
Method Deconstruction Reconstruction
Organisation of
social
behaviours The lack of formal organisation,
possible spontaneous and
temporary bottom-up organisation Deliberate, bottom-up and, first and
foremost, informal organisation which may
turn into other forms

What we propose with metamodernism is a new way of thinking, a “new world”, a world in
which neither the critic nor the problematization is the key. We propose a world where the
constructive effort to find solutions to societal is sues is the key, a world where there is promoted
psychology of hope:

“The future will be better than the present.
I have the power to make it so.
There are many paths to my goals.
None of them is free of obsta cles” (Margarita T., 2013) [15]

*We intend to address further details involving this pattern of thinking in the continuing article on
metamodernism

All acquisitions in the fields of IRS and AI up un til now show us that we need to rethink our way
of thinking to be ready for the future evolution of this Era. We need to study the upcoming trends
as the advancements are taking place. Which will be the new working ways in the companies of
the future? (Peter, T., 2015). [2] Are today’s ne w digital technologies destroying or creating
jobs? (Tyler C. 2016). [3]

How do we need to prepare the educated ones to cope with all these inno vations, from across all
of the vast amounts of domains affected and contri buting? What will be th e best sharing methods
to expand fresh techniques or preemptive actio ns to avoid catastr ophic possibilities if
necessary…
To Be Continued …
Think outside the box !

For my treasured son Andrei, my reason and purpose. Your drive, ambitions, and successes
make me proud beyond words.

References:

[1] Donald, J., ( 2016) – Innovation and Investment: Challenge and Opportunity for European Biopharma
http://ipscience.thomsonreuters.com/blog/innovation-a nd-investment-challenge-and-opportunity-for-european-
biopharma/ [2] Peter, T., ( 2015) – New Ways of Working in the Company of the Future

https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/article/new -ways-of-working-in-the-company-of-the- future/
[3] Tyler C. 2016 – The future of work, MIT Technology Report, Business Report https://www.technologyreview.com/business -report/the-future-of-work-2015/free/
[4] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/d efinition/english/augmented-reality
[5] Vamien Mc. (2016) Augmented Reality vs. Virtual Reality: What are the diffe rences and similarities?
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/5078/20140406/augmented-reality-vs-virtual-reality-what-are-the-differences-
and-similarities.htm
[6] http://futurism.com/researchers-studying-can-ach ieve-matrix-level-immersion-virtual-reality/
[7] Michael A. (2016) – Welcome to the Virtual Age https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/welcome-to-the-virtual-
age/

[8] http://www.vrs.org.uk/vir tual-reality-environments/
[9] Michael A. (2016) https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/welcome-to-the-virtual-age/
[10] Rachel M., Tom S. (2016) – 5 Things You Need to Know about Facebook’s Next 10 Years
https://www.technologyreview.com/ s/601276/5-things-you-need-to-know -about-facebooks-next-10-years/
[11] http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/03/21/the-psychology-of-hope/
[12] Marcin K. (2016) – Metamodernism and Social Sciences
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29 5075978_Metamodernism_and_Social_Sciences
[13] Baciu C., Mu șata B., Corina B.U. (2015) – Metamodernism – A Conceptual Foundation
http://www.sciencedirect.com/sci ence/article /pii/S1877042815055731
[14] Larry E. (2016) – No global economic crisis yet, but the ingredients are there http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/20/no-global-economic-crisis-yet-but-the-ingredients-are-there
[15] Margarita T. (2013) – The Psychology of Hope http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/03/21/the-
psychology-of-hope/
[16] http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/artificial-intelligence
[17] Jeremy H. (2014) – The wonderful and terrifying implications of computers that can learn https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_le
arn
[18] Nick B. (2014): What happens when our computers get smarter than we are? https://www.ted.com/playlists/310/talks_on_artificial_intelligen
[19] Will K. (2016) – Microsoft Says Maverick Chatbot Tay Foreshadows the Future of Computing
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601163/microsoft-says-maverick-chatbot-tay-foreshadows-the-future-of-computing/