How Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence Can Teach Us to Be Better Humans

More businesses across every industry have come to realize that soft skills are far from a “nice to have” and actually essential in order to ensure they have a well-rounded and creative workforce capable of tackling the complex challenges that some with doing business in the digital age. “For organisations, the ability to turn employees into smart, collaborative and self-directed leaders is often the difference between thriving and surviving,” says Christophe Mallet, co-founder of Somewhere Else, a London-based innovation agency specialised in immersive technologies.

Jamie Duncan, Chief Revenue Officer at CorporateDNA, adds that in training there has traditionally been a focus on knowledge, but that where it comes to soft skills, knowledge isn’t necessarily power. “It’s what you can actually do with that knowledge. Your mindset is greater than your skill set, your attitude is far more important than what you learned.”

In Virtual reality, you can embody anyone and take part in virtually any imaginable simulated social interaction. This is called virtual embodiment. Virtual embodiment promotes implicit learning, which is not only more easily assimilated, but tends to be retained for longer, engendering longer-lasting and more fundamental behavioural change. Studies by the likes of the…