I'll take that bet. I'm a kind of tech-cynic, have a Nokia 8110, ten year old thinkpad and listen to minidiscs. But in January I'll fly to the states and buy a Vision pro day 1. The last time I was this excited about a technological innovation was with OS X. My brother was a CS guy and he recommended I buy an iBook when I started university because he thought OX was going to be a game changer. And in the beginning it was weird to have the only Apple in a lecture hall with 300 Dells. But 10.1, 10.2, 10.3... It felt like being on the cutting edge.
That's what the Vision Pro looks like to me. The Powerbook 12" all over again, future-tech.
>Could you possibly provide some references and/or the name of your company? (I don't smoke but I'd love to understand better how this works.)
It's really simple as hell, there's an effect called the 'Garcia' effect, whereby if you feel sick ≈6 hours after eating or drinking a novel taste, you get a lifelong aversion to that taste of smell. It's highly conserved, found in every animal studied with the sole exception of vampire bats (they only have one dietary option).
And this was used in tobacco cessation in the 60's. There's a lovely case study where a 14 year old boy is given apomorphine three times while smoking, he vomits so copiously he passes out at one point, but literally can't smoke afterwards.
It fell out of favour because injecting people with opiates to induce uncontrollable bouts of vomiting wasn't a popular way to treat smoking.
We just do with a simple VR spinning room, you take as long a break from smoking as you can comfortably manage, light up and then do our 'aversion' session for 5 minutes, or as long as you can manage.
From that, we see around 20% of people that are unaffected (the efficacy is dependent on a factor that varies ≈10000:1 across a normal population).
For most people, you get some effect, and for around a third you get an instant reaction where even 2-3 5 minute sessions mean they just can't smoke. They can cave to cravings and light up... and then just have to throw the cigarette away in disgust.
>More generally, how do you stay on top of what's happening in VR tech & applications? I'm asking because I've clearly been missing out on some significant developments.
Very difficult, so much happening in various silos. Jaan Aru and Mel Slater are probably the two researchers I try to follow as much as possible, but this is a prescience at the moment, so even finding common terminology is a challenge.
This is fascinating, thanks for elaborating! Do you think a similar therapy would work in the case of alcohol addiction? I.e. drink a glass of some high-proof spirit, put on the VR glasses with the app, profit(?)
yes basically, in fact when we talk to people about this, around 50% of people have had some experience of this in their life (with me it was Kiwi fruit after a long car ride, I associated them with the nausea and couldn't eat kiwis for around 20 years).
Of that 50%, around a half or so have a history of this with some kind of alcohol. I have one friend who will almost puke if he smells whiskey, because of one terrible night in Norrköping with a bottle of Paddy's.
>Will it also cause aversion to headsets and to VR? :)
Unlikely, the Garcia effect is tightly coupled to taste/smell. Could inadvertently give a lifetime aversion to any food/drink though, especially if it's a new taste.
>> we [will] all have headsets in a decade
I'll take that bet. I'm a kind of tech-cynic, have a Nokia 8110, ten year old thinkpad and listen to minidiscs. But in January I'll fly to the states and buy a Vision pro day 1. The last time I was this excited about a technological innovation was with OS X. My brother was a CS guy and he recommended I buy an iBook when I started university because he thought OX was going to be a game changer. And in the beginning it was weird to have the only Apple in a lecture hall with 300 Dells. But 10.1, 10.2, 10.3... It felt like being on the cutting edge.
That's what the Vision Pro looks like to me. The Powerbook 12" all over again, future-tech.
>Could you possibly provide some references and/or the name of your company? (I don't smoke but I'd love to understand better how this works.)
It's really simple as hell, there's an effect called the 'Garcia' effect, whereby if you feel sick ≈6 hours after eating or drinking a novel taste, you get a lifelong aversion to that taste of smell. It's highly conserved, found in every animal studied with the sole exception of vampire bats (they only have one dietary option).
And this was used in tobacco cessation in the 60's. There's a lovely case study where a 14 year old boy is given apomorphine three times while smoking, he vomits so copiously he passes out at one point, but literally can't smoke afterwards.
It fell out of favour because injecting people with opiates to induce uncontrollable bouts of vomiting wasn't a popular way to treat smoking.
We just do with a simple VR spinning room, you take as long a break from smoking as you can comfortably manage, light up and then do our 'aversion' session for 5 minutes, or as long as you can manage.
From that, we see around 20% of people that are unaffected (the efficacy is dependent on a factor that varies ≈10000:1 across a normal population).
For most people, you get some effect, and for around a third you get an instant reaction where even 2-3 5 minute sessions mean they just can't smoke. They can cave to cravings and light up... and then just have to throw the cigarette away in disgust.
https://sickofsmoking.app/
Nicorette meets Clockwork Orange in a way.
>More generally, how do you stay on top of what's happening in VR tech & applications? I'm asking because I've clearly been missing out on some significant developments.
Very difficult, so much happening in various silos. Jaan Aru and Mel Slater are probably the two researchers I try to follow as much as possible, but this is a prescience at the moment, so even finding common terminology is a challenge.