Seeing that stuff in person, and being able to have a conversation in real time would be the real benefit. Watching videos on the internet is pretty close though for those that can't travel or attend in person. Back When I was in inspection and design I got to travel more. I always loved going to our customers and seeing their operations, and new cool tools. Still remember the first time I saw white light scanners back in the day. I left there with my mind blown, and the whole drive home thinking my job (of building attribute checking fixtures) was going to be instantly obsolete. That was about 20 years ago and we're still building them. Just a bit different. Scanning technology changed the way we gauge things in a big way. Body panel fixtures have sure changed because of it. Structural stampings less, but there was a ripple effect. Much less full form body block style fixtures, and more open hybrid Holding/checking fixtures now. I haven't really been on the road in about 10 years, so my knowledge of newer tech and stuff is severely outdated.
I remember my first time holding a 3d printed part (powder stl). It was a door hinge model that I was designing a fixture for. It got handed to me and I was being told to be careful with it at about the exact time I broke in my cement hands......Apparently it took all night to print the thing, on a machine costing more than I made in a year. Now we have a customer that send us parts, better quality than that (and much more durable....) printed on an ender 3 lol. It's completely unnecessary to have a printed model of that part for what we're doing, and it's basically just engineers geeking out and wasting time with their office toy (they've told me that), but it's amazing to see the progress since then. My Elegoo mars at home can do much better than both of those printers and cost me $360. The trickle down to consumer technology has been incredible.
I do enjoy the forefront of technology. I get frustrated and defeated sometimes because I work in a shop in an industry that is so anti progress about everything. I need change.....Anyway, enough rambling.
I'll try and make the next one.