Metaverse and the university
By Javier Albusac (Assistant Director of Titles and Promotion)
April 2030. Widespread use of Virtual Reality (VR) goggles and the metaverse help ease the agonizing sense of seclusion. Just like ten years ago, I look out the window, I see how the grass grows without asking permission and I yearn for the freedom with which the birds move, oblivious to everything that happens.
Since the president of the government announced a new confinement, the second in ten years, the sale of VR glasses has skyrocketed; some have decided to renew the models they already had, and others have finally decided to take the step of using them for the first time (there are fewer and fewer). The energy consumption due to activities that take place in the metaverse (let's call various virtual universes that way) has skyrocketed, and I wonder what my partner is thinking Coral Calero and the Green Team.
Today is the Open Day at the Escuela Superior de Informática, one of those days that you mark on the calendar as special and in which you receive the families of the students who will accompany us in the next academic year 2030-2031. On this occasion, it will have to be in the metaverse where we have prepared a virtual tour.
I get up, open the fridge, and there's nothing for breakfast. I put my Oculus Quest 10 on my head and enter the metaverse (the first time all day, it will not be the only one), specifically, to a supermarket. I still remember one of my first VR glasses, the Oculus Quest 2 in 2021, where the immersion quality has already taken a significant leap compared to previous years and the price was affordable (€350). We used them in the group AIR in a national research project coordinated with the National Paraplegic Hospital of Toledo [1], where we developed immersive therapies for the rehabilitation of upper limbs. We were concerned with creating virtual environments that would automatically adapt to the conditions of each patient and thus make them accessible.
The feeling of immersion with current glasses is almost total. VR has also revolutionized electronic commerce, VR-Commerce they call it. It has revitalized small businesses, small neighborhood stores can be shown in the metaverse as large shopping centers that have nothing to envy to the Corte Inglés itself. I can walk through the aisles of the supermarket and examine the products as if I were there. I say almost, because the smell thing is still not very well achieved, a pity! not being able to smell the orange that I have in my hands. I do feel it, I have the suit and the haptic glove on, but I only feel the pressure on my fingers, I can't feel the texture of the orange, so I wouldn't care if I picked up an orange or a peach.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) modules send me recommendations based on the products that are missing at home and those that I like. In others they enter a more personal field: one of the recommendations is the purchase of pads with wings; they know who my wife is and they know her menstrual cycle. One's hair stands on end when realizing the amount of information they handle about us and the people with whom we are related. In any case, it is appreciated, the recommendations speed up the purchase process and let's say that it is not what I am most passionate about. Sometimes I stop to think if I am missing many things by paying too much attention to these recommendations, sometimes biased and biased by commercial interests.
I finish my purchase, in 30 minutes the products will be at home, a drone will leave them in the outside patio. This time I have warned my neighbor Jorge, 89 years old, so that he is not caught off guard because he is panicking! In the previous confinement, orders were brought by Juan, in his white van, and we always had a pleasant conversation. I wouldn't mind waiting longer for him to come and thus maintain human contact, but this time things are looking a little worse and they are not allowing anyone to go out for the moment. Luckily we are technologically prepared for the situation.
I do some time while my order arrives and check the latest news in the metaverse. Face-to-face sports activity has stopped dead, so we will have to make do with e-sports, which today are very popular and favor economic growth. If the metaverse has brought something good, it is the ability to create inclusive and accessible worlds. I envision competitions in which athletes can perform as they wish and without any physical barriers. In the summary of the day on extreme frisbee that I am seeing, men and women participate together, in one of the teams there is a player with a spinal cord injury and another is missing an arm, in the other team one of the best players suffers from ALS. None of this matters, in the virtual space everyone competes in equality of conditions and opportunities.
The time has come to receive the families at the open day and I check that the virtual version of the School: auditorium, corridors, classrooms, laboratories, etc. be prepared. Everything pristine, another advantage of the metaverse, does not get dirty. I decide that my avatar is dressed in a suit and tie, while, at home, I am still in my pajamas. Being dressed like this creates some discomfort, it may seem silly, but I feel that I am not being totally honest with the families that visit us, and I even feel a certain modesty, what would they think if they knew that I am receiving them in pajamas! I decide to dress at home just like my avatar and now I feel a bit ridiculous, although I prefer it to the previous feeling.
I am in a virtual and exact replica of our assembly hall, and I watch as the visitors begin to enter. Each of them represented by an avatar. Some of the avatars correspond exactly to the physical appearance of each individual, or so I think, and others have opted for other types of somewhat peculiar avatars. I still find it hard to assimilate the mix of people with other animated characters, with bear heads, winged backs, dragon tails... a somewhat surreal scene, worthy of a work by Max Ernst.
Despite being virtual, visitors occupy a physical space in the three-dimensional environment that we have modeled, enabled for 150 people. Fortunately or unfortunately, I begin to see that too many people are crowding into the created space, there are more than 350 and there will be no room left for the scenes I have prepared for you! Three of the students are deaf, and another fifteen from foreign universities such as Michigan, London, Helsinki, Hong Kong or New Delhi. lucky that the UCLM contracted the automatic translation service for avatars and everything I am commenting on is translated live, in any language and Sign language. While our visitors continue to access the venue, I decide to modify it and increase its capacity. Also lucky that the previous morning he had contemplated this possibility and had programmed a single script, so I just had to run it. Ready! Now our assembly hall has twice the capacity. Our infrastructure area at UCLM you can breathe easy, it will not be necessary to start a restructuring work and it will not cost you anything.
The truth is that the number of visitors does not surprise me. Interest in Computer Engineering has always been on the rise, but in recent years, with the appearance of the metaverse, it has increased even more. Also among women, who today account for 50% of students in our School. A large number of new jobs have appeared in which it is essential to have an adequate technological knowledge base, and at the companies find it difficult to fill the jobs they demand. Some of our graduates even decided undertake in this area and their companies work really well.
As visitors finish seating, I check the connections and that the high-quality 8K video stream is smooth. Fortunately, most visitors have 5G connections and some with 6G, otherwise it would be unfeasible. There are still people who are reluctant to new technologies, it has always been like that, and for them we have prepared an alternative and parallel visit, which they can follow through their mobile phones. As Confucius would say "Changes can take place slowly. The important thing is that they take place”, so we will also take advantage of the morning to try to convince them. Virtual Reality helps me to stage, on the environment that we share, the ideas that I intend to transmit to you. Attendees have been quite impressed with some of the apps from the projects we're involved in and how they can help make the world a better place.
The day goes really well. I talk to you about how wonderful the profession of Computer Engineer is from my point of view, the magnificent possibilities it offers, and what the ESI as a center that teaches the degree can provide. The knowledge they will acquire will allow them to create and develop everything they imagine in an increasingly digitized world. It's the closest thing to having super powers, right?
In the afternoon, I meet as a teacher of Virtual and Augmented Reality, with the teachers of High Performance Computing y Development of Intelligent Systemstogether with the students of the Master. We have prepared a coordinated activity where we will be able to observe and manipulate, in the middle of the virtual classroom, an exact recreation of a quantum computer (Mario Piattini spoke of a new golden age for computing in 2022, he was not mistaken), connected to its real version at the Supercomputing Center (BSC) in Barcelona. They call it twin worlds (omniverse for others), connection between the virtual and real world, such that any action on the virtual world has a direct effect on the real one. He also knows a bit about this ARCO research group of the ESI. We have obtained a temporary license so that our students can use it. They are still too expensive and we can't afford to have our own. There is so much data being generated in the metaverse that students have spent the afternoon applying algorithms Deep Learning to extract useful knowledge. They loved the experience.
The working day is over and the metaverse also offers me interesting leisure options. In recent days I have visited Patagonia, I have walked through Trastevere, I have meditated in Nepal with Buddhist monks, I have witnessed a discussion between Plato and Aristotle, I have jumped in a parachute, I have broken my face with Rocky Balboa, I almost missed the liver playing against Rafael Nadal at the Philippe Chatrier, I have enjoyed the last Queen concert at Wembley, I have seen the last Real Madrid – FC from the Santiago Bernabéu box. Barcelona as if I were in the stadium itself, and I have visited art exhibitions of NFT content, distributed with blockchain and acquired with cryptocurrencies. Those who are dedicated to cybersecurity cannot cope with so many open fronts. Crazy! So much so that I dared to ask for an appointment at Sigmund Freud's virtual office, but no luck, it was full. Today, one of the AI agents, who know everything about us, recommends me to visit the Almadén Mines, a World Heritage Site. I don't doubt it for a moment and I invite my wife and children to enjoy them with me and I promise that when the confinement ends we will go to visit them for real. In addition, the tour includes a visit to the Real Cárcel de Forced, in the EMIA, 2×1, we are in luck!
The end of the day is coming and I continue in the metaverse asking how the day went to one of my children who is out enjoying a ERASMUS+ scholarship. VR makes me feel closer, yet so far away. My other son sleeps at home, and I am grateful to still be able to see him through my own eyes and not through an avatar, to be able to smell him, touch him, in short, feel him. I lie in bed and without any strange element in my eyes I reflect on how the day went, on how the world has changed, so much and in such a short time… a world that is increasingly strange to me.
UPDATE:
April 2031. We have returned to normality, we enjoy face-to-face activities and continue to use the wonderful possibilities offered by the metaverse, but we do so responsibly and in moderation, without forgetting the world to which we belong. At the School we maintain its use in many of the subjects, and UCLM discloses and other Schools/Faculties such as Architecture, Medicine, Nursing o History They are getting a lot of use out of it. Without going any further, the other day they had to attend to a student because he got dizzy while witnessing the battle of Alarcos. The content creator went a little too far with the level of realism. The professor emeritus already warned you Francis Ruiz Gomez that it was not necessary to be so explicit.
Now that everything seems to be back to normal, let's hope that world leaders don't decide to get bored and start a new war that provokes a new visit from the ghost of stagflation. It's Friday and it's 14:XNUMX p.m., I leave the VR goggles on the table and I have an appointment with Pepe, Carlos y David to have a beer. At the moment, there is nothing in the metaverse that can top this.
[1] Development, implementation and cloud deployment of the REHAB-IMMERSIVE platform for upper limbs. R&D&i projects, within the framework of the State Programs for Knowledge Generation and Scientific and Technological Strengthening of the R&D&i System and R&D&i oriented to the Challenges of Society, in the 2020 Call Financing: €153.670, 2021-2024. Principal investigators: Javier Albusac and Carlos González Morcillo.
