Watch: Zuckerberg Goes In-Depth on the Metaverse With Lex Fridman -- Here's My Highlights

Acclaimed tech podcast Lex Fridman recently did this in-depth interview with Mark Zuckerberg, much of which was devoted to Meta's metaverse plans. (Watch above, with the metaverse conversation between 5;36 - 37:44.) While I'm sorely tempted to editorialize on his comments, for now I'll just summarize some of highlights that stood out to me most:

• Zuckerberg believes fully photo-realistic avatars are coming in the next few decades (with the implication being that they're desirable).
• He believes a sense of true immersion and a feeling of presence is not yet possible "on all the screens we have today... at no point do you feel like you're actually in it".
• His company is already having mandatory meetings in Horizon Workrooms -- "We have to dogfood this" -- and finds it to be more immersive than Zoom. (Here's my interview with Jim Purbrick, who led development on the project.)
• Zuckerberg believes we'll have true immersion and sense of presence within the next 10 years. He also believes that full embodied VR is necessary for immersion. "I think a lot of that will be possible in a 5 year period."

More highlights:

• Fridman points out that immersion is possible even through letter writing between two people, but Zuckerberg doesn't really address that point, instead talking about VR solutions, such as avatar eye tracking and other technical means of simulating immersion.
• "I want to design the most human thing possible that creates the most sense of presence" into a VR rig, he says -- even if that means adding more hardware costs and requirements.
• Fridman asks if there will be a singularity where the Metaverse becomes indistinguishable from our real world experience. Zuckerberg answers in the affirmative and suggests that some use cases (business meetings, social, etc.) which will make that possible. He mentions the Builder Bot program as a new potential use case. (Here's my take on Builder Bot.)
• Important caveat that Zuckerberg adds, even speaking over Fridman to complete the thought: "The goal isn't to have people to spend a lot more time in computing, it's to make computing more natural."

That last point is notable, especially in relation to the singularity question. A few more points:

• Identity in the metaverse: Do I need a version of my real life self? "I think there's going to be a range... representing you directly versus some fantasy identity." He says this perspective has evolved over time, where he once assumed people would only have one identity, and now believes that's not desirable, and that there'll be a spectrum of identity.
• Zuckerberg mentions VRChat as doing avatar expression really well, enabling people to even have a meme-based avatar. "You have a built-in icebreaker."

These last points are especially noteworthy, as his assumptions around a singular identity have directly impacted users of metaverse platforms in the negative.

Thoughts and opinions of your own? Please post below.

Comments

[Carlos Loff]

Poor Mark, He forgets more than half potential users have 2 massive barriers for his dream - They hate helmets for more than 30 mins in a row and they have low end computers...

[Martin K.]

Poor Carlos; he missed Meta's announcement to bring Horizon to mobile this year: https://uploadvr.com/zuckerberg-horizon-mobile-announced/ .

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Hey! The avatars have legs now! 😁

They're still ugly, though.

@Martin, while I had also missed that, I've noticed that the author of that article raises more questions than the answers given by Zuckerberg.