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Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

With old fashioned boring training videos (e.g. safety) and training propaganda (e.g. anti-union messages) you could easily look away from the screen. Now they are gluing the screen to your eyeballs so that it's pretty much impossible to look away and not pay attention.

It will probably work. It's probably a good idea from the employer's point of view. It feels very dystopian.

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Safety training is there for a reason... anything that helps employees pay attention to that could save their lives or the lives of others, so in that narrow application it feels like a good idea from everyone's point of view.

If you think you have to glue content in front of their eyeballs, you've got bigger problems than fulfilling your legally mandated requirement for check-the-box training.

And that would be a fair comparison if before trainers were training with death-by-PowerPoint and now they were doing the same inches from trainee’s eyeballs.

However I’m hopeful that this new medium leads to interactivity by default, furthermore there are first mover advantages to be gained from improved engagement while VR is novel to most users.

"Improved engagement" in corporate training materials? I fear that's a concept that only exists in the sales literature of training materials creators.

I feel that improved engagement used to exist as a positive term before marketers took it and added all the marketing garbage that comes with it today. If something makes you less bored with teaching then it's worth looking at.

Okay well thank god nobody is gluing anything to anybody's eyeballs.

Anything?

For me, there are things that might improve outcomes, but would be unacceptable.

For example, drugs that help with information retention. Mandatory memory enhancing brain implants. Drugs that adjust motivation/focus. Wires attached to eyelids to prevent you from closing your eyes.

The reason why VR used for training seems dystopian is that it removes choice. Or at least feels like it does.

Arguably the trade off is worth it in this case.

You mean it couldn't possibly be to make it more interesting, immersive and relatable?

I didn’t say it wasn’t. I noted the reasons why it might appear dystopian, and why other activities that could improve safety may also appear less than desirable.

Safety training ins't about saving lives. It's about eliminating the company's liability when a safety incident inevitably occurs.

edit: downvoters have never worked in an HR department...

I work in manufacturing. I can assure you our safety training is directly intended to reduce injury frequency and severity. We start each monthly manufacturing leadership meeting with a review of safety results and issues as literally the first topic.

Some of it probably appears foolish to new people, but it’s all from prior or realistically possible safety concerns. If it helps our insurance premium or lawsuit outcome, so be it, but we do it to not hurt or kill people.

>>I work in manufacturing. I can assure you our safety training is directly intended to reduce injury frequency and severity.

That might be the intention of the trainers and the participants, but it's not the (primary) intention of corporate.

Only slightly sadly, at this point in my career, I am corporate. None of us want to see our people hurt.

I get the cynicism, because it’s not wrong in every case of company policy. I’m sure there is a company somewhere who wouldn’t implement any safety policy unless required by OSHA, labor demands, or insurance. It’s not my experience working with, talking to, or being a manufacturing leader that that’s the primary driver in most companies.

You can also get people’s attention through humor.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo

> Now they are gluing the screen to your eyeballs so that it's pretty much impossible to look away and not pay attention

You could wire a video signal straight into my optic nerves and I'l still tune out if it wasn't minimally engaging. I daydream about things random things, such as a programming puzzle I'm trying to solve, while I'm watching TV shows I love (looking at you Game of Thrones). Does anyone else experience this? Maybe it's an ADHD thing, which I have.

The video may have some parts that are slightly more on the left part of the screen and soma parts that are slightly more on the right side of the screen. If you don't look to the correct side, the system may send a small electroshock, make the video longer repeating the important parts until you pay attention, select a longer version of the video where the repetition is not obvious but they keep saying the same thing again or again, or let the system randomly select you for a voluntary group for a new training video tomorrow.

> the system may send a small electroshock

This is not likely, too overtly evil.

> make the video longer repeating the important parts until you pay attention, select a longer version of the video where the repetition is not obvious but they keep saying the same thing again or again, or let the system randomly select you for a voluntary group for a new training video tomorrow.

I've already had mandatory training that included all of these in various forms.

Too evil, so invert it instead. If you look at the right part you’re rewarded, and if you don’t the reward is withheld. Now people will fight for the right to stick their heads into the Skinner Box, even though the same reinforcement tricks are at play. I mean, it’s working for game developers.

Jesus, are you even serious

To answer your question, yes, I do. It makes paying attention to what people are saying very difficult. I have to ask them to repeat exactly what they just said word for word, not because I didn't understand, but because I didn't hear them due to the video playing in my brain.

I'm not allowed to give any details, but I work for a major consulting company on a team where we do nothing but build VR training systems for major retail chain clients. The improvements in engagement, knowledge retention, and reduction in injury are very significant. Again, not allowed to say how much, but basically it's stupid for companies like this to not be using VR training these days. It's too easy to build for too great of a gain.

One more optimistic way to look at it is using VR it'll make the "boring training videos" much more engaging. I.e. I can think of that annoying video on plane which I hate to listen to, but with a VR where I'd actually have to open that door and jump in it'd be a much more engaging experience.

Seeing as how most corporate training videos still sit inside god-awful Flash or Java-applet based "corporate training" sites, and look like they were filmed in the mid-90s, I seriously doubt these poor employees are getting anything other than a basic stereoscopic video.

Of course with built-in detection that checks that the user has their eyes open.

Eye-tracking in VR headsets is still a bit challenging but is certainly coming in future headsets. Once you have eyetracking in consumer headsets, forcing employees to have their eyes open is bound to happen.

Something beautiful about a company best known for exploiting workers, Walmart, teaming up with an expert is trampling over our personal privacy, Facebook.

Safety training is a good place to start, there’s a great argument for “it’s important and will save lives!”

Makes one wonder where the next stop on the road to our cyberpunk dystopia will be. Rift v2 will probably have eye tracking which will be a godsend to advertisers and if we all have them on our faces employers would love to know what we’re actually paying attention to.

The future is going to be great, awful, but great.

Not a partnership with Facebook, at least directly. I work for STRIVR, who actually landed the contract.

Congrats on the deal, been following STRIVR's work for a while. Your sports training looked really promising.

I get your sentiment, but people can still close their eyes if they don't want to pay attention. I would imagine most people find VR more engaging, and when it comes to safety, that is an important feature.

the next step is to tie the employees down to a chair while watching the training material...

Welcome to walmart training camp!, some of you are here because some kind of incident/accident during your usual workflow, please take a sit on this special brainwashing machine while some of the assistants tie you down on the sit... It will last only 12 hours for the first seven days and after that we will have a quiz and you can go back to work.

A Clockwork Orange.

Darpa initiative.

Does walmart detect when you close your eyes trying to avoid the anti-union 'documentary'?

With a VR headset, no one can see you eyes are closed...

Probably has a cage full of virtual rats being released onto their face. I love Walmart!

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