Some universities in the UK could soon start to beam in guest lecturers from around the globe using the same holographic technology that is used to bring dead or retired singers back to the stage.
Loughborough University will be the first in Europe to explore this offering. It plans to use it to bring in sport scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach fashion students how to create immersive shows, and to test management students on navigating tricky business situations.
Prof Vikki Locke, the director of undergraduate studies at Loughborough business school, said students “absolutely love” the technology. They would prefer “a guest speaker from industry beaming into a classroom to a 2D person on the wall”, she added.
She added that Zoom calls led students to “feel like they were watching TV … there’s a distance. A holographic image is a lot more engaging and real to them.”
The technology will be formally introduced into the curriculum in 2025 after a year of experimentation.
The box-based holographic units are sold by LA-based Proto. It is already used by companies such as BT and IBM in meetings to reduce the need for corporate travel – as well as the fashion retailer H&M in Stockholm in making interactive product displays.
David Nussbaum founded Proto four years ago after working on dead-celebrity holograms, and said his company could soon bring back some of the 20th century’s greatest thinkers.
He said: “Proto has the technology to project an image of Stephen Hawking, or anybody, and make it look like he’s really there. We can hook it up to books, lectures, social media – anything he was attached to, any question, any interaction with him.
"An AI Stephen Hawking would look like him, sound like him and interact like it was him. It’s awe-inspiring, it’s jaw-dropping, I’ve been in shock at how amazing the interactions are. AI is part of our life, whether people like it or not.”
He added that his firm’s ambition was to prove “you shouldn’t have to be an eccentric millionaire or a celebrity to have a hologram”.
