Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook’s rebranding to Meta at the company’s annual Connect event last year to reposition the company for the “new internet,” the metaverse.
The metaverse has been around for some time as a kind of urban legend, perhaps aptly described in the 2011 science fantasy book Ready Player One. That was until some of the biggest names in tech started investing heavily in related technologies, including virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Today AI is one of the most exciting technology fields to work on. Zuckerberg said the metaverse is something he’s wanted to work on since even before the conception of Facebook. And the company’s Meta AI research lab is on the cutting edge of both AI and the metaverse.
The new direction was met with some trepidation. The social media site Facebook, which retains its name, is already infamous for its black-box algorithms, which are going to grow more and more complex under the Meta AI efforts.
While this news is undoubtedly exciting for enthusiasts and futurists, what are the practical real-world implications beyond the metaverse hype?