Holographic technology set to bring Steven Hawking back from the dead to teach students

AI-powered lifelike avatars are coming to universities, or at least one university in England, which will be trailing the new technology from the LA-based company Proto.

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Loughborough University will be the first in Europe to install these new holographic projectors, which are planned to be used for educational purposes such as teaching fashion students how to create an immersive show through sports scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Additionally, David Nussbaum, who founded Proto four years ago and has been working on hologram technology of dead celebrities, said that the company may soon be able to bring back from the dead some of the world's greatest minds to teach classes. The technology is scheduled to be implemented into the curriculum in 2025 after a year of experimentation.

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Nussbaum used Professor Steven Hawking as an example, saying that the technology can recreate anyone and the AI side of the tech will enable students to ask the hologram questions, it would be able to perform lectures, read books or even use social media.

"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."

Furthermore, Nussbaum said the firm is planning on making holograms available to everyone.

"You shouldn't have to be an eccentric millionaire or a celebrity to have a hologram".

"Different immersive technologies and AI are the new forms of literacy. Students need to understand what it means to use those, to be in those worlds, to experience them, to interact ... and these are all things they're going to need for their future careers," said Gary Burnett, a professor of digital creativity at Loughborough University