When it comes to movies, James Cameron is clearly way ahead of his league,
which explains why so many of his films become blockbusters. I don't know
how many of you have seen his greatest blockbuster of all time -- Avatar --
but as with some of his previous work, it is based on real-world technology,
which is even in use as I write this commentary.

Below is a news article which reveals a lot of what is currently going on in
the virtual world of avatars. I found it quite interesting, if not a bit
alarming. As I have said before, whenever it comes to modern technology,
there is always the danger of abuse by unscrupulous individuals. I can only
wonder how this avatar technology might be used in the future. Might it
perhaps be a part of the "Image of the Beast" that can speak scenario?


In Cybertherapy, Avatars Assist With Healing

By BENEDICT CAREY - NYT

November 22, 2010


OTTAWA -- His talk was going just fine until some members of the audience
became noticeably restless. A ripple of impatience passed through the
several dozen seated listeners, and a few seemed suddenly annoyed; then two
men started to talk to each other, ignoring him altogether.

"When I saw that, I slowed down and then stopped what I was saying," said
the speaker, a 47-year-old public servant named Gary, who last year took
part in an unusual study of social anxiety treatment at the University of
Quebec.

The anxiety rose in his throat -- What if I'm not making sense? What if I'm
asked questions I can't answer? -- but subsided as his therapist, observing
in the background, reminded him that the audience's reaction might have
nothing to do with him. And if a question stumped him, he could just say so:
no one knows everything.

He relaxed and finished the talk, and the audience seemed to settle down.
Then he removed a headset that had helped create an illusion that the
audience was actually there, not just figures on a screen. "I just think
it's a fantastic idea to be able to experience situations where you know
that the worst cannot happen," he said. "You know that it's controlled and
gradual and yet feels somehow real."

For more than a decade, a handful of therapists have been using virtual
environments to help people to work through phobias, like a fear of heights
or of public spaces. But now advances in artificial intelligence and
computer modeling are allowing them to take on a wider array of complex
social challenges and to gain insight into how people are affected by
interactions with virtual humans -- or by inhabiting avatars of themselves.

Researchers are populating digital worlds with autonomous, virtual humans
that can evoke the same tensions as in real-life encounters. People with
social anxiety are struck dumb when asked questions by a virtual stranger.
Heavy drinkers feel strong urges to order something from a virtual
bartender, while gamblers are drawn to sit down and join a group playing on
virtual slot machines. And therapists can advise patients at the very moment
those sensations are felt.

In a series of experiments, researchers have shown that people internalize
these virtual experiences and their responses to them -- with effects that
carry over into real life.

The emerging field, called cybertherapy, now has annual conferences and a
growing international following of therapists, researchers and others
interested improving behavior through the use of simulations. The Canadian
military has invested heavily in virtual-reality research; so has the United
States Army, which has been spending about $4 million annually on programs
with computer-generated agents, for training officers and treating
post-traumatic stress reactions.

The trend has already generated a few critics, who see a possible downside
along with benefits.

"Even if this approach works, there will be side effects that we can't
anticipate," said Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and author of "You Are
Not a Gadget: A Manifesto" (Knopf, 2010). "And in some scenarios I would
worry about defining humans down: defining what's normal based on what we
can model in virtual environments."

But most researchers say that virtual therapy is, and will remain, no more
than a therapist's tool, to be used only when it appears effective. "There's
a real and understandable distrust of technology as a shortcut for good
clinical skills," said Albert Rizzo, a psychologist at the University of
Southern California, "but I think, deep down, most therapists will want any
tool that can help them do their work, and they'll be open to using virtual
approaches."

Virtual Humans, Real Therapy

"My abilities are somewhat limited," says a female voice. "For example, I
can speak and listen to what you say, but I can't do any physical activity."

In an office at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of
Southern California, a virtual woman named Angelina is addressing a college
student from a computer screen.

Angelina looks to be about 30 or so, a pretty, athletic figure with an open,
intelligent face framed by short black hair. Her eyes and expression, guided
by video cameras and microphones, stay in sync with the student's, as an
empathetic therapist's would. "What are some of the things you hate about
yourself?" asks the voice.

The student stalls for a moment. "Well," she says, in a video of the
exchange, "I don't like that I can be really quiet in social situations.
Sometimes people take that as me being rude, but it's just me being quiet."

Angelina nods sympathetically and then asks another question, about what the
student fears most.

Interacting with a virtual human programmed to be socially sensitive in this
way is oddly liberating. The figures are clearly not human; some are balky
with language, others mute. Many have a two-dimensional graphic-arts
quality.

But the faces are mobile, blinking, alive, the body language and gestures
seemingly natural; in some cases, the voice recognition and choice of
replies are good enough to conduct a stiff but convincing conversation. The
result is a living presence that is responsive but not judgmental.

In a recent study using this virtual confidant, researchers at U.S.C. have
found that Angelina elicits from people the crucial first element in any
therapy: self-disclosure. People with social anxiety confessed more of their
personal flaws, fears and fantasies to virtual figures than to live
therapists conducting video interviews, the study found.

The researchers are incorporating the techniques learned from Angelina into
a virtual agent being developed for the Army, called SimCoach. Guided by
language-recognition software, SimCoach -- there are several versions, male
and female, young and older, white and black -- appears on a computer screen
and can conduct a rudimentary interview, gently probing for possible mental
troubles.

Using SimCoach on a laptop, veterans and family members would anonymously
ask about difficulties they're having, whether due to post-traumatic stress
or other strains of service.

"It does not give a diagnosis," said Jonathan Gratch, a co-author of the
Angelina study with Sin-Hwa Kang, also of U.S.C. "But the idea is that the
SimCoach would ask people if they would like to see a therapist; and if so,
could then guide them to someone in their area, depending on what it has
learned."

Once people are in treatment, therapists can use virtual technology to
simulate threatening situations -- and guide patients through them,
gradually and incrementally, calibrating the intensity of the experience.

In person-to-person sessions to address anxieties or phobias, for instance,
therapists may have patients do this in their imaginations. Revisit a
dreaded experience -- say, a rooftop party, for a person afraid of heights
-- while defusing the physical reactions to the memory in the office. Out in
the world, patients then practice the same techniques, gradually increasing
their exposure, beginning with modest heights, for instance, and working up.

Using virtual environments, therapists can run this entire drill in their
offices. At the Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego, psychologists
have treated hundreds of patients using gradual virtual exposure, for
post-traumatic stress and agoraphobia, among other anxieties. At U.S.C., Dr.
Rizzo has designed a program specifically for veterans of the Iraq war.

In one scenario, wearing a headset, the patient is in a virtual Humvee,
motoring along a desert road toward a small Iraqi village. To the right is a
passenger, another soldier; behind and above rides a gunner; in front is
another Humvee. As the motorcade approaches the village, engines rumbling,
there is a flurry of gunfire, and more. A roadside bomb goes off, bullets
pierce the window -- your fellow soldier on the right is wounded badly, now
dying -- all of it under control of the therapist.

"We can control the intensity of the experience, and then work on the
patient's response," Dr. Rizzo said.

When it works, the therapy breaks the association between reminders of an
upsetting experience and the racing heart, the flushing, the panic that the
person has been struggling with.


[continued in next message]


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