1
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capturing how people actually emote and express themselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think the initial version of this has been pretty impressive.
1
SPEAKER_01
And like you said, I do think we re kind of beyond the uncanny valley here where it does feel like you.
1
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t feel weird or anything like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s gonna be the meme, that the two most monotone people are in a metaverse together.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I think that actually makes it more difficult.
1
SPEAKER_00
The amazing thing here is that the subtleties of the expression of the eyes, people say I m monotone and emotionless, but I m not.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s just maybe my expression of emotion is more subtle, usually, like with the eyes.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s one of the things I ve noticed
1
SPEAKER_00
is just how expressive the subtle movement of the corners of their eyes are in terms of displaying happiness or boredom or all that kind of stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
I am curious to see, just I ve never done one of these before.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve never done a podcast as one of these Kodak avatars.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m curious to see what people think of it because one of the issues that we ve had in some of the VR and mixed reality work is it tends to feel a lot more profound when you re in it than the 2D videos capturing the experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think that this one, because it s photorealistic, may look kind of as amazing
1
SPEAKER_01
in 2D for people watching it as it feels, I think, to be in it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we ve certainly had this issue where a lot of the other things just, it s like you feel the sense of immersion when you re in it that doesn t quite translate to a 2D screen.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I don t know, I m curious to see what people think.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m curious to see if people could see that
1
SPEAKER_00
Like my heart is actually beating fast now.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is super interesting.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like the, that such intimacy of conversation can be achieved remotely.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s been, you know, I don t do remote podcasts for this reason.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this is like, breaks all of that.
1
SPEAKER_00
This feels like just an incredible transition to something else, to the different kind of communication.
1
SPEAKER_00
Breaks all barriers, like geographic, physical barriers.
1
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned, do you have a sense of timeline in terms of how many difficult things have to be solved to make this more accessible to like scanning with a smartphone?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think we ll probably roll this out progressively over time.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it s not going to be like we roll it out and one day everyone has a Kodak avatar.
1
SPEAKER_01
We want to get more people scanned and into the system.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then we want to start integrating it into each one of our apps, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Making it so that, you know, I think that for a lot of the work style things, productivity, I think that this is going to make a ton of sense.
1
SPEAKER_01
In a lot of game environments, I mean, this could be fine, but games tend to have their own style, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Where you almost want to fit more with the aesthetic style of the game.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I think for doing meetings, and one of the things that we get a lot of feedback on workrooms,
1
SPEAKER_01
where people are pretty blown away by the experience and this feeling that you can be remote, but feel like you re physically there around a table with people.
1
SPEAKER_01
But then, we get some feedback that people have a hard time with the fact that the avatars are so expressive and don t feel as realistic in that environment.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think something like this could make a very big difference for those remote meetings.
1
SPEAKER_01
And especially with Quest 3 coming out, which is gonna be the first mainstream mixed reality product, where you re really taking digital
1
SPEAKER_01
know, expressions of either a person or, or objects and overlaying them on the physical world.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think the ability to do kind of remote meetings and things like that, where you re like,
1
SPEAKER_01
just remote hang sessions with friends.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think that that s going to be very exciting.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, rolling it out over the next few years.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s not ready to be like a kind of mainstream product yet, but we just want to, we ll keep tuning it and keep getting more scans in there and keep, you know, and kind of rolling it out into more of the features.
1
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I mean, definitely in the next few years, you ll be seeing a bunch more experiences like this.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I would love to see some celebrities scanned and some non-celebrities.
1
SPEAKER_00
Just more people to experience this.
1
SPEAKER_00
I would love to see that.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is something that, I mean, my mind is blown.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m literally at a loss for words because it s very difficult to just
1
SPEAKER_00
convey how incredible this is.
1
SPEAKER_00
How I feel the emotion, how I feel the presence, how I feel the subtleties of the emotion in terms of work meetings or any kind of, in terms of podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is awesome.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I don t even need your arms or legs.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that-?
1
SPEAKER_01
We gotta get that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s its own challenge.
1
SPEAKER_01
And part of the question is also, so you have the scan, then
1
SPEAKER_01
it takes a certain amount of compute to go drive that, both for the sensors on the headset and then rendering it.
1
SPEAKER_01
So one of the things that we re working through is what is the level of fidelity that is optimal, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
You could do the full body in kind of a codec, and that can be quite intensive.
1
SPEAKER_01
But one of the things that we re thinking about is like, all right, maybe you can kind of stitch a somewhat lower fidelity version of your body, but still have the main kind of
1
SPEAKER_01
the major movements, but your face is really the thing that we have the most resolution on, right, in terms of being able to read and express emotions.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, like you said, if you move your eyebrows like a millimeter, I mean, that really changes the expression and what you re emoting, whereas
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, I mean, moving your arm like an inch probably doesn t matter quite as much.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, so I think that we do want to get all of that into here and that ll be some of the work over the next period as well.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you mentioned Quest 3, that s coming out.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve gotten a chance to try that too.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s awesome.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the, how d you pull off the mix?
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s not just virtual reality, it s mixed reality.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think it s going to be, it s going to be the first mainstream mixed reality device.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, obviously we shipped Quest Pro last year, but it was $1,500.
1
SPEAKER_01
And part of what I m super proud of is, you know, we try to innovate, not just on,
1
SPEAKER_01
pushing the state of the art and delivering new capabilities, but making it so it can be available to everyone.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we have this and it s coming out and it s $500.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in some ways, I think the mixed reality is actually better in Quest 3 than it was, than what we re using right now in Quest Pro.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m really proud of the team for being able to deliver that kind of an innovation and get it out.
1
SPEAKER_01
But some of this is just,
1
SPEAKER_01
software, you tune over time and get to be better.
1
SPEAKER_01
Part of it is you put together a product and you figure out what are the bottlenecks in terms of making it a good experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we got the resolution for the mixed reality cameras and sensors to be multiple times better in Quest 3.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we just figured that that made a very big difference when we saw the experience that we were able to put together for Quest Pro.
1
SPEAKER_01
And part of it is also that Qualcomm just came out with their next generation chipset for VR and MR, that we worked with them on a custom version of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But that was available this year for Quest 3, and it wasn t available in Quest Pro.
1
SPEAKER_01
So in a way, Quest 3, even though it s not the Pro product,
1
SPEAKER_01
actually has a stronger chip set in it than the Pro line at a third of the cost.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m really excited to get this in people s hands.
1
SPEAKER_01
It does all the VR stuff that Quest 2 and the others have done too.
1
SPEAKER_01
It does it better because the display is better and the chip is better, so you ll get better graphics.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s 40% thinner, so it s more comfortable as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the MR is really the big capability shift.
1
SPEAKER_01
And part of what s exciting about the whole space right now is, you know, this isn t like smartphones where companies put out a new smartphone every year and you can almost barely tell the difference between that and the one the year before it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, for this, each time we put out a new headset,
1
SPEAKER_01
It has a major new capability.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the big one now is mixed reality, the ability to basically take digital representations of people or objects and superimpose them on the world.
1
SPEAKER_01
The one version of this is you re going to have these augments or holograms and experiences that you can bring into your living room or a meeting space or office.
1
SPEAKER_01
Another thing that I just think is going to be a much simpler innovation
1
SPEAKER_01
is that there are a lot of VR experiences today that don t need to be fully immersive.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if you re playing a shooter game or you re doing a fitness experience, sometimes people get worried about swinging their arms around, like, am I going to hit a lamp or something?
1
SPEAKER_01
Am I going to run into something?
1
SPEAKER_01
So having that in mixed reality actually is just
1
SPEAKER_01
a lot more comfortable for people, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
You kind of still get the immersion and the 3D experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you can have an experience that just wouldn t be possible in the physical world alone.
1
SPEAKER_01
But by being anchored to and being able to see the physical world around you, it s like, it just feels so much safer and more secure.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think a lot of people are really going to enjoy that too.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, I m really excited to see how people use it.
1
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, Quest 3 coming out later this fall.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I got to experience it with other people sitting around and there s a lot of furniture.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so you get to see that furniture and get to see those people and get to see those people like.
1
SPEAKER_00
enjoy the ridiculousness of you swinging your arms.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, presumably they re friends of yours, even if they make fun of you, there s a lot of love behind that, and I got to experience that.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that s a really fundamentally different experience than just pure VR, with zombies coming out of walls.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s like someone shooting at you and you hide behind your real couch in order to duck the fire, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s incredible how it s all integrated, but also subtle stuff like,
1
SPEAKER_00
in a room with no windows, you can add windows to it and you can look outside as the zombies run towards you.
1
SPEAKER_00
But like, it s still nice view outside, you know?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s really.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so that s pulled off by having cameras on the outside of the headset that do the pass through.
1
SPEAKER_00
That technology is incredible to do that on a small headset.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s not just the cameras.
1
SPEAKER_01
You basically need multiple cameras to capture the different angles and sort of the three-dimensional space.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then it s a pretty complex compute problem and AI problem to map that to your perspective, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because the cameras aren t exactly where your eyes are because no two people s eyes are going to be in exactly the same place.
1
SPEAKER_01
You kind of need to get that to
1
SPEAKER_01
to line up and then do that basically in real time and then generate something that looks that kind of feels natural.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then
1
SPEAKER_01
superimpose whatever digital objects you want to put there.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, it s a very interesting technical challenge.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think we ll continue tuning this for the years to come as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I m pretty excited to get this out because I think Quest 3 is going to be the first device like this that millions of people are going to get that s mixed reality.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s only when you have millions of people using something that you start getting the whole developer community really starting to experiment and build stuff because now there are going to be people who actually use it.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think we ll get, you know, we got some of that flywheel going with Quest Pro, but I think it ll really get accelerated once Quest 3 gets out there.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, yeah, I m pretty excited about this one.
1
SPEAKER_00
Plus there s hand tracking without, so you don t need to have a control.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the cameras aren t just doing the pass through.
1
SPEAKER_00
of the entire physical reality around you, it s also tracking the details of your hands in order to use that for gesture recognition, this kind of stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we ve been able to get way further on hand recognition in a shorter period of time than I expected.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that s been pretty cool.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, did you see the demo experience that we built around... Piano?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the piano, learning to play piano.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s incredible.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re basically playing piano on a table and it s that s without any controller.
1
SPEAKER_00
And like how well it matches physical reality with no latency.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s tracking your hands with no latency.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s tracking all the people around you with no latency, integrating physical reality and digital reality.
1
SPEAKER_00
Obviously, that connects exactly to this Kodak avatar, which is in parallel, allows us to have ultra realistic copies of ourselves in this mixed reality.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s all converging towards like an incredible digital experience in the metaverse.
1
SPEAKER_00
To me, obviously, I love the intimacy of conversation.
1
SPEAKER_00
So even this is awesome.
1
SPEAKER_00
But do you have other?
1
SPEAKER_00
ideas of what this unlocks of like something like Kodak Avatar unlocks in terms of applications, in terms of things we re able to do?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, there s what you can do with avatars overall, in terms of superimposing digital objects on the physical world.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then there s kind of psychologically, what is having photorealistic do?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, so I think we re moving towards a world where
1
SPEAKER_01
we re going to have something that looks like normal glasses where you can just see the physical world, but you also see holograms.
1
SPEAKER_01
And in that world, I think that they re going to be not too far off, maybe by the end of this decade, we ll be living in a world where there are kind of as many holograms when you walk into a room as there are physical objects.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it really raises this interesting question about
1
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people have this phrase where they call the physical world the real world.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think increasingly, the physical world is super important, but I actually think the real world is the combination of the physical world and the digital worlds coming together.
1
SPEAKER_01
But until this technology
1
SPEAKER_01
they were sort of separate, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like you access the digital world through a screen, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
And maybe it s a small screen that you carry around or it s a bigger screen where you sit down at your desk and strap in for a long session, but they re kind of fundamentally divorced and disconnected.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think part of what this technology is gonna do is bring those together into a single coherent experience of what the modern real world is, which is, and it s gotta be physical because we re physical beings.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the physical world is always going to be super important.
1
SPEAKER_01
But increasingly, I think a lot of the things that we kind of think of can be digital holograms.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, any screen that you have can be a hologram, any media, any book, art can basically be just as effective as a hologram, as a physical object, any game that you re playing, a board game or any kind of physical game, cards.
1
SPEAKER_01
ping pong, things like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re often a lot better as holograms because you could just kind of snap your fingers and instantiate them and have them show up.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s like you have a ping pong table show up in your living room, but then you can snap your fingers and have it be gone.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that s super powerful.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think that it s actually an amazing thought experiment of like,
1
SPEAKER_01
how many physical things we have today that could actually be better as interactive holograms.
1
SPEAKER_01
But then beyond that, I think the most important thing, obviously, is people.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the ability to have these mixed hangouts, whether they re social or meetings, where you show up to a conference room, you re wearing glasses or a headset in the very near term, but hopefully by over the next five years, glasses or so.
1
SPEAKER_01
And
1
SPEAKER_01
And you re there physically, some people are there physically, but other people are just there as holograms, and it feels like it s them who are right there.
1
SPEAKER_01
And also, by the way, another thing that I think is going to be fascinating about being able to blend together the digital and physical worlds in this way is we re also going to be able to embody
1
SPEAKER_01
AIs as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think you ll also have meetings in the future where you re basically, maybe you re sitting there physically, and then you have a couple of other people who are there as holograms.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then you have Bob, the AI, who s an engineer on your team who s helping with things.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he can now be embodied as a realistic avatar as well and just join the meeting in that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think that that
1
SPEAKER_01
that s going to be pretty compelling as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so what can you do with photorealistic avatars compared to the more expressive ones that we have today?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think a lot of this actually comes down to acceptance of the technology.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because all of the stuff that we re doing, I mean, the motion of your eyebrows, the motion of your eyes, the cheeks and all of that, there s actually no reason why you couldn t do that on an expressive avatar too.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it wouldn t look exactly like you, but you can make a cartoon version of yourself and still have it be almost as expressive.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I do think that there s this bridge between
1
SPEAKER_01
the current state of most of our interactions in the physical world and where we re getting in the future with this kind of hybrid physical and digital world where I think it s going to be a lot easier for people to kind of take some of these experiences seriously with the photorealistic avatars to start.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then I m actually really curious to see where it goes longer term.
1
SPEAKER_01
I could see a world where people stick to the photorealistic and maybe they modify them to make them a little bit more
2
SPEAKER_01
interesting, but maybe fundamentally we like photorealistic things.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I can also see a world that once people get used to the photorealistic avatars and they get used to these experiences that I actually think that there could be a world where people actually prefer
2
SPEAKER_01
being able to express themselves in ways that aren t so tied to their physical reality.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so that s one of the things that I m really curious about.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know, in a bunch of our internal experiments on this, one of the things that
2
SPEAKER_01
his, I thought was psychologically pretty interesting, is people have no issues blending photorealistic stuff and not.
2
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, we can have a, you know, for this specific scene that we re in now, we happened to sort of being in a dark room.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think part of that aesthetic decision, I think, was based on the way you like to do your podcast.
2
SPEAKER_01
But we ve done experiences like this.
2
SPEAKER_01
where you have like a cartoony background, but photorealistic people who you re talking to.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we seem to like, people just seem to just think that that is completely normal, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t bother you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t feel like it s weird.
2
SPEAKER_01
Another thing that we ve experienced with is basically you have a photorealistic avatar that you re talking to, and then right next to them, you have an expressive kind of cartoon avatar.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that actually is pretty normal too.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not that weird to basically be interacting with different people in different modes like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m not sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think it ll be an interesting question to what extent these photorealistic avatars are
2
SPEAKER_01
a key part of just transitioning from being comfortable in the physical world to this kind of new, modern real world that kind of includes both the digital and physical, or if this is like the long-term way that it stays.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that there are going to be uses for both the expressive and the photorealistic over time.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just don t know what the balance is going to be.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a really good, interesting philosophical question.
2
SPEAKER_00
But to me, in the short term, the photorealistic is amazing to where I would prefer, like you said, the workroom, but like on a beach with a beer, just to see a buddy of mine remotely on a chair next to me drinking a beer.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that, as realistic as possible, is an incredible experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I don t want any fake hats on him.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t want any just chilling with a friend, drinking beer, looking at the ocean, while not being in the same place together.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that experience is just, it s a fundamentally different experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
it s just a high quality experience of friendship.
2
SPEAKER_00
Whatever we seek in friendship, it seems to be present there in the same kind of realism I m seeing right now.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is totally a game changer.
2
SPEAKER_00
So to me, this is, I can see myself sticking with this for a long time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I mean, it s also, it s novel, and it s also a technological feat, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like being able to pull this off is like, it s like a pretty impressive, and I think to some degree, it s just this kind of like awesome experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I m already, sorry to interrupt,
2
SPEAKER_00
forgetting that you re not real.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like this really, so it s novel.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is just an avatar version of me.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a deep philosophical question, yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, but here s some of the, so I put this on this morning and I was like, all right, like,
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like, okay, so my hair is a little shorter in this than my physical hair is right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
I probably need to go get a haircut.
2
SPEAKER_01
Actually, I did happen to shave this morning, but if I hadn t, I could still have this photorealistic avatar that is more cleanly shaven, even if I m a few days in.
2
SPEAKER_01
physically.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I do think that they re going to start to be these subtle questions that seep in where the avatar is realistic in the sense of this is kind of what you looked like at the time of capture, but it s not necessarily temporarily accurate to exactly what you look like in this moment.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that they re going to end up being a bunch of questions
2
SPEAKER_01
that come from that over time that I think are gonna be fascinating too.
2
SPEAKER_00
You mean just like the nature of identity of who we are?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are we the people, you know how people do like summer beach body?
2
SPEAKER_00
Would people be, for the scan, they ll try to loosen way and look their best and sexiest with the nice hair and everything like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It does raise the question of,
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, if a lot of people are interacting with the digital version of ourselves, who are we really?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are we the entity driving the avatar, or are we the avatar?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, I think our physical bodies also fluctuate and change over time too, so I think there s a similar question of like, which version of that are we?
2
SPEAKER_01
Right, there s like the, I mean, and it s an interesting identity question because, all right, it s like,
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, it s like weight fluctuates or things like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like, I think most people don t tend to think of themselves as the, I don t know, it s an interesting psychological question.
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe some people, maybe a lot of people do think about themselves as the kind of worst version, but I think a lot of people probably think about themselves as the best version.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then it s like what you are on a day-to-day basis doesn t necessarily map to,
2
SPEAKER_01
to either of those.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there will definitely be a bunch of social scientists and psychologists.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really, there s gonna be a lot to understand about how our perception of ourselves and others has shifted from this.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, this might be a bit of a complicated and a dark question, but one of the first feelings I had experiencing this is I would love to talk to loved ones.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the next question I have is I would love to talk to people who are no longer here that are loved ones.
2
SPEAKER_00
So like if you look into the future,
2
SPEAKER_00
Is that something you think about when people pass away, but they can still exist in the metaverse?
2
SPEAKER_00
You can still have, you know, talk to your father, talk to your grandfather and grandmother and a mother once they pass away.
2
SPEAKER_00
The power of that experience is one of the first things my mind jumped to, because it s like, this is so real.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think that there are a lot of norms and things that people have to figure out around that.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s probably some balance where if someone has lost a loved one and is grieving, there may be ways in which being able to interact or relive certain memories could be helpful, but then there s also probably an extent to which it could become unhealthy.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, I m not an expert in that, so I think we d have to study that and understand it in more detail.
2
SPEAKER_01
We have a fair amount of experience
2
SPEAKER_01
with how to handle death and identity and people s digital content through social media already, unfortunately, right with her, you know, there s, you know, unfortunately, you know, people who use our services die every day, and their families, you know, often want to have access to their profiles.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we have whole
2
SPEAKER_01
protocols that we go through where there are certain parts of it that we try to memorialize, so that way the family can get access to it, so that way the account doesn t just go away immediately.
2
SPEAKER_01
But then there are other things that are important, kind of private things that that person has, like we re not gonna give the family access to someone s messages, for example.
2
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, I think that there s some best practices, I think, from the current digital world that we ll carry over.
2
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I think that this will enable some different things.
2
SPEAKER_01
Another version of this is how this intersects with AIs.
2
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things that we re really focused on is we want the world to evolve in a way where there isn t a single AI superintelligence, but where a lot of people are empowered by having AI tools to do their jobs and make their lives better.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you re a creator, right, and if you run a podcast like you do, then you have a big community of people who are super interested to talk to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I know you d love to cultivate that community and you interact with them online outside of the podcast as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, there s way more demand both to interact with you and I m sure you d love to interact with the community more, but you just are limited by the number of hours in the day.
2
SPEAKER_01
So at some point, I think, making it so that you could build an AI version of yourself that could interact with people, not after you die, but while you re here to help people kind of fulfill this desire to interact with you and your desire to build a community.
2
SPEAKER_01
a lot of interesting questions around that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s obviously, it s not just in the metaverse.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think we d want to make that work across all the messaging platforms, WhatsApp and Messenger and Instagram Direct.
2
SPEAKER_01
But there s certainly a version of that where
2
SPEAKER_01
if you could have an avatar version of yourself in the metaverse that people can interact with and you could define that sort of an AI version.
2
SPEAKER_01
People know that they re interacting with an AI, that it s not the kind of physical version of you, but maybe that AI, even if they know it s an AI, is the next best thing because they re probably not going to necessarily all get to interact with you.
2
SPEAKER_01
directly, I think that that could be a really compelling experience.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of things that we need to get right about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That, you know, we re not ready to release the version that a creator can kind of build a version of themselves yet, but we re starting to experiment with it in terms of releasing a number of AIs that people can interact with in different ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that that is also just going to be a very powerful, you know, set of capabilities that people have over time.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you ve made major strides in developing these early AI personalities with the idea where you can talk to them across the meta apps and have like interesting, unique kind of conversations.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can you describe your vision there in these early strides and what are some technical challenges there?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so, I mean, a lot of the vision comes from this idea that, you know, I don t think we necessarily want there to be like one big super intelligence.
2
SPEAKER_01
We want to empower everyone to both, you know, have more fun, accomplish their business goals, you know, just everything that they re trying to do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, we don t tend to have, you know, one person that we work with on everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t think in the future we re gonna have, you know, one AI that we work with.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think you re gonna want,
2
SPEAKER_01
a variety of these.
2
SPEAKER_01
So there are a bunch of different uses.
2
SPEAKER_01
Some will be kind of more assistant oriented.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a sort of the kind of plain and simple one that we re building is called just meta AI.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s simple.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can chat with it in any of your threads.
2
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t have a face, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just kind of more vanilla and neutral and kind of factual, but it can help you with a bunch of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
Then there are a bunch of cases that are more kind of business oriented.
2
SPEAKER_01
So let s say you want to contact a small business.
2
SPEAKER_01
Similarly, that business probably doesn t want to have to staff someone to man the phones, and you probably don t want to wait on the phone to talk to someone.
2
SPEAKER_01
But having someone who you can just talk to in a natural way, who can help you if you re having an issue with a product, or if you want to make a reservation, or if you want to buy something online, having the ability to do that and have a natural conversation rather than navigate some website or have to call someone and wait on hold is going to be really good both for the businesses and for
2
SPEAKER_01
normal people who want to interact with businesses.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think stuff like that makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
Then there are gonna be a bunch of use cases that I think are just fun, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think people are gonna, I think that there will be AIs that can tell jokes, so you can put them into chat thread with friends.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think a lot of this, because we re like a social company, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we re fundamentally around helping people connect in different ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
And part of what I m excited about is how do you enable these kind of AIs to facilitate connection between
2
SPEAKER_01
two people or more, put them in a group chat, make the group chat more interesting around whatever your interests are, sports, fashion, trivia.
2
SPEAKER_01
Video games.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love the idea of playing, I think you mentioned Baldur s Gate, an incredible game, just having an AI that you play together with.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that could, that seems like a small thing, but it could deeply enrich the gaming experience.
2
SPEAKER_01
I do think that AIs will make the NPCs a lot better in games too.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s a separate thing that I m pretty excited about.
2
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I mean, one of the AIs that we ve built that just in our internal testing people have loved the most is like an adventure text-based
2
SPEAKER_01
like a dungeon master.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think part of what has been fun, and we talked about this a bit, but we ve gotten some real cultural figures to play a bunch of these folks and be the embodiment and the avatar of them.
2
SPEAKER_01
So
2
SPEAKER_01
So Snoop Dogg is the dungeon master, which I think is just hilarious.
2
SPEAKER_00
In terms of the next steps of, you know, if you mentioned you mentioned Snoop, to create a Snoop AI.
2
SPEAKER_00
So basically, AI personality replica, a copy or not a copy, maybe inspired by Snoop.
2
SPEAKER_00
What are the some of the technical challenges of that?
2
SPEAKER_00
What does that experience look like for Snoop to be able to create that AI?
2
SPEAKER_01
So starting off,
2
SPEAKER_01
Creating new personas is easier because it doesn t need to stick exactly to what that physical person would want, how they d want to be represented, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like it s just a new character that we created.
2
SPEAKER_01
So even though, so Snoop in that case is, he s basically an actor, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
He s playing the dungeon master, but it s not Snoop Dogg, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s whoever the dungeon master is.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you wanna actually make it so that you have an AI embodying a real creator, there s a whole set of things that you need to do to make sure that that AI is not gonna say things that the creator doesn t want, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And that the AI is gonna know things and be able to represent things in the way that the creator would want, the way that the creator would know.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think that it s less of a, it s less of a question around like having the avatar express them.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that I think we re, you know, it s like, well, we have our kind of V1 of that that we ll release soon after Kinect, but you know, that ll get better over time.
2
SPEAKER_01
But a lot of this is really just about continuing to make the models for these AIs so that they re just more and more, I don t know, you could say like,
2
SPEAKER_01
Reliable or predictable in terms of what the communicates that way when you want to create the lex assistant that your community can talk to you can.
2
SPEAKER_01
You don t program them like normal computers.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re training them.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re AI models, not kind of normal computer programs.
2
SPEAKER_01
But you want to get it to be predictable enough so that way you can set some parameters for it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And even if it isn t perfect all the time, you want it to generally be able to stay within those bounds.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s a lot of...
2
SPEAKER_01
what I think we need to nail for the creators.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s why that one s actually a much harder problem, I think, than starting with new characters that you re creating from scratch.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that one I think we ll probably start releasing sometime next year, not this year, but experimenting with existing characters and the assistant and games and a bunch of different personalities and
2
SPEAKER_01
experimenting with some small businesses.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think that that stuff will be ready to do this year and we re rolling it out, you know, basically right after Connect.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m deeply entertained by the possibility of me sitting down with myself and saying, hey, man, like you need to stop the dad jokes or whatever.
2
SPEAKER_01
The idea of a podcast between you and AI assistant Lex podcast.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there is just even the experience of a Kodak Avatar being able to freeze yourself, like basically first mimic yourself.
2
SPEAKER_00
So everything you do, you get to see yourself do it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a surreal experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
It feels like if I was like an ape looking in a mirror for the first time, realizing like, oh, that s you.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then freezing that and being able to look around like I m looking at you.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how to put it into words, but it just feels like a fundamentally new experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I m seeing maybe color for the first time.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m experiencing a new way of seeing the world for the first time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because it s physical reality, but it s digital.
3
SPEAKER_01
And realizing that that s possible is just blowing my mind.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s just really exciting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I lived most of my life before the internet and experiencing the internet, experiencing voice communication, video communication.
3
SPEAKER_01
you think like, well, there s a ceiling to this, but this is making me feel like, oh, there might not be, there might be that blend of physical reality and digital reality.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s actually what the future is.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a weird experience.
3
SPEAKER_01
It feels like the early days of like a totally new way of living.
3
SPEAKER_01
And like, there s a lot of people that kind of complain, well, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
The internet, that s not reality.
3
SPEAKER_01
You need to turn all that off and go in nature.
3
SPEAKER_01
But this feels like this will make those people happy, I feel like, because it feels real, the flaws and everything.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I mean, a big part of how we re trying to design these new computing products is that they should be physical.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s a big part of the issue with computers.
3
SPEAKER_00
TVs and even phones is like, yeah, I mean, maybe you can interact with them in different places, but they re fundamentally like you re sitting, you re still.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, people are just not meant to be that way.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I think you and I have this shared passion for sports and martial arts and doing stuff like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re just moving around.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like so much of what makes us people is like, you move around.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re not just like a brain in a tank, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s where
3
SPEAKER_00
you know, the human experience is a physical one.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it s not just about having the immersive expression of the digital world, it s about being able to really natively bring that together.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I do really think that the real world is this mix of the physical and the digital, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
There s too much digital at this point for it to just be siloed to a small screen.
3
SPEAKER_00
But the physical is too important, so you don t want to just sit down all day long at a desk.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think that this is, yeah, I do think that this is the future.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is, I think, the kind of philosophical way that I would want the world to work in the future is a much more coherently blended physical and digital world.
3
SPEAKER_01
There might be some difficult philosophical and even ethical questions we have to figure out as a society.
3
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you can comment on this.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the metaverse seems to enable, sort of unlock a lot of experiences that we don t have in the physical world.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the question is,
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, what is and isn t allowed in the metaverse?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, in video games, we allow all kinds of crazy stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
And in physical reality, you know, a lot of that is illegal.
3
SPEAKER_01
So where s that line?
3
SPEAKER_01
Where s that gray area between video game and physical reality?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you have a sense of that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think, I mean, there are content policies and things like that, right, in terms of what people are allowed to create.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I mean, a lot of the rules around physical, I think you try to have a society that is as free as possible, meaning that people can do as much of what they want, unless you re going to do damage to other people.
3
SPEAKER_00
and infringe on their rights.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the idea of damage is somewhat different in a digital environment.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, when I get into, you know, some world with my friends, the first thing we start doing is shooting each other, which obviously we would not do in the physical world because you d hurt each other.
3
SPEAKER_00
But in a game, that s like just a, it s almost, you know, it s like just fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
And even like the lobby of a game, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, it s just, it s not even bearing on the game.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just kind of like a funny,
3
SPEAKER_00
sort of humorous thing to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, is that problematic?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think so, because fundamentally, you re not causing harm in that world.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think that the
3
SPEAKER_00
of the question that I think we need to figure out is what are the ways where things could have been harmful in the physical world that will now be freed from that and therefore there should be fewer restrictions in the digital world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then there might be new ways in which there could be harm in the digital world that there weren t the case before.
3
SPEAKER_00
So there s more anonymity, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s, you know, when you show up to a
3
SPEAKER_00
a restaurant or something, it s like all the norms where you pay the bill at the end.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s because you have one identity and if you stiff them, then life is a repeat game and that s not going to work out well for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
But in a digital world where you can be anonymous and show up in different ways, I think the incentive to act like a good citizen can be a lot less and that causes a lot of issues and toxic behavior.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that needs to get sorted out.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think in terms of what is allowed, I think you wanna just look at what are the damages.
3
SPEAKER_00
But then there s also other things that are not related to kind of harm, less about what should be allowed and more about what will be possible that are more about the laws of physics, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, if you wanted to travel to see me in person, you d have to get on a plane and that would take a few hours to get here, whereas,
3
SPEAKER_00
you know, we could just jump in a conference room and, you know, put on these headsets and we re basically teleported into a space where we re, you know, it feels like we re together.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s a very novel experience that it breaks down some things that previously would have defied the laws of physics for what it would take to get together.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that will create a lot of new opportunities, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
So, and one of the things that I m curious about is, you know, there are all these debates right now about,
3
SPEAKER_00
remote work or people being together.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think this gets us a lot closer to being able to work physically in different places, but actually have it feel like we re together.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think the dream is that people will one day be able to just work wherever they want, but we ll have all the same opportunities because you ll be able to feel like you re physically together.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think we re not there today with just video conferencing and the basic technologies that we have, but
3
SPEAKER_00
I think part of the idea is that with something like this, over time you could get closer to that and that would open up a lot of opportunities, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because then people could live physically where they want while still being able to get the benefits of being physically or kind of feeling like you re together with people at work, all the ways that that helps to build more culture and build better relationships and build trust, which I think are real issues that if you re not seeing people, you know, in person ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s going to be,
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very hard from first principles to think about all the implications of a technology like this and all the good and the things that you need to mitigate.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you try to do your best to kind of envision what things are going to be like and accentuate the things that are going to be awesome and hopefully mitigate some of the downside things.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, the reality is that we re going to be building this out one year at a time.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s going to take a while.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we re going to just get to see how it evolves and what developers and different folks do with it.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you could comment, this might be a bit of a very specific technical question, but Llama 2 is incredible.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve released it recently.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s already been a lot of exciting developments around it.
3
SPEAKER_01
What s your sense about its release and is there a Llama 3 in the future?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, I think on the last podcast that we did together, we were talking about the debate that we were having around open sourcing Lama 2.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m glad that we did.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think at this point, there s the value of open sourcing a foundation model like Lama 2 is significantly greater than the risks.
3
SPEAKER_00
And in my view, I mean, we spent a lot of time
3
SPEAKER_00
took a very rigorous assessment of that and red teaming it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I m very glad that we released Lama 2.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think the reception has been, it s just been really exciting to see how excited people have been about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s gotten way more downloads and usage than I would have even expected.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was pretty optimistic about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s been great.
3
SPEAKER_00
Lama 3, I mean, there s always another model that we re training.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, it s, you know, for right now, you know, we built, we trained Lama 2, and we released it as an open source model.
3
SPEAKER_00
And right now the priority is building that into a bunch of the consumer products, all the different AIs and a bunch of different
3
SPEAKER_00
products that we re basically building as consumer products.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because Lama 2 by itself, it s not a consumer product, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s more of a piece of infrastructure that people could build things with.
3
SPEAKER_00
So that s been the big priority is kind of continuing to fine-tune and kind of just get Lama 2 and its
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s the branches that we ve built off of it ready for consumer products that hopefully hundreds of millions of people will enjoy using those products in billions one day.
3
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, we re also working on the future foundation models and I don t have anything
3
SPEAKER_00
new or news on that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know exactly when it s going to be ready.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think just like we had a debate around Llama 2 and open sourcing it, I think we ll need to have a similar debate and process to red team this and make sure that this is safe.
3
SPEAKER_00
And my hope is that we ll be able to open source this next version when it s ready too.
3
SPEAKER_00
But we re not
3
SPEAKER_00
you know, close to doing that this month.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, this is, that s just, it s a thing that we re still somewhat early in working on.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, in general, thank you so much for open sourcing Lama 2 and for being transparent about all the exciting developments around AI.
3
SPEAKER_01
I feel like that s contributing to a really awesome conversation about where we go with AI.
3
SPEAKER_01
And obviously, it s really interesting to see all the same kind of technology integrated into
3
SPEAKER_01
these personalized AI systems with the AI personas, which I think will, when you put in people s hands and they get to have conversations with these AI personas, you get to see like,
3
SPEAKER_01
interesting failure cases, like where the things are dumb or they go into weird directions, and we get to learn as a society together what s too far, what s interesting, what s fun, how much personalization is good, how much generic is good, and we get to learn all of this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you probably don t know this yourself.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have to all figure it out by using it, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, part of what we re trying to do with the initial AI s launch is having a diversity of different use cases, just so that people can try different things, because I don t know what s going to work.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, are people going to like playing the text-based adventure games?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are they going to like having a comedian who can add jokes to threads, or are they going to want to interact with historical figures?
3
SPEAKER_00
We made one of Jane Austen and one of Marcus Aurelius, and I m curious to see how that goes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m excited for both.
3
SPEAKER_01
As a big fan, I m excited for both.
3
SPEAKER_01
I have conversations with them.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, yeah, that s, you know, and I am also excited to see, you know, the internet, I don t know if you heard, can get kind of weird.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I applaud them for it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I get to see it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It d be nice to see how weird they take it, what kind of memes are generated from this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think all of it is, especially in this early stages of development, as we progress towards AGI, it s good to learn by playing with those systems and interacting with them at like a large scale, like you said.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, totally.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s why once we re starting out with a set.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we re also working on this platform that we call AI Studio that s going to make it so that over time, anyone will be able to create one of these AIs, almost like they create any other UGC content across the platform.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m excited about that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that to some degree, we re not going to see the full potential of this until you just have the full creativity of the whole community being able to build stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of stuff that we need to get right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m excited to take this in stages.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think anyone out there is really doing what we re doing here.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that there are people who are doing kind of like fictional or consumer-oriented character type stuff, but the extent to which we re building it out with the avatars and expressiveness
3
SPEAKER_00
and making it so that they can interact across all of the different apps and they ll have profiles and we ll be able to engage people on Instagram and Facebook.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s just, it s gonna be really fun.
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SPEAKER_01
Well, I m still, so we re talking about AI, but I m still blown away this entire time that I m talking to Mark Zuckerberg and you re not here.
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SPEAKER_01
but you feel like you re here.
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SPEAKER_01
I ve done quite a few intimate conversations with people alone in a room, and this feels like that.
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SPEAKER_01
So I keep forgetting for long stretches of time that we re not in the same room.
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SPEAKER_01
And for me to imagine a future where I can, with a snap of a finger, do that with anyone in my life, the way we can just call right now and have this kind of shallow 2D experience, to have this experience like we re sitting next to each other is like,
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think we can even imagine how that changes things, where you can immediately have intimate one-on-one conversations with anyone.
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SPEAKER_01
That might, in a way, we might not even predict change civilization.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I mean, this is a lot of the thesis behind the whole metaverse is giving people the ability to feel like you re present with someone.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, this is like the main thing I talk about all the time, but I do think that there s a lot to process about it.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, from my perspective, I mean, I m definitely here.
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SPEAKER_00
We re just not physically in the same place.
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SPEAKER_00
It s not like you re not talking to an AI, right?
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SPEAKER_00
You know, this is...
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SPEAKER_00
So I think the thing that s novel is the ability to convey through technology a sense of almost physical presence.
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SPEAKER_00
So the thing that is not physically real is us being in the same physical place, but kind of everything else is.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think that that gets to this
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SPEAKER_00
somewhat philosophical question about what is the nature of kind of the modern real world.
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SPEAKER_00
And I just think that it really is this combination of a physical world and the presence that we feel, but also being able to combine that with this increasingly rich and powerful and capable digital world that we have and all of the innovation that s getting created there.
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SPEAKER_00
So
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SPEAKER_00
I think it s super exciting because I mean, the digital world is just increasing in its capability and our ability to do awesome things.
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SPEAKER_00
But the physical world is so profound and that s a lot of what makes us human is that we re physical beings.
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SPEAKER_00
So I don t think we want to run away from that and just spend all day on a screen.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s like, you know, it s one of the reasons why I care so much about helping to shape and accelerate these future computing platforms.
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SPEAKER_00
I just think this is so powerful.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s, you know, even though
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SPEAKER_00
The current version of this is like you re wearing a headset.
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SPEAKER_00
I just think this is going to be by far the most human and social computing platform that has ever existed.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s what makes me excited.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think just to linger on this kind of changing nature of reality, like of what is real,
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SPEAKER_01
maybe shifting it towards the sort of consciousness.
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SPEAKER_01
So what is real is the subjective experience of a thing that makes it feel real versus necessarily being in the same physical space.
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SPEAKER_01
Because it feels like we re in the same physical space.
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SPEAKER_01
And that the conscious experience of it, that s probably what is real, not like,
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SPEAKER_01
that the space-time, like the physics of it, like you re basically breaking physics and focusing on the consciousness.
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SPEAKER_01
That s what s real.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just whatever s going on inside my head.
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SPEAKER_00
But there are a lot of social and psychological things that go along with that.
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SPEAKER_00
experience that was previously only physical presence, right?
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SPEAKER_00
I think that there s like an intimacy, a trust, you know, there s a level of communication because so much of communication is non-verbal and is based on expressions that you re kind of, you know, you re sharing with someone when you re in this kind of
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SPEAKER_00
environment.
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SPEAKER_00
And before those things would have only been possible had I gotten on a plane and flown to Austin and sat physically with you in the same place.
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SPEAKER_00
So I think we re
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SPEAKER_00
we re basically shortcutting those laws of physics and delivering the social and psychological benefits of being able to be present and feel like you re there with another person, which I think are real benefits.
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SPEAKER_00
anyone in the world.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think that, like you said, I think that is going to be a very profound thing.
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SPEAKER_00
And a lot of that is the promise of the metaverse and why I think that that s the next frontier for what we re working on.
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SPEAKER_00
I started working on
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SPEAKER_00
social networks when they were primarily text or the first version of Facebook, your profile, you had one photo and the rest of it was like lists of things that you were interested in.
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SPEAKER_00
And then we kind of went through the period where we re doing photos and now we re kind of in the period where most of the content is video.
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SPEAKER_00
there s a clear trend where over time, the way that we want to express ourselves and kind of get insight and content about the world around us gets increasingly just richer and more vivid.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think the ability to be immersed and feel present with the people around you or the people who you care about is, from my perspective, clearly the next frontier.
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SPEAKER_00
It just so happens that it s
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SPEAKER_00
incredibly technologically difficult, right?
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SPEAKER_00
It requires building up these new computing platforms and completely new software stacks to deliver that.
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SPEAKER_00
But I mean, I kind of feel like that s what we re here to do as a company.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, I really love the connection you have through conversation.
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SPEAKER_01
And so for me, this photorealism is really, really exciting.
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SPEAKER_01
I m really excited for this future.
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SPEAKER_01
And thank you for building it.
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SPEAKER_01
Thanks to you and thanks to the amazing meta teams that I ve met.
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SPEAKER_01
the engineers and just everybody I ve met here.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you for helping to build this future.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you, Mark, for talking to me inside the metaverse.
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SPEAKER_01
This is blowing my mind.
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SPEAKER_01
I can t quite express.
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SPEAKER_01
I would love to measure my heart rate this whole time.
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SPEAKER_01
It would be hilarious if you re actually sitting on a beach right now.
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SPEAKER_01
I m not.
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SPEAKER_00
I m in a conference room.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay, well, I m at a beach and not wearing any pants, so I m really sorry about that for anyone else who s watching me in physical space.
4
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, thank you so much for talking today.
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SPEAKER_01
This really blew my mind.
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SPEAKER_01
It s one of the most incredible experiences of my life, so thank you for giving that to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Awesome, awesome.
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SPEAKER_00
Glad you got to check it out, and it s always fun to talk.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right, I ll catch you soon.
4
SPEAKER_00
See ya.
4
SPEAKER_01
See ya later.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is so, so amazing, man.
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SPEAKER_01
This is so amazing.