Zuckerberg: Announces generative AI roadmap, won’t give up on metaverse plan, talks about Apple headset for the first time

Meta is building AI assistants for applications, generating emoticons based on text, and creating internal productivity AI tools for employees.

Compilation | Cheng Qian

Editor | 李水青

Zhidongxi News on June 9th, yesterday, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced some of Meta’s research progress in the field of generative AI at the company’s plenary meeting, and talked about the Thoughts on Apple Vision Pro.

Zuckerberg said that Meta’s two main focuses are applying artificial intelligence to the company’s various products and building virtual worlds. He believes that virtual reality platforms are how people will connect online in the future.

In addition, Zuckerberg elaborated on Meta’s work in AI for the first time, including building AI assistants for applications, creating emoticons based on text, productivity AI tools within employees, and a vision for how to integrate these technologies with the Metaverse. .

Just two weeks ago, Meta's layoffs affecting 21,000 employees had just come to an end. Talking about this, Zuckerberg said that the layoffs were a "difficult decision" he made in order to build a better technology company. Want your company to deliver better products faster. Meta expanded to more than 80,000 employees at its peak, causing it to perform poorly in delivering products quickly.

They hope Meta can use this more stable period to grow and rebuild its culture, according to two people who attended the meeting.

01.

Create an AI assistant for all applications

You can post pictures and make emoticons with just a few words

Currently, Meta has a team dedicated to building tools powered by AI. With the development of generative artificial intelligence technology, Zuckerberg believes that this technology will be applied to all Meta products.

Therefore, the company plans to put generative AI technology into flagship products such as Facebook and Instagram.

Meta executives introduced the research progress of several new products.

For example, an AI assistant that can help people use all Meta applications, Zuckerberg envisions an AI assistant that can help people create content to better express their ideas, or become an AI coach that gives users advice and encouragement.

AI agents that provide services to customers in products such as social application WhatsApp.

Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s vice president of AI, also showed off Meta’s upcoming Instagram feature, which can modify user photos based on text prompts and create emoji stickers for messages.

Al-Dahle said Meta will use an image generation model to let users create stickers based on text prompts, and employees will begin testing the feature internally before opening it to the public.

For employee content, Meta also announced a productivity assistant, Metamate, which can perform specific tasks such as answering and querying mobile phone information from the company's internal system.

In addition, Al-Dahle revealed that Meta is developing AI models that will enable users to modify images in a variety of customized ways. Including changing the picture proportions, turning the corgi picture into a painting, etc.

Zuckerberg said that in July this year, Meta will hold an internal hackathon focusing on generative AI, and he also encouraged employees to try new ideas during this period.

02.

Don’t give up on the Metaverse plan and continue to open source AI technology

Although Meta has been committed to AI research for many years, the transformation of its research into consumer products has been slower than that of Google and Microsoft.

Currently, Meta’s goal is to create AI models, make these models available to more people, and eventually integrate them with its metaverse plans.

Zuckerberg also emphasized that the focus on generative AI does not mean that Meta is giving up on the Metaverse plan. He said that using new generative AI technology can ultimately help people build new virtual world projects and experiences. . And he also hinted that the AI ​​assistant may be used in future versions of his AR glasses.

In addition, Meta emphasized the importance of sharing AI technology and publishing research results in the open source community. The company has previously invested heavily in open source technology, which means it wants some researchers who have built their own algorithms to share their work on AI.

The company has spent billions of dollars over the past decade building systems to run AI and attracting top researchers to work around AI on some of the world's most difficult computer science problems.

This approach is also opposed by some researchers, who believe that opening AI algorithms to many people may create malicious, automated and intelligent systems, thereby accelerating the spread of misinformation. Critics say those complex algorithms should be tightly controlled.

Zuckerberg defended Meta's strategy, saying that open source software allows for greater scrutiny of the technology because it can be seen by millions of technologists.

In the future, he hopes for a world where people can build different AI programs as they please, rather than relying on a handful of programs provided by two or three large technology companies.

03.

Vision Pro turns on “Spatial Computing”

Quest pays more attention to interaction

Zuckerberg also talked about his views on Apple’s just-released headset Vision Pro. The Quest 3 headset launched by Meta is priced at US$499, which is much cheaper than the Vision Pro’s US$3,499 price. This also makes Meta has the opportunity to reach a wider user base.

The Vision Pro headset features a higher-resolution display, but the technology that powers it costs seven times as much and consumes more power, requiring a battery and wires to connect it. .

“I think Apple’s announcement demonstrates the difference in values ​​and vision in a very important way.” Meta’s Quest headset is more focused on “people interacting in new ways and feeling closer” while being “positive Take the initiative to do things”, while Apple’s demonstration was all about a person sitting alone on the sofa.

He believes that this may be a vision for future spatial computing, but it is not “what I want.”

However, Zuckerberg believes that the good news is that Apple’s products have no more magical solutions to the legal and physical constraints that Meta researchers have not yet explored or face.

04.

Conclusion: Meta accelerates generative AI layout

From the perspective of the generative AI industry, Meta has been cautious in how to release generative AI tools into its products. Compared with companies such as Microsoft, it has been a step slower. Microsoft has added AI Copilot to Office, Windows , Bing, Snapchat has also released its own AI chatbot, and Adobe and Salesforce have also integrated generative AI into their core businesses.

Unlike these players, Zuckerberg needs to consider combining AI technology with the Metaverse plan, not just building AI models. Now that Meta's layoffs have come to an end, Meta has increased its emphasis on AI as the next step, but it is still unknown how the iteration speed of its AI tools will bring variables to its products in the future.

Source: The Verge, New York Times, Reuters

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