(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg divulged on The Lex Fridman Podcast that he believes humans will soon live in the metaverse, an artificial world that will mimic real-world interactions and sensations.
Zuckerberg said that it is helpful to understand the metaverse as a time period, as a singularity in which technologies become more intelligent than humans, rather than as a place in space, reported Mashable.
“A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time,” he said. “I think that’s a reasonable construct.”
Zuckerberg said that the metaverse will achieve its goal when the artificial world becomes so compelling, so pleasurable, and so responsive to every human desire that the real world ceases to satisfy. He plans to fill his world with artificial things to touch, smell, and hear.
As proof that humans will soon live primarily in the metaverse, he noted that humans currently spend significant portions of their day in a 2D reality, on their computers, phones, tablets and televisions.
Zuckerberg portrayed the metaverse as a tool to make humans more social, when in fact the metaverse will finally disintegrate the West’s waning social fabric.
“What I care about is inventing technology to enable people to engage with one other,” he said.
Facebook, Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. last year to reflect the company’s belief that it will drastically shift from offering a social media platform to providing a new digital world.
Louis Rosenberg, who has worked on augmented reality for 30 years and currently serves as CEO of Unanimous AI, said that the metaverse—a complete immersion in virtual reality—”will not be good for humanity.”
“Being in this metaverse will be a bigger part of our lives than being in the outside world,” Rosenberg told Business Insider in December. “And there are all kinds of things that are terrifying about that.”
