Thursday, February 13th 2020
VR as a Coping Mechanism for Loss: Meet Nayeon
VR has been hailed as the next coming of truly ingenious, engrossing, enveloping experiences, and to some extent, it already does offer those. There are still limitations to the technology and the level of realism it can impart (there is a whole slew of senses we need to trigger for truly enveloping experiences, of course), but I feel we sometimes get somewhat limited in the way we look at VR. Of course, we can all imagine video games built in VR - and when we do, we likely imagine them as they were presented to us in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One.
Then there are other use-cases, such as real-estate experiences that place you right inside your future home and allow you to see the changes you'd make. Architecture design, engineering, game world design, even strolls through museums, your mind a subatomic particle able to instantly travel to foreign countries and explore their marvels. All for this, mind you, without ever leaving the comfort of our home, without the required expenses and no wasted time with travelling or passport checks - all, however, simulated. But what if VR could go even further? What if VR could be used as a coping mechanism? What if you could meet your dead parents, siblings... Or children? This is the story I bring to you today: of how VR was used to reunite a mother with her deceased seven-year-old girl. This is the story of Ji-sung and her daughter Nayeon.
The story begins with Nayeon, a seven-year-old girl which was like all seven-year-olds - they're curious, they're energetic, they mostly still see the world through a magical filter made of potential. Nayeon, however, was diagnosed with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a life-threatening disease which results in inflammation and failing internal organs. Scientifically, histiocytes and lymphocytes, two types of white blood cells, attack other cells present in your body - your body essentially starts devouring itself. After a month in the hospital, Nayeon passed away.
Then, South Korean news network MBC produced a documentary - Meeting You, which you can find below - where VR equipment was used to recreate Nayeon in VR scenarios in such a way that Ji-sung, her mother, was capable of actually interacting with a digital recreation of her daughter. The virtual Nayeon was created over eight months of toiling - motion capture, photogrammetry, and modeling of the 3D representation of Nayeon were done with some inspiration drawn from her sibling. Using an HTC Vive Pro, Vive trackers, and wireless adapter, Ji-sung revisits places they'd frequent together - a park - where Ji-Sung and a virtual reconstruction of her daughter interact - of sorts. I'll be honest with you. I found some glaring issues that I can only believe would terrify me if I were in her place - some clipping movements, the absence of actual interconnectedness between my speech, my words, my message, and my little girl's reactions. However, for Ji-sung, this seems to be a cathartic moment - her emotion is raw. Her pain is real. And she goes through the motions in what appears to be akin to a dream. The interaction is scripted, of course - from Nayeon's part. Her mother, however, is all emotion and belief.
There are so many ethical questions here I would have to write a treaty on this matter. The question of this being a valid coping mechanism or just a constant re-traumatization is a real one. I can certainly see scenarios where some people would enter a neverending loop that would actually prevent them from coping and moving on with their lives should they actually experience this - even more so if it sees increased development. What if the past messages, videos, photos and interactions between you and your daughter could be processed by AI to generate a true-to-life digital render of your daughter in your own home environment? If she actually interacted with you in a non-scripted manner? Would that help you settle any regrets, any half-said thoughts, any unfinished business, and go on with your life in peace - or would you look to experience what you lost over, and over again?
I would like to make a small detour here to reference the television series Black Mirror. In Episode One of Season Two of the show, "Be Right Back", a story is told about Martha, who loses her boyfriend in a car crash. Finding out she is pregnant with their child, she decides to try out a digital service with various tiers, of which the first ones involve creating an artificial intelligence of sorts by mining through the digital footprint of her deceased boyfriend - much like it was done with Nayeon.
However, the show dials this concept up to 11, as science fiction tends to do. The point here is that in that episode, what begins as a source of comfort - and exceeds the boundaries of what I'd personally call healthy coping and a search for closure - then starts to show cracks and splinters. It just isn't real - no matter how close (and in the episode, it's as close as you can imagine) it can be. The show ends in a bleak, somewhat terrifying note, although it seems that Martha actually managed to cope with the loss of her boyfriend, and their daughter actually managed to meet... a version... of her father - which she wouldn't otherwise get to do.
I can not even begin to fathom the pain of losing one's child. I won't pretend to know how wrecking it must be to see the world's order cast aside. However, I am able to see how a mother would feel she didn't have the time - the chance - to try and cope with such a loss in the best way possible. I'm not one to judge the way others deal with their problems, with their pain. I believe, however, that any ethical concerns will be superseded by the fact that there is an obvious market for these reconstructions, and that the market will follow what it needs to follow to make these an eventual reality. How should we face this, though? How will it end up? How many people will end up happier because of it - and how many will enter a re-traumatization loop that will only exacerbate their pain?
I think the only question we can really try to answer is this one: what would we ourselves do?
Sources:
Road to VR, Thank you for the TPU community for bringing this to our forums
Then there are other use-cases, such as real-estate experiences that place you right inside your future home and allow you to see the changes you'd make. Architecture design, engineering, game world design, even strolls through museums, your mind a subatomic particle able to instantly travel to foreign countries and explore their marvels. All for this, mind you, without ever leaving the comfort of our home, without the required expenses and no wasted time with travelling or passport checks - all, however, simulated. But what if VR could go even further? What if VR could be used as a coping mechanism? What if you could meet your dead parents, siblings... Or children? This is the story I bring to you today: of how VR was used to reunite a mother with her deceased seven-year-old girl. This is the story of Ji-sung and her daughter Nayeon.
Then, South Korean news network MBC produced a documentary - Meeting You, which you can find below - where VR equipment was used to recreate Nayeon in VR scenarios in such a way that Ji-sung, her mother, was capable of actually interacting with a digital recreation of her daughter. The virtual Nayeon was created over eight months of toiling - motion capture, photogrammetry, and modeling of the 3D representation of Nayeon were done with some inspiration drawn from her sibling. Using an HTC Vive Pro, Vive trackers, and wireless adapter, Ji-sung revisits places they'd frequent together - a park - where Ji-Sung and a virtual reconstruction of her daughter interact - of sorts. I'll be honest with you. I found some glaring issues that I can only believe would terrify me if I were in her place - some clipping movements, the absence of actual interconnectedness between my speech, my words, my message, and my little girl's reactions. However, for Ji-sung, this seems to be a cathartic moment - her emotion is raw. Her pain is real. And she goes through the motions in what appears to be akin to a dream. The interaction is scripted, of course - from Nayeon's part. Her mother, however, is all emotion and belief.
There are so many ethical questions here I would have to write a treaty on this matter. The question of this being a valid coping mechanism or just a constant re-traumatization is a real one. I can certainly see scenarios where some people would enter a neverending loop that would actually prevent them from coping and moving on with their lives should they actually experience this - even more so if it sees increased development. What if the past messages, videos, photos and interactions between you and your daughter could be processed by AI to generate a true-to-life digital render of your daughter in your own home environment? If she actually interacted with you in a non-scripted manner? Would that help you settle any regrets, any half-said thoughts, any unfinished business, and go on with your life in peace - or would you look to experience what you lost over, and over again?
I think the only question we can really try to answer is this one: what would we ourselves do?
16 Comments on VR as a Coping Mechanism for Loss: Meet Nayeon
www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/korean-mom-meeting-and-say-goodbye-to-her-deceased-daughter-one-last-time-in-vr.263772/page-4#post-4207580
One thing I would like to add to my previous comments on this issue is this:
VR opened up many new doors for all of us. Before this people argued whether internet itself was "bad". Before that people argued whether "television" is bad.
As a collective human civilization we should be moving forward in bracing technology. Not going backwards. Nobody wants to turn back into apes and slinging shit at each other.
Jokes aside, I think the baseline of all arguments against technology is the dependence it can bring. Technology alone makes you dependent on it. No matter if it's about possibilities unavailable witout it or just by making life more easyer, more comfortable, either way you became dependent. Top that up with the current economic system and what you get is a herd of sheep unable to eat without someone to tell them what to...
There is no spirit/soul in AI.
If only that was the case...
Right or wrong everything we design and make now will have people shouting about or against, I just hope it's constructive as comments I read across the web pages are sadly not...
I think any new use of technology usurping practices typically considered personal or long gilded in tradition is inevitably going to get a bad reaction. Can't hold that against people, myself. I know I'm just as stubborn with certain things. I'm a pretty conservative person at times and there are many aspects of these times that I have trouble fully knowing how to feel about and struggle to reconcile within a functional value hierarchy. But I can also see where in absence of certain limitations, some ideas no longer serve a utility and become arbitrary. Mind you, I don't necessarily view all tradition in the same way. Certain traditions make sense to uphold for other reasons, even in the absence of their original modus operandi, simply because of how things can trickle out and influence our overall happiness and well-being. So what may sometimes seem arbitrary isn't always and it can be a tough line to draw without the proper knowledge. And then some things simply can't always be known, which rightly brings a certain fear into the equation. Fear is the cool water that tempers hot steel.
Our morals are very closely tied to our limitations. Look at the morals and practices of past cultures and religions... and then consider the actual circumstances that your average person lived under in those days. Most times, you'll find that the general codes people abide by are born of the limitations and necessities of the times. The archetypes of the eras shield people from hazards that are often subtle to your average person, but direly need to be avoided for the preservation of all things valuable in life. They are so deeply intertwined with identities and attitudes as to seem mystical... seemingly born of nothing, or simply something we are unable to perceive consciously. Everybody recognizes them intuitively and it starts from an early age. In many ways, it is a survival mechanism, making it hard to challenge, but occasionally necessary to.
There is surviving, which is always vital. And then there is improving ourselves and our whole way of living, which is the reason for surviving. The things that keep the cycle going always contradict in some way - that's what gives us the push to continually undergo changes in who we are and what we place the most immeasurable value on. What is the point of living if things aren't getting better and we aren't learning more? And then on the flipside, sometimes we've become misguided by foreign opportunities and we're not as ready to augment our moral structures as we think we are. What good are all of our selfish follies if we can't live to learn from them?
Some of what people of the past upheld would seem strange and barbaric to us now. While much of what is considered normal and harmless for us would a total perversion to them. And in reality to defy that status quo without the new means and knowledge thereof would actually spell the crumbling of their world. They haven't had the time we did to deeply instill the morals which enable us to navigate it and avoid consequence. So it comes from a very real place. And in a very real sense, every time we do make that jump one world does die to make way for another.
So any time technology comes around that may lessen or remove a consequence that society has developed a deep moral system around, we really do have to ask ourselves some tough questions about those morals. What role do they now play in light of this? How will they shape us? We're talking about stuff that defines us and greatly influences how we live, from the smallest indivisible unit up to the full gestalt of our entire existence in the universe. I think if the potential benefit is good enough, we will always continue pursuing knowledge in that direction until it is a sure leap and it just makes sense, at which point all but the very staunchest will pace on. But until then we will have to step cautiously and move more slowly, keeping in-step with the blowback, which is perpetually keeping us from overreaching with power we don't yet understand. Nothing that causes us to destroy each other is worth it and we learn that the hard way, if we haven't yet. You know the implications are big when enough people decide that going after each other is less risky than going after any other particular goal. There are things on the line that can't always be seen. And yet people can feel it in their bones. You almost can't not know of the disturbance.
And it's true... many of the things we take for granted now do indeed have the power to destroy us. Give half of the stuff we have now to people in the distant past and it would probably damage them quite a lot. It could absolutely end them. It's always kind of a matter of "Do we truly wish to redefine ourselves yet again?" and "What does the new definition have to offer us? And what will it take away?"
These are things we're hashing-out on a lower level with these endeavors and exchanges. It all matters. It may seem like pointless infighting. But I wouldn't say that's ever entirely true. Fruitless in the moment, but likely still something that needs to happen to get to whatever is being fought for with the wisdom needed to exact the highest order of good from it. Without any sense of push or opposition, our nature leads us to abuse... of self and others. It forces direction whenever there are levels of uncertainty sufficient enough to necessitate it. That machine only works one way.
So I think that knee-jerk serves a very important function as part of the larger societal shifts. It is hard to see that in any given moment - it looks like people just being petty and bickering, but history makes it very clear that there is more going on there. Think about your own growth as a person - go back to times when you were at odds with yourself and it kept you suspended in fragments. Would you be the same person if the right conclusion came to you without that inner turmoil? If you could change it, would you? Or would you perhaps fear the outcome of that? Would you still be you? Would the world still be the world you know and benefit from?
Point is, both the push for the horizon and eyes on the ground below are equally important. Most would say (to themselves, at least) that we ought to be able to get along anyway, just by knowing and acknowledging how we are all in it for the same things in the end... I think too often we see someone who doesn't think like us and class them as a different breed - some other kind of human, or even something less. But on an existential level we are the same. The forces that drive and constrain us do not differ.
People are divided over certain things for a reason, and it's not simply to be divided. Though sometimes, I think if we were all united we'd promptly run ourselves off of a cliff. I think as time goes by we are beginning to have a better understanding of how these cycles work and that even working in different directions, we still move together, and have steadily moved towards trying to kill each other less often :laugh:
Think of humanity itself as one big brain. Each and every person is a thought. Sometimes thoughts collide, but that's how we figure things out. The push to resolve dissonance is natural, but we still have to allow the thoughts to clash on their own. We have to acknowledge the mismatch and recognize that both parts are, by that suspending conflict, proven not suitable for the next transition. It's never about which thought 'wins' in the end. Often neither do, else one would instantly consume the other within a sustained net harmony, no the perpetual chaos we see unanimously. Like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, thinking "Is that a bug?" before realizing "No, it's a bird!" But that doesn't happen with our advancements in technology and value hierarchies. They instead react to form a new construct with new aspects, somewhat resembling both. It's kind of odd that we are able to do this. There's something sort of otherworldly about it. It doesn't make sense that we progress at all given how rife with contradiction all of humanity is. But again, maybe that's just what it takes to keep things moving.
There is a rather large risk that people will try to fill their void with this fake representation that clearly does not preplace the human and stay in this emotional limbo. (Like the people who will cannot let go a deceased.) This is dangerous to the minds of people and in very few situations will this bring any good...