Immersed In Learning
PWC have famously released their reports on these areas over the years, with headline statistics like 40% of their “v-learners” reporting an improvement in confidence compared to classroom learners to act on their training in VR. At VirtualSpeech, some of our own clients have reported this number to be as high as 86% in their organisation.
Now it’s becoming increasingly commonplace for the workforce to be donning VR Headsets and diving into familiar environments to practise core skills. Not only for traditional, manual roles that need a toned muscle memory, or where repeated practice is limited by safety. But also for the softer professional skills; How to learn interviewing skills, or practise that sales pitch (and hopefully never hear the words “Role Play” again!)
Understanding the AI Hype
So while the dust begins to settle from the Metaverse hype cycle, we’re left with some genuinely exciting takeaways and positive use cases. We may not be working, learning and playing in virtual, NFT driven worlds just yet, but more of us than ever before are using Virtual and Augmented Reality in our day to day lives.
So what of the next tech media darling? I’m sure many of you have seen excitable news, fierce debate and viral articles dedicated to the rise of Generative AI’s. Whether it’s whipping up digital paintings in a matter of seconds, creating royalty free music, or even a search engine having a slight existential crisis, AI is everywhere.
And while we may not be all losing our jobs to robots just yet, there are some clear use cases and scenarios where we can live, and learn, in harmony with our Artificially Intelligent companions.
The most newsworthy AI at the moment is the ChatGPT engine from OpenAI, an AI Research company also known for the popular Art Generation AI: DALL·E. In their own words, ChatGPT is a language processing tool that “interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”
And this is the biggest draw. An AI that can speak to you in real time, playing any role and drawing on the infinite wisdom of the web to do so, all while remaining conversational and – say it quietly – “human”. Elon Musk (one of the original founders of OpenAI) has described the chatbot as “scary good”, and ChatGPT has since become the fastest-growing ‘app’ of all time, according to analysts at UBS.
Expect the Unexpected
As developers, innovators and many smarter folk than I rush to push the AI to its limits, we’ve seen fantastic opportunities arise within learning and development to help use technology to coach skills like never before.
A fundamental part of the Learning Journey we promote at VirtualSpeech is repeated practice, with the view to continuous improvements. How we have facilitated that in the past is through real time, AI enabled feedback for public speaking and interviews, that can advise you on areas of your delivery like eye contact, use of filler words and listenability.
Some of the limitations so far to this feedback have been around assessing what you say over simply how you say it, as well as the variety and spontaneity of the experiences itself. No matter how realistic your avatars or environments are, at some point when practising in many virtual scenarios, you’ll eventually learn to “beat the game” rather than continue to develop your skills.
Generative AI has helped us to push the boundaries of the feedback we can provide, processing and contemplating the information it’s given and challenging the user. What is a job interview without follow up questions? What about the often overlooked Q&A of a presentation?
Tools like ChatGPT enable learning simulations to not only be realistic, but reactive. So often users are driven into a “choose your own adventure” training, with multiple choice and structured paths, but are never given the opportunity to practise freely and experiment within a safe, realistic scenario.
Training the Trainer
The possibilities to tailor this training are limitless. At VirtualSpeech we’ve found great uses within our expertise, and fully adopted our AI Colleague Hugh as a subject matter expert and coach for our interviews, elevator pitches and performance reviews.
But we’re also hearing from Doctors that see the potential to practise for those difficult conversations that come with a life changing diagnosis, or with Psychologists to train on how best to explain and work with their patients. We’re also hearing from organisations working with neurodiverse learners to help them prepare and feel comfortable in day to day interactions, both professionally and personally.
The key lies in the learning prompts you can train the AI with. The excitement around AI comes from the freedom it has to provide its own responses, but the power comes from the parameters we provide as instructors; The scene we set, the roles we give, the restrictions we put in place. Even the best actors need a great director.
The New Normal?
Is generative AI the answer to every scenario? Maybe not right now. Sometimes you still need an expert input or sensitive touch. And as with all immersive technology, there is an appropriate time and place for its use. As an example, we’ll soon be launching a DE&I training module, made up of immersive narrative experiences focusing on discrimination and microaggressions in the workplace. Could AI have helped with some of these scenarios? Perhaps. But in those situations, for such an important topic and with the goal of generating empathy and understanding, a consistent, scripted experience was the best choice.
All in all though, tools like ChatGPT enable us to implement an element of the unknown into immersive learning that by its very nature you just can’t write or code. Sometimes for our experiences to be more human, we just need a little help from a bot.
