Hip, hype and hope---the three faces of virtual worlds (panel session)
John S. Barlow, Esther Dyson, T. J. Leary, William M. Bricken, Warren Robinett, Jaron Lanier · 1990
By now, almost everyone in computer graphics has read, seen, or experienced virtual worlds--"artificial realities" generated by computers which surround the user.Virtual.worldsystems are the focus of the media, grist for the TV mill, and everyone's pick as "The Big Idea of the 90s."But what does it all mean?Is virtual-worlds technology really that important?Panelists address the artificial reality controversy and suggest the filture of professional and personal computer use.Bob Jacobson I'm Bob Jacobson and I'm the chair of the panel.In my other life, I'm the associate director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory, part of the Washington Technology Centers at the University of Washington.Our job is to develop virtual technology, to find applications for it, and that is the job of all the other people you will hear today.There have been a couple of changes in the panel line-up.I think we have an amazingly exemplary panel.It keeps getting better.Nolan Bushnell could not be with us because he had to do some work elsewhere, and Tom Furness had the same situation.Our panel had the fortunate addition of Jaron Lanier and William Bricken.I think that you'll find this is an incredible group of people.We sat down last night, very anxious about how we would interact before you and within fifteen minutes we had a discussion going that lasted for nearly two hours: I hope we didn't talk ourselves out!I think you'll find that there is a lot of learning going on.Hip, Hype and Hope:The Three Faces of Virtual Worlds 10-1 Hip, Hype and Hope:The Three Faces of Virtual Worlds 10-2 tape of the "winners," so to speak, of the SIGGRAPH video competition, I was struck by the beauty of so many of the images and by the intense horror stimulated by some of the others.I kept saying to myself, if only I could be there, if only I could be among those images, dance among the beauty and cringe from the horror, and feel in myself, in my spatial self, what was going on around me: all those images, those beautiful things to see and perhaps to touch.But I couldn't, I couldn't get past the screen, I couldn't get past the images on the two dimensional surface.So much of that work deserves to be translated into three dimensions.In fact, one of our missions is to take your two dimensional work and help you translate some of that into three dimensional imagery that touches people deep in their spatial selves.We would like to be able to have people infuse these environments with some of their own experience and their own meaning, to work with you to actually change the environments that you think should be created for them.Now one must keep perspective on this.Virtual worlds is all the rage.But in a nation that is poised on the brink of war, whose economy is none too secure, one has to keep these things in perspective.Nonetheless, we are on a technology cusp.We seem to be at the stroke of a paradigm shift in the way that people relate to computers and the way that computers are used to relate to people.We seem to be on the mark, finally putting the user, or as William Bricken says, the "participant," in the center of things.The technology is somewhat primitive, we will admit, but it's advancing quite rapidly.We are bringing our best resources to bear, to make it happen more quickly, to serve you and to serve our ultimate beneficiaries, the people who see the things that we produce, who experience and learn by them.Well, I've had my say.You can read my little story in the current issue of Computer Graphic News, so I won't take any more of your time.Each of our panelists, in the interests of time and courtesy, will introduce the next person following, up to the intermission, and then we'll start over again.I'm very pleased to introduce to you our first panelist, Warren Robinett, who has a long history of work in computer graphics and is one of the decisive people in the field bringing virtual reality to reality.In the late 1970's, Warren was designing video games for Atari Corp., which was one of the seminal sources of energy and excitement in whole computer graphics movement.He was co-founder of the Learning Company, an educational software production firm which produced the very famous piece of software called Rocky's Boots.He 10,"3Hip, Hype and Hope:The Three Faces of Virtual Worlds 10-29