#398 – Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse

26:48So, that's not 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, uh, to, uh, 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, yeah, it's, it's really, and so that's pulled off by having cameras on the outside of the headset that do the pass through, uh, in that technology is incredible to do that.

27:22Oh, yeah, headset. Yeah, it's not 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 and 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, you're not going to be an exactly the same place. 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.

27:58So it's, yeah, it's a, very interesting technical challenge and, um, we'll continue tuning this for, for the years to come as well, but, um, I'm pretty excited to, to get this out because, I think Quest 3 is going to be the first device like this with that millions of people are going to 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 build stuff because now there are going to be people 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 3 gets out there.

28:33So 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 control. So this camera, the cameras aren't 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, yeah, I know. Like, yeah, the piano learning to Yeah, it's incredible.

29:07You'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 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, 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 conversations.

29:47So even this is awesome. But do you have other ideas of what this unlocks of like something like codec avatar unlocks in terms of applications, in terms of, uh, things were we 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 photo realistic do? Um, you know, so I think we're moving towards a world where, you know, we're going to have something that looks like normal glasses where you can just see, you see the physical world, you will see holograms. And in that world, I think that there are going to 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.

30:41And 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 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 world's 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 where you sit down to your desk and you strap in for a long session.

31:17But, um, but they're, they're kind of fundamentally divorced and disconnected. And I think part of what this technology is going to do is bring those together into a single coherent experience of what the modern real world is, which is, and it's got to be physical because that we're physical beings. So the physical world is always going to 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, in any book, art, um, you know, it can basically be just as effective as a hologram as a physical object, any game, um, they were playing a board game or, um, or any kind of physical game cards, um, you know, ping pong, things like that.

32:01They're, they're often a lot better as holograms because you could just kind of snap your fingers and instantiate them and have them show up. You know, it's like you 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 that's super powerful. Um, so I think that 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 most important thing obviously is people. So the ability to, you have these mixed hangouts, whether they're social or meetings where, you know, you show up to a conference room, you're wearing glasses or a headset in the very near term, but, you know, hopefully by, you know, for the next five years, glasses or so.

32:47And, 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 also, by the way, another thing that I think is going to 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, AI's 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 a realistic avatar as well and just join the meeting in that way.

33:32So I think that that that's going to 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 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 can make a cartoon version of yourself and still have it be, um, almost as expressive.

34:12But I do think that there's this bridge between the current state of, of most 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 going to be a lot easier for people to 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.

34:48Um, but I can also see a world that once people get used to the photo, the photorealistic avatars and they get used to these experiences that I actually think that there could be a world where people actually prefer, um, being able to express themselves in kind of non, you know, ways that aren't so tied to their physical reality. And so I, that's one of the things that I'm really curious about. And I don't know, and a bunch of our internal experiments on this, one of the things that his, I thought was psychologically pretty interesting is people have no issues blending photorealistic stuff and not.

35:25So, you know, we can have a, you know, for this specific scene that we're in now, we, we happen to sort of being in a dark room. Um, I think part of that aesthetic decision, I think, was based on the way you like to do your podcast. But we've done experiences like this, um, where you have like a cartoony background, but photorealistic 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 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.

36:06And that actually is pretty normal too, right? It's, it's like, it's not that weird, right? To, to basically being interacting with, with different people in different modes like that. So 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 they're going to be useless for both the expressive and the photorealistic over time.

36:40I just don't know what the balance is going to be. Yeah, it's a really good, interesting philosophical question. But to me in the short term, the photorealistic is amazing to without prefer like you said the workroom, but like on a beach with a beer to see a body 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 it with a friend, drinking beer, looking at the ocean while not being in the same place together. I mean, that, um, that experience is just, it's a, 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.

37:28This is, this is totally a game changer. So to me, this is, I can see myself sticking with this for a long time. Yeah. And, and, and I mean, it's also its novel and it's also a technological feat, right? It's like being able to pull this off is like, it's a, it's like a pretty impressive. And I think to some degree, it's just this kind of like awesome experience. Yeah. Um, but I'm already sorry to interrupt. I'm already forgetting that you're not real. Like this really, so I am novel. It's just an avatar version of me, but it's a deep philosophical question. Yes. But I mean, but here's some of the, so I put the sound this morning and I was like, all right, like, it's like, okay, so this, my hair is a little shorter in this than my physical hair is right now.

38:13I probably need to go get a haircut. 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 physically. So I do think that they're going to start to be these subtle questions that see been where the, the avatar is realistic in the sense of this is kind of what you looked like at the time of capture, but it's not necessarily temporarily accurate to exactly what you look like in this moment. And I think that we're going to end up being um, a bunch of questions that come from that over time that I think are going to be fascinating too.

38:56You mean just like the nature of identity of who we are? Are we the, yeah, people, you know, how people do like, like some are beach body, where the 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 interacting with the digital version of ourselves, who are we really? Are we the, the entity driving the avatar or with 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?

39:34Right? There's, there's like the, I mean, it's an interesting identity question because all right, it's like, I don't know, it's like weight fluctuates or things like that. It's like, I think most people don't tend to think of themselves as the, I don't know, it's an interesting psychological question. So maybe some people, maybe a lot of people do think about themselves as the kind of worst version. Um, but, yeah, but I think a lot of people probably think about themselves as the best version. And, 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.

40:07So I know that that's, yeah, there will definitely be a bunch of, a bunch of social scientists and, and folks will have to, you know, and, and, and psychologists are, really, there's going to be a lot to understand about how our perception of ourselves and others, um, shifted from this. Well, this might be a, a bit of a complicated and dark question, but one of the first 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 will pass away, but they can still exist in the metaverse, you can still have, you know, talk to your father, talk to your grandfather, and grandmother, and, and mother once they pass away, the power of that experience is one of the first things my mind jumped to because it's like, this is so real.

41:04Yeah, 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 has, 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 could become unhealthy. And I mean, I'm not an expert in that. So I think we'd have to study that 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?

41:46Whether, you know, there's, you know, unfortunately, you know, people who use our services die every day, and their families, you know, often want to have access to their profiles and we have whole protocols that we go through where, you know, there are certain parts of it that, that we try to memorialize, so that way the family 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 going to give the family access to someone's messages, you know, for example.

42:16So, so yeah, 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 think that this will enable some different things. Another version of this is, is, is have this intersects with AI's, right? Because I mean, one of the, the things that that were really focused on is, you know, 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?

42:55And 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 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 an AI version of yourself that could interact with people, you know, not if you die, but, but while you're here to help, you know, help help people kind of fulfill this desire to, to interact with you and your desire to build a community.

43:39And there's a a lot of interesting questions around that. And, you know, that's obviously it's not just in, the metaverse, I think, you know, we'd want to 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 can interact with, and you could define that sort of an AI version, where, you know, people know that they're interacting with an AI, that it's not, you know, the, the kind of physical version of you, but maybe that AI, even if they know it's an AI is the next best thing, because they're probably not going to, you know, necessarily all get to interact with you directly.

44:19I, I think that that could be a really compelling experience. There's a lot of things that we need to get right about it. That, you know, it's, we're not ready to release 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 AI's that people can interact with in different ways. And I think that that is, is also just going to be a very powerful, you know, set of capabilities that people have over time. So you've made major strides in developing these early AI personalities, with the idea where you can talk to them across the meta apps, and have like interesting, unique kind of conversations.

45:03What, can you describe your vision there in 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 don't think we necessarily want there to be like one big super intelligence. We want to empower everyone to both have more fun, accomplish their business goals, you know, just everything 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 going to have, you know, one AI that we work with, I think you're going to want a variety of these.

45:38So there are a bunch of different uses. If 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 is called just meta AI. It's simple. You can chat with it in any of your threads. It doesn't have a face, right? It's just it's it's it's just kind of more vanilla and neutral and kind of factual, but it could 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 want to contact a small business. You know, similarly, you know, that business probably doesn't want to have to staff someone to man the phones, and you probably don't want to wait on the phone to talk to someone, but they're having someone who you can just like talk to in a natural way who can help you if you're having an issue with a product or you know, if you want to make a reservation or if you want to buy something online, having the ability to do that and have a natural conversation rather than navigate some website or have to call someone and wait on hold.

46:39It's going to be really good both for the businesses and for normal people who want to interact with businesses. So I think stuff like that makes sense. Then there are going to be a bunch of use cases that I think are just fun, right? So I think people are going to I think that there will be AIs that I can tell jokes. So you can put them into chat thread with friends. I mean, I think a lot of this because we're like a social company, right? I mean, we're fundamentally around helping people connect in different ways. And part of what I'm excited about is 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 around whatever your interests are.

47:21Sports, fashion, 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 played together with. I mean, that could that seems like a small thing, but it could deeply enrich the like gaming experience. I do think that AIs will make the NPCs a lot better in games too. So that's a separate thing that I'm pretty excited about. But yeah, I mean, one of the AIs that we've built that just in our internal testing, people who love the most is like an adventure text -based like a dungeon master. And I think, you know, part of what has been fun, we talked about this a bit, but we've gotten some like real kind of cultural figures to play a bunch of these folks and be the embodiment in the avatar of them.

48:18So 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 Snoop to create a Snoop AI, so basically AI personality replica, a copy, we're not a copy, maybe inspired by Snoop. What are some of the technical challenges of that? What does that experience look like for Snoop to be able to be that AI? So starting 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.

49:00So even though there's a Snoop in that case is, you know, he's, you know, he's basically an actor, right? He's playing the dungeon master, but it's not Snoop Dogg, right? It's, you know, whatever the dungeon master is. If you want to 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 going to say things that the creator doesn't want, right? And, um, and that the AI is going to, you know, no things and be able to represent things in the way that the creator would want, the way that the creator would know.

49:39Um, 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 where, you know, it's like, well, we have our kind of V1 of that that we'll really 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 AI is 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. It's 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.

50:23You'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 wanted 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 and the assistant and games and a bunch of different personalities and experimenting with some small businesses.

51:09Um, I think 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 whatever the idea of a podcast between you and AI assistant Lex podcast. I mean, there's a, just even the experience of a codec avatar, being able to freeze yourself, like to basically first mimic yourself. So everything you do, you get to see yourself do it. That's a surreal experience. That feels like, if I was like an ape looking at a mirror for the first 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 a, I don't know how to put it into words, but it just feels like a fundamental new experience.

52:03Like I'm seeing, maybe color for the first time, I'm seeing, I'm experiencing a new way of seeing the world for the first time because it's physical reality, but it's digital. Like, and realizing that that's possible is just, it's blowing my mind. This is really exciting. I lived most of my life, you know, before the internet and experiencing the internet and experiencing voice communication, 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. It's actually what the future is.

52:46It's a weird experience. It feels like the early days of like a totally new way of living. And like, there's a lot of people that kind of 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, because it feels real. The flaws and everything. Yeah, well, I mean, a big part of how we're trying to design this, these new computing products is that they should be physical. But 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 fundamentally like you're sitting, you're, you're still, and I mean, people are just not meant to be that way.

53:33I mean, I think you and I have this shared passion for sports and martial arts and doing stuff like that. We're just moving around. It's like so much of what makes us people is like, you know, you move around. You're not, we're not just like a brain and a tank, right? It's the where, you know, the human experience is a physical one. And so 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 I do really think that 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.

54:11So you don't want to just sit down all day long at a desk. So I think that this is, yeah, I do think that this is the future. This is, I think the kind of 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 unethical questions we have to figure out as a society. 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?

54:53You know, in video games, we allow all kinds of crazy stuff. And in physical reality, you know, a lot of that is illegal. So where's 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 content policies and things like that in terms of what what people are allowed to create. But I mean, a lot of the rules around physical, I think we 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 going to do damage to other people and in fringe on on their rights.

55:32And the idea of damage is somewhat different in a in a digital environment. I mean, when I get into you know, some world with my friends, the first thing we start doing is shooting each other, which obviously we would not do in the physical world because you heard each other. But in a game, that's like just it's almost, you know, it's like just fun. And I'm even in like the lobby of a game, right? It's like it's just it's not even bearing on the game, which is kind of like a funny 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.

56:06So I think that the 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 will now be freed from that. And therefore, there should be fewer restrictions in the digital world. 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 you know, when you when you show up to a you know, a restaurant or something, it's like all the norms where you pay the bill at the end. It's because you know, you 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 that's not going to work out well for you.

56:47But you know, in a digital world where you can be anonymous and show up in different ways. 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 that needs to get sorted out. So I think in terms of what is allowed, I think you want to 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 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.

57:27Whereas, 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 that it breaks down some things that previously would have 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 I'm one of the things that I'm curious about is there are all these debates right now about remote work or people being together. And 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.

58:07So, you know, I think that the dream is that is that people will one day be able to just work wherever they want, 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 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 kind of feeling like you're together with people at work all the ways that that helps to build more culture and build better relationships and build trust, which I think are real issues that if you're not seeing people, you know, in person ever.

58:50So yeah, I don't know, I think it's going to be it's very hard from first principles to think about all the implications of of of a technology like this and you know, all the good and and the things that you need to mitigate. So you try to do your best to kind of envision what things are going to be like and accentuate the things that they're going to be awesome and hopefully mitigate some of the the downside things. But I you know, it's the reality is that we're going to be building this out one year at a time. It's going to take a while. So we're going to just get to see how how how it evolves and what developers and different folks do with it.

59:26If you could comment, this might be a bit of a very specific technical question, but Lama too is incredible. It's the you've released it recently. There's already been a lot of exciting developments around it. Is there what's your sense about its release and is there a Lama 3 in the future? Yeah, I mean, I think on the last podcast that we did together, we were talking about the debate that we were having around open sourcing Lama 2. And I'm glad that we did. You know, I think at this point, there's the the value of open sourcing a foundation model like Lama 2 is significantly greater than than the than the risks.

1:00:10And in my view, I mean, we did we spent a lot of time to get very rigorous assessment of that and red teaming it. But I'm very glad that we released Lama 2. I think the reception has been it's it's just been really exciting to see how excited people have have been about it. And it's gotten way more, you know, downloads and usage than I would have even expected. I was pretty optimistic about it. So that's that's been great. Lama 3, 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 trained Lama 2 and we released as an open source model.

1:00:52And right now, the priority is building that into a bunch of the consumer products, all the different AIs and and a bunch of different products that we're basically building as consumer products because Lama 2, 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 kind of just get Lama 2 and it's and it's a little the branches that we built off of it ready for consumer products that hopefully, you know, hundreds and millions of people will will enjoy using those those products in billions one day.

1:01:32But yeah, I mean, we're also working on on the future foundation models and I don't have anything new or news news on that. I don't know and I don't know exactly when it's going to be ready. I think just like we had a debate around Lama 2 and open sourcing it, I think 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 that's not that we're not we're not, you know, close to doing that this month. I mean, this is that's just it's a thing that we're we're still somewhat early in working on.

1:02:11Well, in general, thank you so much for open sourcing Lama 2 and for being transparent, but 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 with the AI personas, which I think will when you put in people's hands and they get to have conversations with these AI personas, you 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.

1:02:51What's what's too far? What's interesting? What's fun? How much personalization is good? How much generic is good? And we get to learn all of this and you probably don't notice 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 is launch is having a diversity of different use cases just so that people can try different things because I don't know what's going to work. I mean, are people going to like playing in the text -based adventure games or are they going to like having a comedian who can add jokes to threads or they can want to interact with historical figures?

1:03:30We made one of Jane Austen and one of Marcus Aurelius and I'm curious to see how that goes. I'm excited for both. That's a big fan. I'm excited for both. I have conversations with them. I mean, yeah, that's, you know, and I'm also excited to see, you know, the internet. I don't know if you heard can get kind of weird. And I applaud them for it. So I get that. Yeah. Yeah. So 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 especially in this early stages of development as we progress towards AGI, it's good to learn by playing with those systems and interacting with them.

1:04:10And like a large scale, like you said. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's why we're starting out with a set. And then we're also working on this platform that we call AI Studio. That's going to make it so that, you know, over time, anyone will be able to create one of these AIs almost like they create any other UGC content across the platform. So I'm excited about that. I think that to some degree, we're not going to 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 some I'm excited to take this in stages.

1:04:49I 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, you know, avatars and expressiveness and making it so that they can interact across, you know, all of the different apps and they'll have profiles and, you know, we'll be able to engage people on Instagram and Facebook. I think it's just it's it's going to 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.

1:05:32But 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 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 to have this experience like we're sitting next to each other is like I don't I don't think I can 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.

1:06:12That'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 do think that there's a lot to to process about it. I mean, from my perspective, I mean, 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're not talking to an AI right here. You know, this is so I think that the thing that's novel is the ability to convey through technology a sense of almost physical presence.

1:06:50So the the thing that is not physically real is is us being in the same physical place. 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 just think that that's it really is this combination of 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 I think it's super exciting because I mean, the digital world is just is just increasing in its capability and our ability to do awesome things.

1:07:35But the physical world is so profound and that's a lot of what makes us human is is that we're we're physical beings. So I don't think we want to 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, I just think this is going to be by far the most human and social computing platform that has ever existed. And that that's what what makes me excited.

1:08:09Yeah, I think just the linger on this kind of 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 because it feels like we're in the same physical space. Yeah. And that 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 focusing on the consciousness. That's what's real. Just whatever is going on inside my head.

1:08:51But there were 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 an intimacy, a trust. There's a level of communication because so much of communication is nonverbal and it's based on expressions that you're sharing with someone when you're in this kind of environment. And before those things would have only been possible, had I gotten on a plane and flown to Austin and sat physically with you in the same place. So I think we're basically short -cutting those laws of physics and delivering the social and psychological benefits of being able to be present and feel like you're there with another person, which I think are real benefits to anyone in the world.

1:09:44And I think that, like you said, I think that is going to be a very profound thing. And that a lot of that is that's the promise of the metaverse and what, you know, that's the next frontier for what we're working on. You know, I started working on social networks when they were primarily text or the first 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 then we kind of went through the period where we were doing photos and 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 kind of get inside and content about the world around us gets increasingly just richer and more vivid.

1:10:31And 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? And requires building up these new computing platforms and completely new software stacks to deliver that. But I kind of feel like that's what we're here to do as a company. Well, I really love the connection you have through the conversation. And so for me, this photorealism is really, really exciting. I'm really excited for this future. And thank you for building it.

1:11:10Thanks to you and thanks to the amazing meta teams that I've met, the engineers and just everybody I've met here. Thank you for helping to build this future. And 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. It would be hilarious if you're actually like sitting in a beach right now. I'm not. I'm in a conference room. Okay. Well, I'm at a beach. And if I'm not wearing any pants, I'm really sorry about that for anyone else who's watching me in physical space. Anyway, thank you so much for talking today.

1:11:45This is this really blew my mind. It's one of the most incredible experiences in my life. So thank you for giving that to me. Awesome. Awesome. Glad you got to check it out. And it's always fun to talk. All right, I'll catch you soon. See you later. This is so, so amazing, man. This is so amazing.