From Augmented Reality to Hive Minds, a Thirty Year Journey in Extended Reality

Dr. Louis Rosenberg has spent thirty years working in the fields augmented reality, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction, starting in 1990 when he began developing the Virtual Fixtures platform for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Virtual Fixtures was the first immersive AR system ever built, enabling spatially-registered sights, sounds, and touch (haptics) to be overlaid upon a user’s perception of the real physical world. It employed a full upper-body exoskeleton to track human motion in 3D and generate haptic sensations that simulated the interaction with virtual objects in real-world spaces.

Combined with visual and audio feedback, the system enabled users to perform real manual tasks with significantly amplified dexterity. Rosenberg will review the Virtual Fixtures concept and the hardware that made it possible in the early 1990’s.

He will then jump thirty years to the present and describe how this early work on AR drove his research in an unexpected direction – towards building super-intelligent Hive Minds. Known as Swarm AI, this technology enables groups of networked users to “think together” in shared environments, significantly amplifying their combined intelligence. In recent studies with MIT, Oxford, Stanford, and California State University, Swarm AI has been shown to greatly amplify the accuracy of forecasts, decisions, estimations and diagnoses.

In one recent study, Swarm AI was shown to amplify the IQ of collaborating teams by 12 points. In another study, Swarm AI reduced the diagnostic errors of collaborating doctors by 33%.

Rosenberg will describe how this technology could become a central capability of all VR and AR systems, enabling human groups to “think together” in shared environments, extending their combined mental capabilities to super-intelligent levels.