Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), said in a recent interview that the metaverse does not refer to a place. But rather to a point in time known as the “singularity moment”.
Mark Zuckerberg about metaverse
Zuckerberg’s speech was a response to interviewer Lex Friedman, an artificial intelligence research scientist. He asked the executive when large numbers of people will have more meaningful experiences in the metaverse.
“Many people think the metaverse refers to a place. But actually, the definition of the metaverse is not about time, although now the immersive digital world is basically the main way we live and spend time itself,” he said.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg pointed out that many people are already living in the digital world. However, they are not fully in virtual reality.
When asked when that will happen, Zuckerberg said it depends on how many different use cases occur. This includes games and social experiences.
“But for most people, the metaverse becomes a reality when it becomes more important to do work and is more widely adopted,” he said.
According to a Business Insider article, some experts said that the augmented reality community has a “long-standing” theory that as human society develops, there will be a point in time when the boundaries between the real and the digital worlds will become wider than ever before.
At this point, the metaverse will be as necessary for society to function as the internet today.
But some technologists are skeptical of the theory. Augmented reality veteran Louis Rosenberg, CEO of Unanimous AI, for example, has warned that the metaverse will not be good for humans.
“Being in the metaverse will be a more important part of our lives than being in the outside world (the physical world). And if so, there will be all sorts of terrible things,” he said.
