Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg on AI and Metaverse, takes Swipe at Elon Musk

Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to Forbes about the transformational power of artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse, briefly touching on the potential cage match with Tesla’s Elon Musk. Zuckerberg believes AI will disrupt all aspects of our work and personal lives; in fact, a lot of change has already occurred over the past 12 months, he said.

However, he doesn’t believe that there will be one overarching AI controlling everything. He said, “So you know, my own view is that there isn’t going to be one kind of big central super intelligence. I think there are going to be a lot of different AIs that people interact with for different things and that we interact with throughout our day.”

The Potential of the Metaverse

The real excitement for Zuckerberg lies in the metaverse though. He stated that the ability for people to connect from anywhere in the world with anyone they want is not far off.

He explained, “So in the near term, we get that with VR where you can jump in and you can be embodied as an avatar and just feel like you’re right there with another person. There’s something sort of magical about that, that you don’t get in any other kind of screen or technology that we use that, you know nothing really replaces the feeling of being there with another person.”

On the Use of VR Equipment

The long-term vision, however, is for regular glasses to provide access to the metaverse instead of relying on bulky virtual reality (VR) glasses. Zuckerberg sees a future where people use these normal glasses to have a conversation with a person represented as a hologram right in front of them.

The tech giant recently revealed Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses during Meta’s annual Connect conference. While smart glasses are not new, and both Google and Meta have had sobering experiences with them in the past, hopes are high that it will be different this time around.

AI and Metaverse Fusion

And while the tech is still developing, Zuckerberg admits that although VR glasses will become increasingly powerful, fitting all the tech into them will be a real challenge. According to the CEO, it will be a game-changer when we can access the digital realm with glasses instead of phones or other more traditional screens.

He said, “It’ll be more and more just kind of blended into the world around us. You know, a lot of the art or the games or media or screens – it’s actually an interesting thought experiment just to think about how much of the stuff around you could be a hologram, when your chair can’t be because you need to physically sit on it.”

Musk vs. Zuckerberg Match

When asked by the interviewer about the Zuck v Musk fight, Mark Zuckerberg chuckled and replied, “Well I don’t think that’s going to happen, but look I mean I love this stuff. You know, I like competing. I like doing it with friends. It’s like an important part of my daily workout. But I like competing too.”