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Comment by mclau157 | Hacker News Reader

I can see this being incredible for history lessons and history school lectures

Why? Sure a virtual walk around the Pantheon in all its glory would be nice. But would that really improve history lessons? It doesn't help students understand why things happened, and what the consequences were and how they have impacted the rest of history of the modern world.

Inhabiting a foreign cultural context can provide information that factual lessons may struggle to convey to the same degree. Of course, there's a limit to this - especially with regards to historical accuracy - but you are much more likely to understand why specific historical decisions were made if you are "in the room" where they happened, so to speak.

Engagement is one of the core pieces education and one of the hardest things to solve. If you remember back to being a kid, reading white papers is not really a thing. Interesting (e.g. engaging) teachers and field trips (which not all schools have access to) are tools that help kids learn.

At the limit, if you could stay engaged you would be an expert in pretty much anything.

"It doesn't help students understand why things happened, and what the consequences were and how they have impacted the rest of history of the modern world." I would say the opposite, let's recreate each step in that historical journey so you can see exactly what the concequenses were, exactly why they happened and when.

Or maybe the constant detachment from reality that this technology and social media provide will only make it seem like they're more engaged when in fact they're mentally retreating from the physical world.

Some physicist once said "I endeavor to never write more clearly than I think"; in the same way, history probably shouldn't be presented more vividly than it's understood. (We already have this problem with people remembering incidental details and emotional vibes from historical fiction as if they were established historical fact; VR diffusion delusions would make this much worse.)

History is mostly made up. You can be sure mostly about general facts. The other 80% are just narratives.

If you read actual history the historians typically go into quite a lot of depth on why they think X happened as opposed to Y, and what the limitations are on the theories and the reasoning. The amount of archaeological and written records we have is very important to those facts.

Also true of the present. :)

Not really, since it will hallucinate all sorts of ridiculous anachronisms.

It's going to replace video games.

Do people play video games to look at pretty scenery? No most people are testing skills in video games and this will not test skill for a while

They do both. Nobody played Cyberpunk 2077 for the riveting gameplay.

Actually that game felt a lot like these videos, because often you would turn around and then look back and the game had deleted the NPCs and generated new ones, etc.

People played Cyberpunk 2077 because it had oceans of engaging story, which _is_ the gameplay.

There's an entire genre of games (immersive sims) that focus on experiencing the world with little to sometimes no skill required on the part of the player. The genre is diverse and incorporates elements of more gameplay-focused genres. It's also pretty popular.

I think some people want to play, and some want to experience, in different proportions. Tetris is the emanation of pure gameplay, but then you have to remember "Colossal Cave Adventure" is even older than Tetris. So there's a long history of both approaches, and for one of them, these models could be helpful.

Not that it matters. Until the models land in the hands of indie developers for long enough for them to prove their usefulness, no large developer will be willing to take on the risks involved in shipping things that have the slightest possibility of generating "wrong" content. So, the AI in games is still a long way off, I think.

>No most people are testing skills in video games

You must be young. As people get older they (usually) care less about that.

> Do people play video games to look at pretty scenery?

Yes.

> No most people are testing skills in video games

That's not mutually exclusive with playing for scenery.

Games, like all art, have different communities that enjoy them for different reasons. Some people do not want their skills tested at all by a game. Some people want the maximum skill testing. Some want to experience novel fantasy places, some people want to experience real places. Some people want to tell complex weaving narratives, some people want to optimize logistics.

A game like Flower is absolutely a game about looking at pretty scenery and not one about testing skill.

I doubt it. The only video games I play are competitive games like DotA 2, Counter Strike 2, Call of Duty, Rainbow 6 Siege, etc. I don't really see how this completes or replaced that at all.

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