#398 – Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse

The following is a conversation with Mark Zuckerberg inside the metaverse. Mark and I are hundreds of miles apart from each other in physical space, but it feels like we're in the same room. Because we appear to each other as photorealistic codec avatars in 3D with spatial audio. This technology is incredible, and I think it's the future of how human beings connect to each other in a deeply meaningful way. On the internet, these avatars can capture many of the nuances of facial expressions that we use, we humans use to communicate emotion to each other.

Now I just need to work on upgrading my emotion expressing capabilities of the underlying human. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got LMNT for delicious electrolytes, InsideTracker for biological data, Eight Sleep for delicious naps, AG1 for delicious health, and NetSuite for probably delicious. But I haven't, uh, tasted it, uh. Business management software. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our team, we're always hiring.

Go to Lex Fridman. com slash hiring. And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will, too. You never know until you try. This episode is brought to you by the thing I consume many times a day. The thing I'm consuming currently, as I am speaking the words, I'm speaking LMNT, electrolyte drink, spelled L M N T.

I do a low carb diet, sometimes a very low carb diet, and I usually eat only once a day, so that's fasting and low carbs. And for that, you have to get your electrolytes right. Electrolytes include sodium, potassium, magnesium. The proportions are really important. The deliciousness of the proportions when combined with water is also important. It turns out it's also just important to consume water and making water a little bit more delicious, which is what LMNT does, is a win win.

That's what we call in the business a win win. Friends. Get a simple pack for free with any purchase. Try it. Join me and try it at drink LMNT dot com slash flex. Get a simple pack for free with any purchase at drink LMNT dot com slash flex. This show is also brought to you by InsideTracker, a service I use to listen to my body through the power of data science. So from my body come signals through blood tests that give information about whatever's going on in my body.

And that data is used with machine learning algorithms to make suggestions about what you should do in your life. Now, in this conversation about the metaverse, where Mark and I are incredibly in a whole other plane of existence, we have teleported into this place. While we're miles apart from each other in physical space, in the virtual space, we're right there together, shrouded in darkness. I wonder if those entities that are driven by the content of our minds, if they have biological like signals, if they need to make lifestyle and diet decisions.

I wonder one day we should be able to ask them. Actually, that's one of the things that Meta announced, which is really cool, which are the AI personalities, and I do think from just from a technical perspective. It's super exciting and difficult to encapsulate a particular personality like Snoop Dogg in an AI agent where it reflects all the quirks, the weirdnesses, but also the beauty of the character of that particular human being. I love conversation that task doing that thing technically super exciting, but I think super difficult.

So I'm glad they're taking it on anyway. Get special savings for a limited time when you go to insideTracker. com slash Lex. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep and its Pod three mattress. It can cool down or heat up the two sides of the bed separately. This actually makes me think of that meme with the two kids that are scared in the corner and they're looking at a bunny. And I am those two scared kids in the corner, thinking about the bunny.

Where the bunny represents the people that want their bed heated up. I don't know who does this, but I want to meet you. Maybe you have an eight sleep, like in the Antarctic or or somewhere in northern Canada, and but you also don't have heat, and maybe you're out camping. I can't possibly construct the situation in which you would use heat. I'm only half kidding, of course, anyway, I prefer to cool down the bed, and it's an incredible experience a cold bed with a warm blanket.

It's it's, uh, it's another place I teleport to in my mind when I go to the nap. It's not a metaverse, it's a napa verse. And there I find a deep peace from the chaos of life, and I return refreshed, ready to take the chaos on once again. Anyway, check it out and get special savings when you go to eight sleep. com slash Lex. This show is also brought to you by AG1, another delicious thing I consume every day.

I just drank it like an hour ago. It's delicious, it's green and, uh, makes me feel like Popeye. I grew up, I don't know how many years ago, watching Popeye. There was a stretch of time where I wanted to be Popeye. I think I admired Popeye for being strong, maybe because I wanted to be strong. I always thought a man is supposed to be strong, and so if I just eat my spinach like Popeye did, I'll be strong.

So hence the color green is forever associated with, uh, with strength. And I'm also playing Diablo now, and that's one of the things you can in increase is strength, dexterity, willpower, intelligence, all that kind of stuff, but strength still has that sexy sound to it. And uh, so every time I play Diablo actually, and I drink Ag1, and it just, uh, makes me feel stronger and better. And like, I got my nutritional bases covered anyway. They'll give you one month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drink Ag1.

com slash Lex. This show is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all in one cloud business management system. I still hold in me a little bit of a flame that turns hopefully into a fire. Which is a desire to contribute by building stuff, whether it's working at a company or starting a company. And I'm very cognizant of how difficult it is to run a company successfully, whether you're looking at a huge company like Meta or a tiny startup.

All of it, and actually, yes, all of it is a source of challenge and complexities and and fear and anxiety and uncertainty, all of that. But ultimately, the camaraderie of the people working together, that's a deeply fulfilling, deeply meaningful pursuit, especially when there's a big vision that you're reaching for. So I love people at companies working at a thing, chasing that big, impossible vision. Actually, the metaverse is one such thing. Just the technical complexity of everything involved is just really incredible, from the headset software and the hardware, the cameras, the scanning for the avatar.

Uh, all of it is just incredible. Anyway, if you want to figure out how to run a business, small or large successfully, you should be using the best tools like NetSuite. You can start now with no payment or interest for six months. Go to netsuite. com slash lex to access their one of a kind financing program. That's netsuite. com slash Lex. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. And now, dear friends, here's Mark Zuckerberg. This is so great.

Lighting change. Wow,

Oh, yeah, we can put the light anywhere.

And it doesn't feel awkward to be really close to you.

No, it does. I actually And moved you. I moved you back a few feet before you got into well, the headset. You were like, right here,

I don't know if people can see this, but this is incredible. The realism here is just incredible. Where am I? where are you, Mark? where, where, where are we?

you're in Austin, right?

No, I mean, this place, we're. We're shrouded by darkness with ultra realistic face, and it just feels like we're in the same room. This is really the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And sorry to be in your personal space. I mean, We have done jujitsu before.

yeah, no, I was. I was commenting to the team before that, even that w I. I feel like we've choked each other from further distances than it feels like we are I right now.

mean, this is just really incredible. I don't know how to describe with with words. It really feels like it feels like we're in the same room. It feels like the future. This is truly, truly incredible. I just wanted to take it in. I'm still getting used to it. It's like, it's you, it's really you, but you're not here with me, right? You're there wearing a headset, and I'm wearing a headset. It's C. It's really, really incredible.

So what? Um, can you describe what it takes currently for us to appear so photorealistic to each other?

yeah. So I mean, for for background, we both did these scans for, uh, this research project that that we have at Meta called Kodak Avatars. And the idea is that instead of actually, instead of our avatars being cartoony, um, and instead of actually transmitting a video, what it does is we've sort of scanned ourselves in a lot of different expressions. And we've built a computer model of sort of each of our faces and and bodies, and, um, the different expressions that we make.

And collapse that into a a codec that then, when you have the headset on your head, it can it. It sees your face, it sees your expression, and it can basically send, um, an encoded version of what you're supposed to look like over the wire. So, um, so, in addition to being photorealistic, it's also actually much more bandwidth efficient than transmitting a a full video, or especially a 3D immersive video of of a whole scene like this.

And it captures everything, like the flaws, like to me, the subtleties of the human face, like even the flaws. That's like, that's all amazing. It makes you, uh, it makes it so much more immersive. It makes you realize that, like, perfection isn't the thing that leads to immersion. It's like the little subtle flaws, like freckles and like variations in color. And just Yeah, wrinkles, all stuff about noses, asymmetry, yeah, asymmetry, and just the different. Like the corners of the eyes, like what your eyes do when you smile, all that kind of stuff.

yeah, eyes are are a huge part of it. Yeah, I mean, there's all the studies that most of communication, even when people are speaking, is not actually the words that they're saying, right? It's it's kind of the expression and and all that. So, and we try to capture that with the kind of classical, um, expressive avatar system that we have, that's the kind of more cartoon design one. You can, you can kind of put those kind of expressions on those faces as well.

But there there's obviously a certain realism that comes with delivering kind of this photorealistic experience. That, um, I, I don't know. I just think it's really magical. I mean, this gets to kind of the core of what the vision around virtual and augmented reality is of. Like delivering a sense of presence, as if you're there together, no matter where you actually are in the world. And I mean, this this, uh, experience, I think, is a good embodiment of that.

Where it's like, I mean, we're in two completely different states, halfway across the country. And it just like, you know, looks like you're just sitting right in front of me. It's, uh, it's pretty wild,

Yeah, I mean, I, I can't. It's I'm al. Almost getting emotional. It's like it feels like a a totally, it's fundamentally new experience. Like for me to have this kind of conversation with loved ones, it would just change everything, maybe just to elaborate. So the I went to Pittsburgh and went through this whole scanning procedure, which has so much incredible, uh, technology, so software and hardware going on. Um, but it is a lengthy process. So what's your vision for the future of this, uh, in terms of making this more accessible to people?

you know? It starts off with a small number of people doing these, um, very detailed scans, right? Which is this? That's the version that you did and that I did. And you know, before, there were a lot of people who who have done this kind of a scan for. We probably need to kind of over collect expressions, um, when we're doing the scanning, because we haven't figured out how much we can reduce that down to a really streamlined process.

Um, and extrapolate from the the the scans that have already been done. But, you know, the goal, and we have a project that's working on this already, is just to do a very quick scan with your cell phone. Where you just take your phone, kind of wave it in front of your face for a couple of minutes. Um, you know, say a few sentences, make a bunch of expressions, um. But overall, have the whole process just be two to 3 min and then produce something that's of the quality of what we have right now.

So I think that that's one of the big challenges that remains. And right now we have the ability to do the scans. If you, you know, have, uh, hours to sit for one. And with today's technology, I mean, you're using a a meta headset that exists. It's a product that's kind of for sale now. You can drive these with that, um, but the production of of, um, these scans in in a very efficient way is one of the last pieces that we still need to really nail.

And then obviously there's all the experiences around it. I mean, right now we're we're kind of sitting in a dark room, which, um, you know, is is, you know, familiar for for your podcast. But I think part of the the vision for this over time is, um, is, you know, not just having this be like a video call. I mean, that's fine, it's it's cool, or it feels like it's immersive, but, um, you know, you can, you can do a video call on your phone.

The thing that you can do in the metaverse that is different from what you can do on a phone is like doing stuff where you're physically there together and and participating in things together. And we could play games like this, um, we could have meetings, uh, like this in in the future. Once you mix, um, once you get mixed reality and augmented reality, we could have codec avatars like this and go into a meeting.

And have some people physically there and have some people show up in this photorealistic form, uh, superimposed on the on the physical E environment. I think that stuff like that is gonna be super powerful, so we gotta still build out all those kind of applications and the use cases around it. But, uh, I don't know. I think it's gonna be a pretty wild, uh, next few years around this.

I mean, I just I. I'm actually almost at a loss of words. This is just so incredible, this is truly incredible. I I hope that people like watching this can get a glimpse of like how incredible it is. It really feels like we're in the same room, like there is that. Um, I guess there's an uncanny valley that seems to have been crossed here. Like it looks like you, Yeah, I like the real mean, I think you.

there's still a bunch of tuning that I think we'll want to do where different people emote to different extents, right? So I think one of the big questions is, you know, like, when you smile, how wide is your smile? and how wide do you want your smile to be? Um, and I think getting that to be tuned on a per person basis is, um, is gonna be one of the things that we that we're gonna need to figure out.

Um, you know, it's like, to what extent do you want to give people control over that? Um, you know, some people might try to, you know, might might prefer a version of themselves that's more emotive in their avatar than their actual face is, you know? So, for example, you know, I, I always get a lot of um, critique and and shit for um, for for having like, a relatively stiff uh expression. But you know, I mean, uh, I, I might.

I might feel pretty happy, but just make a pretty small smile. So, I mean, maybe, you know, for for me, I would, I would. It's actually, you know, it's like I'd wanna have my avatar really be able to better express, um, like, how I'm feeling than than what than how I can do physically. So I think that there's a question about how you want to tune that, but um, but overall, yeah, I mean, you, we're. We wanna start from the baseline of capturing how people actually emote and express themselves.

And I mean, I think the the initial version of this is has been pretty impressive. And like you said, um, I do think we're. We're kind of beyond the the uncanny valley here, where it, I mean, it does feel like you. It doesn't feel, uh, it doesn't feel weird or anything like that.

I mean, that's gonna be the meme that the two most monotone people are in a in a metaverse together. But I think that actually makes it more difficult. Like the the. The amazing thing here is that the subtleties of the expression of the eyes. You know, people say I'm monotone and emotionless, but I'm not. It's just this. Maybe my expression of emotion is more subtle, usually, like with the eyes. And that's one of the things I've noticed is just how expressive the subtle movement of the corners of the eyes are in terms of displaying happiness or boredom or all that kind of stuff.

I am curious to see, just cause I've never done one of these before. I've never done a podcast as as one of these Kodak avatars. Um, I'm, and I'm curious to see what, what, how, what people think of it. Because, you know, one of the issues that we've had in some of the VR and 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.

So I think that this one, because it's photorealistic, um, may look kind of as amazing in 2D for people watching it as it as it feels, I think, to be in it. Um, but we've certainly had this, this, um, this issue where a lot of the other things just. It's like you feel this sense of immersion when you're in it, that that doesn't quite translate to a 2D screen. But I don't know, I'm cur. I'm curious to see, to see what people think.

yeah, I'm curious to see if people could see that. Um, like, my heart is actually beating fast now. This is super interesting, like the that such intimacy of conversation could be achieved remotely. This been, you know, I don't do remote podcasts for this reason, and this is like, breaks all that. This feels like just an incredible transition to something else, to the different kind of communication, breaks all barriers, like geographic, physical barriers. Uh, what 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?

Like scanning with a smartphone?

yeah, I mean, I think we'll probably roll this out progressively over time. So it's not gonna be like we roll it out and one day everyone has a Kodak avatar. Um, we'll. We wanna get more people scanned and into the system, and then we wanna start, uh, integrating it into each one of our apps, right? Making it so that, you know, I think that for a lot of the work style things, productivity, I think that this is gonna make a ton of sense in a lot of game environments.

I mean, this could be fine, but games tend to have their own style, right? where you almost want to fit more with the aesthetic style of the of the game. Um, but I think for doing meetings, and one of the things that we get a lot of feedback on. Workrooms where, you know, people are pretty blown away by the experience. And this feeling that you can, like, be remote, but feel like you're physically there around a table with people.

But then, you know, we. We get some feedback that people have a hard time with the fact that the avatars are so expressive and and and don't feel, you know, as as realistic in that environment. So I think something like this, um, could make a very big difference for those remote meetings. And especially with Quest Three coming out, which is gonna be the 1st mainstream mixed reality product, right? Where you're really taking digital, um, you know, expressions of either a person or or objects and overlaying them on the physical world.

Um, I I think the ability to do kind of remote meetings and and things like that, where you're like, just remote hang sessions with friends. I mean, I I think that that's gonna be very exciting. So, yeah, rolling it out over the next, over the next few years, it's not ready to be like a a a kind of mainstream product yet. But um, we just wanna. 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.

But yeah, I mean, definitely in the next, in the next, um, few years, it will. You'll be seeing a bunch more experiences like this.

yeah, I would love to see some celebrities scanned and some non celebrities, uh, and just just more people to experience this. I would love to see that. This is something, the, I mean, my mind is blown. I'm literally at a loss of words because it's very difficult to just convey how incredible this is. How, how, like, how I feel, the emotion, how I feel, the presence, how I feel like the subtleties of the emotion. Uh, in terms of like work meetings or any kinda, in terms of podcasts, this is like, this is awesome.

Now, I don't even need your arms or legs. Is that

Well, we gotta, we got,

is that?

we gotta get that. Uh, it's, I mean, that's, that's its own challenge. Um, and and part of the question is also, so you have the scan, then it takes a certain amount of compute to go drive that, both for the sensors on the headset and um, and then rendering it. So one of the things that we're working through is what is the level of fidelity that is optimal, right? You could do the full body in in kind of a codec, and that can be quite intensive.

But um, but one of the things that we're, we're thinking about is like, all right, maybe you can kind of stitch a somewhat lower fidelity version of your body, but still still have the main kind of the major movements. Um, but uh, but. But your face is really the thing that we have the most resolution on, right? In terms of being able to read and and express emotions. I mean, like you said, if you move your, you know, eyebrows like a millimeter, I mean, that really changes the expression and what you're, you're emoting.

Whereas, you know, I mean, moving your your arm like a an inch probably doesn't matter quite as much. So so, yeah, so I I think that we'll, we, we do wanna get all of that into here and and that'll be some of the work over the next period as well.

so you mentioned Quest three that's coming out. I've gotten a chance to try that too. That's awesome. So the how'd you pull off the mix? So it's not just virtual reality, it's mixed reality.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's gonna be, it's gonna be the 1st mainstream, um, mixed reality device. I mean, obviously we shipped Quest Pro um last year, but it was one 500, um. And well, part of what I'm super proud of is, you know, we try to innovate not just on pushing the state of the art and delivering new capabilities, but making it so it can be available to everyone. And you know, we, we have this, and it's it's coming out, it's 500.

And um, in in some ways, I think the mixed reality is actually better in Quest Three than it was, um, than than what we're using right now in Quest Pro. So I mean, I'm really proud of the team for being able to deliver that kind of an innovation and and get it out. But, you know, some of this is just um software. You tune over time and and get to be better. 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.

So we got the resolution for the mixed reality cameras and sensors to be multiple times better in Quest Three. And we just figured that that that made a very big difference when we saw the experience that we were able to put together for Quest Pro. Um, and part of it is also that, you know, Qualcomm just came out with their next generation chipset for for VR and MR. Um, that we worked with them on a on a kind of custom version of it, um.

But that was available this year for Quest Three, and it wasn't available in Quest Pro. So, you know, in in a way, I mean, Quest Three, even though it's not, you know, the the Pro product, um, actually has a stronger chipset in it than the Pro line. At a 3rd of the cost. So, um, so I'm. I'm really excited to get this in people's hands. It, um, it, it does all the VR stuff that that Quest Two and the others have done too.

It does it better because the display is better, um, and and the chip is is better, so you'll get better graphics. Uh, it's 40 thinner, so it's, um, so just more comfortable, uh, as well. But. But the MR is really the big capability shift. And and part of what's exciting about the whole space right now is, you know, this isn't like smartphones, where you know companies put out a new smartphone every year. And you can almost barely tell the difference between that and the the one the year before it.

You know, for this, each time we put out a new headset, it has like a major new capability. And and the big one now, um, is is mixed reality, the ability to basically take digital representations of people, um, or objects, and and superimpose them on the world. And basically, you know, I mean, there's, uh, uh, one version of this is you're gonna kind of have these augments or or holograms and and experiences that you can kind of bring into your living room or a meeting space or an office.

Um, another thing that I just think is gonna be a much kind of simpler innovation is that there are a lot of VR experiences today that don't need to be fully immersive. And you know, if you're playing a shooter game, or, you know, you're doing a fitness experience. Now. Sometimes people get worried about swinging their arms around, like, am I gonna hit a lamp or or something, you know, it's and and you know, am I gonna run into something?

So having that in mixed reality actually is just a lot more comfortable for people, right? You? You kind of still get the immersion and the 3D experience, um, and you can. You can have an experience that just wouldn't be possible in the physical world alone. 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. And I think a lot of people are really gonna enjoy that too.

So, yeah, I'm, I'm really excited to see how people use it. But yeah, Quest Three coming out, um, later this fall.

Yeah, and I got to experience it with other people sitting around and there's a lot of furniture. And so you get to see that furniture, you get to see those people, and you get to see those people. Like, enjoy the ridiculousness of you, like swinging your arms. I mean, presumably they're friends of yours, even if they make fun of you, they, uh, there's a lot of love behind that and that you, I, I got to experience that.

So that's a really fundamentally different experience than just pure VR. With, like with zombies coming out of walls. And

Yeah, it's like someone shooting at you and you hide behind your real couch in order to yeah, real to duck the pop. the fire. Yeah,

It's incredible how it's all integrated, but also like subtle stuff like, uh, in a room with no windows, you can add windows to it. And you can look outside as the zombies run towards you. But like, it's still nice view outside, you know, it's just it's really. And so that's pulled off by having cameras on the outside of the headset that do the pass through. Uh, I mean, that technology is incredible to do that on a small headset.

And yeah. And it's not to do that.

just the cameras you basically need to. You need multiple cameras to capture the different angles and and sort of the three dimensional space. And then it's a pretty complex compute problem, an AI problem, to map that to your perspective, right? Because the cameras aren't exactly where your eyes are. Because no two people's eyes are are, you know, gonna be in exactly the same place. So you kind of need to to to get that to to to line up, um, and then do that basically in real time.

And then generate something that looks that kind of feels natural, um, and then superimpose whatever digital objects you want to put there. So it's, yeah, it's. It's a a very interesting technical challenge. And um, I think we'll continue tuning this for for the years to come as well. But um, but I'm I'm pretty excited to to get this out. Because, you know, I think Quest Three is gonna be the 1st device like this with that millions of people are gonna get that's mixed reality.

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 and build stuff. Because now there are gonna be people who actually use it. Um, 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 Three gets out there. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty excited about this one.

Plus, there's hand tracking without, so you don't need to have a controller. So this cam, the cameras are just doing the pass through. Uh, of the entire physical reality around you. It's also tracking the details of your hands in order to use that for, like, gesture recognition, this kind of stuff.

Yeah, we've been able to get way further on hand recognition in a shorter period of time than I expected, so that's been pretty cool. I don't know, did you see the the demo um experience that we built around? Um, Piano like, yeah, the piano, learning to play piano.

Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. You're basically playing piano on a table and it's that's without any controller. And like how well it matches physical reality with no latency, and it's M. It's tracking your hands with no latency, and it's tracking all the people around you with no latency. Integrating physical reality and digital reality. Obviously, that connects exactly to this, uh, Kodak avatar, which is in parallel, allows us to have ultra realistic copies of ourselves in this mixed reality.

It's, uh, so, like, it's all converging towards like an incredible digital experience in the metaverse. To me, obviously, I love the intimacy of conversation, so even this is awesome. But do you have other ideas of what this unlocks of, like something like Kodak avatar unlocks? In terms of applications, in terms of, uh, things we're able to do?

well, there's what you can do with avatars overall in terms of superimposing digital objects on the physical world. Um, and then there's kind of psychologically, what does having photorealistic do? Um, you know? So I I think we're moving towards a world where, you know, we're gonna have something that looks like normal glasses, where you can just see, you see the physical world, but you also see holograms. And in that world, I think that they're gonna be, you know, not too far off, you know, maybe, you know.

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. And it, it really raises this interesting question about what are, um, about, you know, a lot of people have this phrase where they they they call the physical world the real world. And you know, I, I kind of think increasingly, you know, the physical world is super important, but I actually think the the real world is the combination of the physical world and the digital worlds coming together.

But until this technology, they were sort of separate, right? It's like you access the digital world through a screen, right? And you know, maybe it's a small screen that you carry around, or it's a bigger screen. When you sit down at your desk and, you know, strap in for a long session. But um, but they're, they're kind of fundamentally divorced and disconnected. 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, you know, it's gotta be physical because that we're physical beings, so the physical world is is always gonna be super important. But. But increasingly, I think a lot of the things that we kind of think of, um, can be digital holograms. I mean, any screen that you have can be a hologram. Um, you know, any media, um, you know, any book art, um, you know, can basically be just as effective as a hologram as a physical object.

Any game, um, that you're playing, a board game, or, um, or any kind of physical game, cards, um, you know, ping pong, things like that. They're. They're often a lot better as holograms, cause you could just kind of snap your fingers and instantiate them and have them, um, uh, show up. You know, it's like you could have a ping pong table show up in your living room, but then you can snap your fingers and have it be gone.

Um, so I mean that that's super powerful, um, so I think that it's. It's actually an amazing thought experiment of, like, how many physical things we have today that could actually be better as interactive holograms. But then beyond that, I think the the the most important thing, obviously, is people. So the ability to, you know, have these mixed hangouts, whether they're social or meetings. Where you know you show up to a conference room, you're wearing glasses, um, or a headset in the very near term, but, you know, hopefully, you know, over the next five years, glasses or so.

And um, and you know, you're there physically, some people are there physically, um, but other people are just there as holograms. And it feels like it's them, um, who are right there. And and also, by the way, another thing that I think is gonna 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, um, AIS as well. So I think you'll also have meetings in the future where you're basically, you know, maybe you're sitting there physically.

And then you have, you know, a couple of other people who are there as holograms. And then you have, like Bob, the AI, who's an engineer on your team who's helping with things. And he can now be embodied as a um, you know, as as a a realistic avatar as well, and just join the meeting, um, in in that way. So I think that that that's gonna be pretty compelling, um, as well. So then, okay, so what can you do with photorealistic avatars compared to, um, kind of the more expressive ones that we have today?

Well, I think a lot of this actually comes down to acceptance of the technology. Um, and because all of the stuff that we're doing, I mean, the the motion of your eyebrows, the motion of your eyes, the cheeks and and all of that. There's actually no reason why you couldn't do that on an expressive avatar, too. I mean, it wouldn't look exactly like you, but I mean, you could make a cartoon version of yourself and still have it be, um, almost as expressive.

But I I do think that there's this bridge between the current state of of most of our interactions in the physical world and where we're getting in the future. With this kind of hybrid, um, physical and digital world. Where I think it's gonna be a lot easier for people to, uh, kind of take some of these experiences seriously with the photorealistic avatars to start. And then I'm actually really curious to see where it goes longer term.

I could see a world where people stick to the photorealistic and maybe they modify them to make them a little bit more interesting, but maybe fundamentally we like photorealistic things. Um, but I could also see a world that once people get used to the photo, the photorealistic avatars, and they get used to these experiences. That, uh, I. I actually think that there could be a world where people actually prefer, um, being able to express themselves in kind of non, uh, you know, ways that aren't so tied to their physical reality.

And so I'm I. That's one of the things that I'm really curious about, and I don't know. In in a bunch of our internal experiments on this, one of the things that has, I thought, was psychologically pretty interesting is people have no issues blending photorealistic stuff and not so. You know, we could have a, you know, w. W. For this specific scene that we're in now, we we happened to sort of be in a dark room.

Um, I I think M part of that aesthetic decision, I think, was based on the way you like to do your podcast. But we've, we've done experiences like this, um, where you have like a cartoony background, but photorealistic people who you're talking to. And we seem to like people, just seem to just think that that is completely normal, right? It doesn't bother you, it doesn't feel like it's weird. Um, another thing that that we've e experienced with is, um, 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. And that actually is pretty normal, too, right? It's it's like, it's not that weird, right to to basically being I interacting with with different people in different modes like that. So I'm, I'm not sure. I think it'll be an interesting question to what extent these photorealistic avatars are like a a key part of just transitioning from being comfortable in the physical world to this kind of new, modern, real world.

That that kind of includes both the digital and physical. Or if this is like the long term way that it stays, um, that's, that's a. I mean, I think that there are gonna be uses for both the expressive and the photorealistic. Over time, I just don't know what the balance is gonna be.

yeah, it's a really good, interesting philosophical question. But to me, in the short term, the photorealistic is amazing to where I would prefer. Like you said, the work room. 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. I mean, that as realistic as possible is an incredible experience. So I don't want any fake hats on him, I don't want any. Just chilling with a with a friend, drinking beer, looking at the ocean while not being in the same place together.

I mean that, uh, that experience is just it's, it's, it's, it's a fundamentally, uh, it's just a high quality experience. A friendship, whatever we seek in friendship, it seems to be present there. In the same kind of realism I'm seeing right now, this is, this is totally a game changer. So to me, this is, I can see myself sticking with this for a long time in yeah. And the long term.

and I mean, it's also it's novel, and it's also a technological feat, right? It's like B. Being able to pull this off is like, it's a. It's like a pretty impressive, and I, I I think to some degree, it's just this kind of like, awesome experience. Um,

but I'm already sorry to interrupt, I'm already f forgetting that you're not real like this, really, so well, I am it's novel. real. It's a I it's just a mean, a an avatar version that's, of me, but that's a deep but but here's, philosophical question. Yes,

but I mean, but here's some of the and. So I put this on this morning and I was like, all right, like, Uh, it's like, okay, so this. My hair is a little shorter in this than my physical hair is right now. I probably need to go get a haircut, um, and like, and I actually, I did happen to shave this morning. But but if I hadn't, you know, I could still have this photorealistic avatar that is that is more cleanly shaven, right?

Even if I'm, you know, a few days in, um, uh, physically. So I do think that they're gonna start to be these subtle questions that seep in where the the avatar is realistic. Um, in in the sense of this is kind of what you looked like at the time of capture, but it's not necessarily temporally accurate to exactly what you look like in this moment. And I think that they're gonna end up being, um, a bunch of questions that come from that over time that I think are gonna be fascinating, too.

you mean, just like the nature of identity, of who we are, are we the people? You know how people do, like, like Summer Beach body, people will be for the scan. They'll try to lose some weight and look their best and sexiest with the nice hair and everything like that. I mean, it does, um, it does raise the question of, you know, if a lot of people are interacting with the digital version of ourselves, who are we really?

Are we the the entity driving the avatar, or are we the avatar?

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 right? There's, there's like the I mean, it's, and and it's interesting identity question, because, all right, it's like, I don't know, it's like weight fluctuates, or or things like that. It's like, I, I. I think most people don't tend to think of themselves as the, uh, well, I don't know, I.

It's. It's an interesting psychological question. Some, maybe some people, maybe a lot of people do think about themselves as the kind of worst version. Um, but, you know, but I think a lot of people probably think about themselves as the best version. And and I, I. And then it's like, what you are on a day to day basis doesn't necessarily map to to, um, to either of those. So I I think that that's, yeah, it, it.

There will definitely be a bunch of a bunch of social scientists and and folks will have to, you know, in in psychologists. Or really, there's gonna be a lot to understand about how our perception of ourselves and others, um, has shifted from this.

well, this might be a a bit of a complicated and a dark question. But one of the 1st feelings I had experiencing this is I would love to talk to loved ones. And the next question I have is I would love to talk to people who are no longer here, that are loved ones. So, like, if you look into the future, is that something you think about? Who? People who pass away, but they can still exist in the metaverse, and you can still have, you know, talk to your father, talk to your grandfather and grandmother and a mother.

Once they pass away, the power of that experience, uh, is one of the 1st things my mind jumped to, cause it's like, this is so real.

Yeah, I think that there are a lot of norms and things that people have to figure out around that. There's probably some balance where you know if someone is has lost a loved one and is grieving there. There may be ways in which, you know, being able to interact or relive certain memories could be helpful. But then there's also probably an extent to which it it could become unhealthy. And I mean, I, I'm not an expert in that, so I think we'd have to study that and and understand it in more detail.

We have, you know, a fair amount of experience with how to handle death and identity and people's digital content through social media already. Unfortunately, right? Whether you know there's, um, you know, unfortunately, you know, people who use our services die every day, and their families, you know, often wanna have access to their profiles. And we have whole protocols that we go through. Where you know there are certain parts of it that, um, that we try to memorialize.

So that way the the family can can get access to it, so that way the account doesn't just go away immediately. But then there are other things that are, you know, important, kind of private things that that person has. Like, we're not gonna give the family access to someone's messages, you know, for example. So, um, so, yeah, I I think that there's. There's some best practices, I think, from the current digital world that we'll carry over, but um, but yeah, I I think that this will enable some different things.

Another version of this is is how is how this intersects with AIS, right? Because, and one of the the things that that we're really focused on is, you know, we, we want there to. We want the world to evolve in a way where there isn't like a single AI superintelligence. But where, you know, a lot of people are empowered by having AI tools to to do their jobs and, you know, make their lives better. And if you're a creator, right, and or if you run a, you know, podcast like you do, then you know you have a big community of people who are super interested to talk to you.

I know you'd love to, you know, cultivate that community, and you interact with them online, outside of the the podcast as well. But I mean, there's way more demand both to interact with you, and that 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. So, you know, at some point, I think making it so that you could build, um, an AI version of yourself that could interact with people, you know, not after you die, but but while you're here to help, um, you know, h help help people kind of fulfill this desire to to interact with you and your desire to build a community.

And there's a a lot of interesting questions around that. Um, and you know, that's obviously it's not just in in the metaverse. I think, you know, we, we'd wanna make that work, you know, across all the messaging platforms, you know, WhatsApp and Messenger and Instagram direct. But, you know, there's certainly, you know, a version of that. Where if you could have an avatar version of yourself in the metaverse that people could interact with. And you could define that sort of an AI, um, version where, you know, people know that they're interacting with an AI, that it's not, you know, the the the kind of physical version of you.

But um, maybe that AI, even if they know it's an AI, is the next best thing because they they're probably not gonna, you know, necessarily, all get to interact with you, um, directly. I, I, I think that that could be a really compelling experience there. There's a lot of things that we need to get right about it. Um, that, you know, it's. We're not ready to release the the version that a creator can 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. Um, and I I think that that is is also just gonna be a very powerful, um, you know, set of capabilities that people will have over time.

So you've made major strides in developing these early AI personalities. Um, with the idea where you can talk to them across the Meta apps and have, like, interesting, unique kind of conversations. What can you describe? Your vision there and these early strides, and what are some technical challenges there?

Yeah, so, I mean, a lot of the vision comes from this idea that, yeah, I, I don't. I don't think we necessarily want there to be like one big superintelligence. We want to empower everyone to both, you know, have more fun, accomplish their business goals, you know it, just everything that that they're trying to do. And you know, we don't tend to have, you know, one person that we work with on everything. And I don't think in the future we're gonna have, you know, one AI that we work with.

I think you're gonna want a, um, a variety of these, um, so there are a bunch of different uses. Um, you know, some will be kind of more assistant oriented. There's a sort of the kind of plain and simple one that we that we're building. It's called just Meta AI. It's simple, it, you know, you can chat with it in any of your threads. Um, it doesn't have a face, right? It's, it's just it's, um, it's just kind of more vanilla and and neutral and and kind of factual.

Um, but it can help you with a bunch of stuff. Then there are a bunch of cases that are more kind of business oriented. So let's say you wanna contact a a small business, um, you know, similarly, you know, that business probably doesn't wanna have to staff someone to man the phones, and you probably don't wanna wait on the phone to talk to someone. But you know, having someone who you can just like, talk to in a natural way, who can, you know, help you?

If you're having an issue with a product, or you know if you wanna make a reservation, or if you wanna, you wanna buy something online. Um, having the ability to to do that and have a natural conversation rather than navigate some website or have to call someone and wait on hold. Um, I think it's gonna be really good, both for the businesses and for for, uh, normal people who wanna interact with businesses. So I think stuff like that makes sense.

Um, then there are gonna be a bunch of use cases that I think are just fun, right? So I think people are gonna, I think that there will be AIS that, like, can tell jokes, so you can put them into chat thread with friends. I mean, I think a lot of this because we we're like a social company, right? I mean, we're we're, you know, fundamentally around helping people connect in different ways. And part of what I'm, what I'm excited about is, you know, how do you enable these kind of AIS to facilitate connection between two people or more?

You know, put them in a group chat, you know, make the group chat more interesting, um, around whatever your interests are sports, fashion, um, trivia.

Video games? I love the idea of of playing. I think you mentioned Baldur's Gate, an incredible game, just having an AI that you play together with, and you, I mean, that could. That seems like a small thing, but it could deeply enrich the like gaming experience.

Well, I do think that AIS will be will make the NPCs a lot better in games too. So that's a a separate thing that I'm pretty excited about. But um, but yeah, I mean, one of the one of the AIS that we've built that just in our internal testing, people have loved the most is like a like a adventure. Text based, um, g, like a dungeon master, um, and and I I think, um, you know, part of what what has been fun, and we we talked about this a bit.

But we we've gotten some like real kind of cultural figures to play a bunch of these folks and be the embodiment and the avatar of them. So, um, so Snoop Dogg is the dungeon master, which I think is just hilarious.

yes. In terms of the next steps of, you know, if you mentioned you mentioned Snoop, to create a Snoop AI, so basically AI personality replica, a copy or not a copy, maybe, um, inspired by Snoop. What? What are the some of the technical challenges of that? What does that experience look like for Snoop? To be able to Yeah, so create that AI so starting version?

off, creating new personas is easier because it doesn't need to stick exactly to what you know. That physical person would want, how they'd want to be represented, right? It's like, it's just a new character that we created. So even though, you know, so Snoop, in that case, is, you know, he's, um, you know, he's basically an actor, right? He's playing the the dungeon master, but it's not Snoop Dogg, right? It's it's, um, you know, whoever the the dungeon master is.

Um, 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? And um, and that the AI is gonna, you know, know things and be able to represent things in the way that the creator would want, um, in the way that the creator would know.

Um, so I think that it's less of a, it's less of a question around, like, having the avatar express them. I mean, that that I think we're, you know, it's like, well, we have our kind of V1 of that that we'll release soon. Um, is after connect, but you know, that'll get better over time. But a lot of this is really just about continuing to make the the models for these AIS. So that they're just more and more, I don't know.

You could say, like, reliable or predictable in terms of what they'll communicate. So that way, you know, when you want to create the Lex Um assistant AI that that your community can talk to, um, you can, you know, it's. You don't program them like normal computers, you're training them, they're AI models, not not, not, um, kind of normal computer programs. But um. But you want to get it to be predictable enough so that way you can set some parameters for it.

And even if it isn't perfect all the time, um, you want it to generally be able to stay within those bounds. So that's a lot of, um, what, what? I think we need to nail for for the creators. And that's why that one's actually a much harder problem, I think, than starting with with, uh, with new characters that you're creating from scratch. So that one, I think, will probably, um, start releasing sometime next year, um, not this year.

But experimenting with existing characters in the assistant and games and a bunch of different personalities and experimenting with some small businesses. Um, I I think that that stuff will be ready to do this year, and we're rolling it out, you know, basically right after Connect.

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 or whatever. I think the idea But

of a podcast between you and AI assistant Lex podcast,

yeah, I mean, there's, uh, just even the experience of a Kodak avatar. Being able to freeze yourself, like, basically 1st mimic yourself, so everything you do, you get to see yourself do it. That's a surreal experience. That feels like, uh, if I was like an ape looking in a mirror for the 1st time, realizing, like, Oh, that's you. But then freezing that and being able to look around like, I'm looking at you. It's it's a. I don't know how to put it into words, but it just feels like a fundamentally new experience.

Like I'm seeing, maybe color for the 1st time, I'm seeing, I'm experiencing a new way of seeing the world for the 1st time. Because it's physical reality, but it's digital like, and realizing that that's possible is just it's, it's, it's. It's blowing my mind. This is really exciting, cause I, I lived most of my life, you know, before the internet and and and experiencing the internet and experiencing voice communication and video communication. 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. That's actually what the future is. Yeah, I think It's a it's a so, weird experience, it's a s. It feels like the early days of S of, like, a totally new way of living. And like, there's a lot of people that kinda complain, well, you know, the internet is not, that's not reality. You need to turn all that off and go, you know, in nature. But this feels like this will make those people happy.

I feel like, cause this feels real, the flaws and everything.

yeah, well, I mean, a big part of how we're trying to design these these new computing products is that they should be physical, right? I think part that's a big part of the issue with computers and TVs and even phones is like, Yeah, I mean, maybe you can interact with them in different places, but they're. They're fundamentally like, you're sitting, you're, you're still. And I mean, people are just not meant to be that way. I mean, I think you, you and I have this shared passion for for sports and martial arts and doing stuff like that.

Where you're just moving around, it's like, so much of what makes us people is like, you know, you, you move around, you're not. We're not just like a brain in a tank, right? It's the where you know. The human experience is a physical one, and um, so it's. It's not just about having the immersive expression of the digital world, it's about being able to really natively bring that together. And and it, it. I do really think that the the real world is this mix of the physical and the digital, right?

The digital is. There's too much digital at this point for it to just be siloed to a small screen, but the physical is too important. So you, you don't wanna just sit down all day long, um, at a desk. So I I think that this is, uh, uh, yeah, I do think that this is the future, this is, I I think, the kind of, uh. Philosophical way that I would want the world to work in the future is a much more coherently blended physical and digital world.

There might be some difficult philosophical and even ethical questions we have to figure out as a society. Uh, maybe you can comment on this. So the the metaverse seems to enable sort of unlock a lot of experiences that we don't have in the physical world. And the question is like, what is and isn't allowed in the metaverse? You know, in video games, we allow, uh, all kinds of crazy stuff, and in physical reality, you know, a lot of that is illegal.

So where is that line? where's that gray area between video game and physical reality? Do you have a sense of that?

Well, I think, I mean, there are, there are content policies and things like that, right? In in terms of what, what people are allowed to create. 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 gonna do damage to other people and and infringe on on their rights. And the idea of damage is somewhat different in a in a digital environment.

I mean, when I get into, you know, uh, some world with my friends, the the first thing we start doing is shooting each other, which obviously we would not do in the physical world, cause you, you could hurt each other. Um, but in in a game, that's like just a, it's almost, you know, it's like just fun, and um, and even in like the lobby of a game, right? It's like, it just y y. It's not even bearing on the game.

It's just kind of like a funny, um, sort of humorous thing to do. So it's like, is that is that problematic? I don't think so, because it's it's fundamentally, it's not, you're not causing harm in that world. So I think that the um part 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 we will now be freed from that.

And therefore, there should be fewer restrictions in the digital world. Um, and then there might be new ways in which there could be harm in the digital world that there weren't the case before. So there's more anonymity, right? It's, um, you know, when you, when you show up to, uh, you know, a restaurant or something, it's like all the norms where you, you pay the bill at the end. It's because you know you, you, uh, you have one identity.

And you know the i, you know, if you, if you stiff them, then, like, you know, life is a repeat game and and that's not gonna work out well for you. But, you know, in a digital world where you can be anonymous and show up in in different ways, um, 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, so I think that that needs to get sorted out.

Um, so I think in terms of what is allowed, I think you wanna just look at what, what, what are the the damages? But then there's also other things that are not related to kind of harm, you know, less about what should be allowed and more about what will be possible. That are more about the laws of physics, right? It's like, if you wanted to travel, um, to see me in person, you'd have to get on a plane.

And and that would, like, you know, take a few hours to get here. Whereas, 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. So that's a very novel experience that, um, that it, it breaks down some things that previously would've defied the laws of physics for what it would take to get together. And I think that that will create a lot of new opportunities, right?

So, um, and one of the things that I'm curious about is, you know, there are all these debates right now about, you know, remote work or people being together. And, you know, 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. Um, so, you know, I think the the dream is that is that people will one day be able to just work wherever they want, um, but we'll have all the same opportunities.

Because you'll be able to feel like you're physically together. I think we're not there today with with, um, with just video conferencing and the basic technologies that we have. But 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? Because then people could live physically where they want, while still being able to get the benefits of being physically or or kind of feeling like you're together.

Um, with people at work, all the ways that that helps to build more culture and build better relationships and build trust. Um, which I think are real issues that if you, if you're not seeing people, you know, in in in person ever. So, yeah, I, I don't know. I think it's gonna be. It's very hard from 1st principles to think about all the implications of, um, of of a technology like this. And you know, all the good and and and the things that you need to mitigate.

So, you know, you try to do your best to to kind of envision what things are gonna be like and accentuate the things that they're gonna be awesome and hopefully mitigate some of the the the downside things. But I, you know, it's. The reality is that we're gonna be building this out one year at a time. It's gonna take a while. Um, so we're gonna just get to see how, how, how it evolves and and what developers and and different folks do with it.

uh, if you could comment, this might be a a bit of a very specific technical question. But Llama two is incredible, it's the you've you've released it recently. Um, there's already been a lot of exciting developments around it. Uh, is there what? What's your sense about its release? and is there a Llama three, uh, in the future?

Yeah, I mean, I think on on the last podcast that we did together, we were talking about the debate that we were having around open sourcing Llama two. And I'm, I'm, I'm glad that we did. Um, you know, I think at this point, you know, there's the the value of open sourcing. A foundation model like Llama two is significantly greater than, um, than the than the risks. In in in my view, I mean, we did. We spent a lot of time, took a very rigorous assessment of that and red teaming it.

Um, but I'm, I'm. I'm very glad that we released Llama two. I think the reception has been, um, it's. It's just been really exciting to see how excited people have have been, uh, about it. And it's gotten way more, you know, downloads and usage than I than I I would have even expected. And I was pretty optimistic about it. Um, so that's, that's been great. Um, Llama three, uh, I mean, there's always another model that we're training, so I mean, it's, you know, for right now, you know, we built, we, we trained Llama two, and we released it as an open source model.

And right now, the priority is building that into a bunch of the consumer products, all the different AIs. And um, and and a bunch of different um products that that we're basically building as consumer products. Cause Llama two, by itself, it's not a consumer product, right? It's more of a piece of infrastructure that people could could build things with. So that's been the big priority is kind of continuing to fine tune and um, and and kinda just get Llama two and and its um, and its little.

The branches that we've built off of it. Ready for consumer products that, hopefully, you know, hundreds of millions of people will will, um, enjoy using those those products in billions one day. But yeah, I mean, we're. We're also working on on the future foundation models, and um, and I don't have anything, you know, new or news news on that. I don't know, you know, I don't know exactly when it's gonna be ready. Um, I think, just like we had a debate around Llama two and open sourcing it, um, I think we'll.

We'll need to have a similar debate and process to red team this and make sure that this is safe. But, and my hope is that we'll be able to to open source this next version when it's ready, too. But um, but that's not that, we're, we're not, we're not, you know, close to doing that this month. I mean, this is, um, that's just it's a thing that we're, we're still somewhat early in working on.

well, in general. Thank you so much for open sourcing Llama two and for being transparent about all the exciting developments around AI. I feel like that's contributing to a really awesome conversation about where we go with AI. And obviously, it's really interesting to see all the same kind of technology integrated into these personalized AI systems. Uh, with the with the AI personas, which I think will. When you put it in people's hands and they get to have conversations with these AI personas, you'll get to see like interesting failure cases, like where the things are dumb, or they go into weird directions.

Or. And we get to learn as a society together, what's what's too far, what's interesting, what's fun, how, how much personalization is good, how much generic is good, and we get to learn all of this. And you probably don't know this yourself, like, we have to all figure it out by using it, right?

Yeah, I mean, part of what we're trying to do with the initial AI's launch is, um, having a diversity of different use cases, just so that people can try different things. Cause I don't know what's gonna work. I mean, are are people gonna like playing, you know, the text based adventure games? Are they going to, you know, like having a comedian who who can add jokes, um, to to threads? Or they can wanna interact with historical figures?

Um, you know, we made, we made one of Jane Austen and and one of, uh, Marcus Aurelius, and I'm. I'm curious to see how that goes. Um, I'm excited for both, yeah,

as a big fan, I'm excited for both to have a conversation with them. Uh, I mean, yeah, that's, you know, and and I am also excited to see, you know, the internet, I don't know if you heard, can get kinda weird, um, and I applaud them for it, so I've heard I get to, that, yeah, yeah, so, so it'd be. It'd be nice to see how weird they take it, what kind of memes are generated from this.

And I think all of it is, uh, especially in this early stages of development, as we progress towards AGI, it it's good to learn by by playing with those systems and interacting with them at like, a large scale. Like you said,

yeah, totally. I mean, that's why, well, so we're starting out with a set, and then, um, we're also working on this platform that we call AI Studio. That's gonna make it so that, you know, over time, anyone will be able to create, you know, one of these AIs, almost like they create any other UGC content across the platform. So I'm I'm excited about that. I think that to some degree, we're not gonna see the full potential of this until you just have the full creativity of the whole community being able to build stuff.

But there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that we need to get right. So, um, so I'm, I'm excited to take this in stages. I don't, I don't think anyone out there is really doing what we're doing here. I think that there are, there are people who are 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 um, you know, avatars and expressiveness and and making it so that they can interact across, um, you know, all of the different apps.

And um, they'll, they'll have profiles, and you know, we'll be able to engage people on Instagram and Facebook. I, I I think it's, it's just it's, um, it's gonna be really fun.

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, but you feel like you're here. I've done quite a few intimate conversations with people alone in a room, and this feels like that. So I keep forgetting for long stretches of time that, like, we're not in the same room. And f. 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, uh, to have this experience like we're sitting next to each other is like, I, I don't, I don't think I can. E. I don't think we can even imagine what how that changes things, where you can immediately have intimate one on one conversations with anyone. That's that might like, in a way we might not even predict, change civilization.

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. I mean, this is like the main thing I talk about all the time. But I I do think that there's a lot to to process about it. I mean, from my perspective, I mean, I, I'm definitely here. We're just not, we're, we're not physically in the same place. It's not like, you're, you know, you're not talking to an AI, right?

You're, you know, this is, um, so I I think the the thing that's novel is the ability to convey through technology a sense of almost physical presence. Um, so the the thing that is not physically real is, um, is us being in the same physical place, but um, but. But kind of everything else is. And I think that that gets to this somewhat philosophical question about what is the nature of kind of the modern real world.

And I, I just think that that's it. 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 and and all of the the innovation that's getting created there. So, um, I I think it's super exciting because, I mean, the the digital world is just is just increasing, um, in in its capability and our ability to do awesome things.

But the physical world is so profound, and that's a lot of what makes us human is is that we're, we're, we're physical beings. So I don't think we wanna run away from that and just spend all day on a screen. And that's like, you know, it's one of the reasons why I care so much about about helping to shape and accelerate the these future computing platforms. I just think this is so powerful, and it's it's, you know, even though the current version of this is like, you're wearing a headset, um, I.

I just think this is gonna be by far the most human and social computing platform that has ever existed. And, uh, that that's what what makes me excited.

yeah, I I think just to linger on this kinda changing nature of reality, like of what is real, maybe shifting it towards the sort of consciousness. So what is real is the subjective experience of a thing that makes it feel real versus necessarily being in the same physical space, cause it feels like we're in the same physical space. And that, like, the conscious experience of it, that's probably what is real. Not like that, the space time, like the physics of it, like you're basically breaking physics and and focusing on the consciousness, that's what's real.

Just whatever's going on inside my head.

But there are a lot of social and psychological things that go along with that experience that was previously only physical presence, right? I think that there's like an intimacy, a trust, um, you know, there's a a level of communication, because so much of communication is non verbal. And it's based on expressions that you're kind of, you know, you're, you're sharing with with someone when you're in this kind of environment. And before, those things would have only been possible, you know, had, you know, I gotten on a plane and and flown to Austin and and sat, you know, physically with you in the same place.

So I I think we're. We're basically shortcutting those laws of physics and delivering the social and psychological benefits of being able to be present and and feel like you're there with another person, which I think are real benefits. Um, to anyone in the world. And I I think that that, like you said, I mean, I think that is gonna be a very profound thing, um, and that a lot of that is, you know, that's the promise of of the metaverse.

And what, you know, why, you know, I, I just, well, I think that that's the next frontier for for what we're working on. You know, I started working on social networks when they were primarily text, right? The 1st version of Facebook, your profile, you know, you had one photo, and the rest of it was like lists of things that you were interested in. And and then we kinda went through the period where we were doing photos, and, you know, now we're kind of in the period where most of the content is video.

But there's a clear trend where, you know, over time, the way that we want to express ourselves and and kind of get insight and content about the world around us gets increasingly just richer and more vivid. And I 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. It just so happens that it's incredibly technologically difficult, right?

It requires building up these new computing platforms and completely new software stacks to deliver that. But I mean, I kinda feel like that's what we're here to do as a company.

Well, I really love the connection you have through C through conversation. And so for me, this photorealism is really, really exciting. I'm I'm, uh, really excited for this future. And, um, thank you for building it. Thanks to you and thanks to the amazing, uh, Meta teams that I've met, uh, the the engineers and just everybody I've met here. Thank you for helping to build this future. And, uh, thank you, Mark, for talking to me inside the metaverse.

This is blowing my mind. I can't quite express. I would love to measure my heart rate. This whole time would be hilarious if you're actually like, sitting on a beach right now. Uh,

I'm not, I'm in a conference room.

okay, well, I'm at a beach and it if and not wearing any pants, so I'm really sorry about that. For anyone else who's watching me in physical space anyway. Thank you so much for talking today. This is this. This really blew my mind. It's one of the most incredible experiences of my life, so thank you for giving that to me.

Awesome, awesome. I'm glad you got to check it out. And um, it's always fun to talk. All right, I'll catch you soon. See ya.

See you later. This is so, so amazing, man. This is so amazing.