Nick Hutchison discusses an AR/VR headset that looks like sunglasses and lets you walk around a real room filled with programmable avatar characters. The technology, built by former Disney and Marvel programmers, can gradually increase the size and diversity of a virtual audience to treat stage anxiety and PTSD through controlled exposure therapy.
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Can you have somebody on stage presenting in front of a fake audience and over time that anxiety would go away?
This will blow your mind because we are the only ones in the world who have done this. I just tested that. This headset is here because I just tested our newest build. We are working with this group of programmers who have worked with Disney and Marvel. So I have a gradually scaling up gathering here. People of diverse sex, race, age, body type, body size, outfit, background standing here. They walk in and it's— You're in the real room. It's not VR that you're sitting here and you're in a virtual room. No, you're wearing— it's like wearing sunglasses. I can walk around and these characters walk in through the door and interact with each other and interact with myself. And then I can put any character I want in front of you and have a conversation with you through that character. And we have been using it for the same purpose, like we're using it for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which is my expertise. And there are a lot of these people who, because of their trauma, brain is in constant threat detection mode. They don't want to be