Drivers and Benefits

The benefits of Spatial Computing play right into our Prime Directive of knowing how to better survive and how to better express ourselves through our creation and use of tools. Our need to have replicated three-dimensional worlds and objects in order to master our understanding and manner of expression is one that could be served by the software and technologies of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence.

Noted investor and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen has told markets he has a contrarian view to Silicon Valley's belief that Augmented Reality represents a better investment than Virtual Reality. He noted that it is a privileged view―that in Silicon Valley, residents have tons of beautiful places within an hour's drive, from beaches to vineyards. Most people in the world, he said, don't have those advantages.

Walk through neighborhoods, even middle-class ones, and you will see millions living in small homes in high rises. Telling them that they will want to wear computing devices while walking through a beautiful area won't be hard. Instead, Andreessen sees a world where people will wear headsets to visit the natural beauty well out of reach somewhere else in the world. Even in the United States, only about 20 percent own a passport, so asking them to visit historic sites in, say, Egypt or Israel, won't be possible for most. We can, instead, take them there with Spatial Computing.

However, unlike Andreessen, we don't view the question of whether Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality will be the "winner" between the two. We see that, by the mid-2020s, our Spatial Computing devices will let you float between putting virtual things on top of, or replacing things, in the real world.

Where we are going with this argument is that the hunger for these devices, services, technologies, and experiences that Spatial Computing affords will probably be far greater among the billions who can't afford a private jet to fly them to a Davos, Switzerland ski vacation, or even afford a Tesla for a weekend jaunt to Napa or Yosemite. That seems to be Andreessen's greater point; that the investment opportunity here is grand because it not only will improve the lives of billions, but may lead to us saving ourselves with new education and new approaches to living, including being able to take courses using Virtual Reality and "travel" to different locations in the world without having to jump on an airplane.

However, an argument could be made that human beings are social―our social natures have aided us greatly in our need to survive and thrive and that Spatial Computing is too isolating. With Spatial Computing, though, we could choose to experience and learn something solo or networked with others.

Spatial Computing on its own can serve as the medium to interface with ideas, locations, processes, people, and AI characters, or as Betaworks' John Borthwick likes to call them, synthetic characters. These synthetic characters will replace the Machine Learning text bots that are currently ubiquitous―in effect, putting a three-dimensional body to the words. The benefit of this is that we will feel like we are engaging with a real being that feeds our social natures.

Along these same lines, entertainment that utilizes Spatial Computing will make it even more true-to-life. Characters in these new kinds of narratives will be more real to us, allowing us to gain even more insights into the human condition. Spatial Computing is a major innovation; the latest in a long line of ideas and inventions aimed at improving the human condition. It makes our lives better, bringing knowledge to us faster and with less expense overall.