Rewind just a few years; the metaverse is on everyone’s lips. Marketing managers for large corporations immediately sprung on the trend, investing in property and NFTs in the metaverse in hopes it will be the next big tech thing. Meta (formerly Facebook) backed the tech to such an extent that it renamed itself and poured billions into developing it. Today, we saw the fruits of that labor in an exclusive interview conducted in the metaverse.
At Meta Connect 2023, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg presented a slightly different approach to the metaverse. Previously, it offered a future where people live purely online, in these digital worlds. Now, it sounds like Zuckerberg is offering a fusion of physical and virtual reality (VR) as the next iteration of the metaverse.
Meeting in the metaverse
Earlier today, Youtuber Lex Fridman published a video interview with Meta’s CEO, displaying the two having a conversation in the metaverse.
The interview shows Fridman and Zuckerberg sitting in headsets – each in a different US state, and ‘meeting up’ in a dark virtual room online. Both are depicted with virtual avatars said to be ‘photorealistic’. While it does look ‘virtual,’ it is an improvement on the previous iteration of metaverse avatars.
“We probably need to over-collect expressions when we’re doing the scanning because we haven’t figured out how much can reduce that down to a really streamlined process. But the goal, and we have a project doing this already – is just to do a very quick scan with your cellphone. Or you just take your phone, wave it in front of your face for a couple of minutes, you know, say a few sentences make a bunch of expression, and then produce something that is of the quality we have right now,” Zuckerberg says.
The vision is for the metaverse to be more “than just a videocall”. Zuckerberg believes users will use the technology to ‘physically’ get together to engage with each other. And this was clear from his Meta Connect keynote. He sees humans playing board games with friends in the same room, with some friends being there virtually.
But there’s also AI
Listening to the interview, it’s clear Zuckerberg’s mind has shifted regarding the concept of the metaverse. It’s now very much integrated with AI.
“This has been an incredible year for AI,” he says during the Meta Connect keynote. He continued to unveil several new features powered by Meta AI tech, including AI chatbots assisting users in brainstorming ideas for events like birthday parties. Additionally, he introduced an AI assistant that users can integrate into chats on Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp. It’’s clear the company intends to leverage this technology to advance its products.
The connection between AI and the metaverse isn’t immediately obvious, however. While Meta has hinted at bots becoming characters in these 3D worlds, the interview with Fridman visualizes some of what we can expect from the company.
Zuckerberg details a concept that could allow a creator, for example, to create an AI version of themselves to interact with their audience online. “There’s a lot of things we need to get right about it,” he says. “We want to empower everyone.”
“I don’t think in the future we’re going to have one AI that we want to work with. There will probably be a lot of these,” he details.
The good, and the bad
For Meta, abandoning the metaverse isn’t an option, given that it’s embedded in the company’s name. They’ve made the bed and now have to sleep in it.
The virtual interview looks like a marketing stunt by the company, which is expected given Fridman is speaking to one of the tech world’s biggest names. There is no doubt the company is developing (and has developed) game-changing technology, it’s just still hard to see where it fits into our society.
The metaverse has always been vague – is it VR, is it blockchain and NFTs, or online games? We’re still waiting to learn exactly what it means to the world.
About the author
Marce has contributed tech to various prominent publications since 2018, offering a transparent perspective into the tech industry and its effects on its users. She now spends her time developing insightful content for industry players. You know, when she's not gaming or geeking out about the latest fad.
