'Pretty Wild': Mark Zuckerberg's first metaverse interview shows how future meetings will look like

Hours after giving the keynote at Meta Connect 2023, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), and podcaster Lex Fridman aire a conversation about the potential of virtual reality with the help of the latest innovations from Meta. This new interaction sheds light on what the future of meetings could look like. Both Zuckerberg and Fridman used high-definition photorealistic avatars for the interaction.

The interview, which took place entirely in the metaverse, demonstrated how advanced technology is shaping the way people connect and communicate online. Despite being physically miles apart, Zuckerberg and Fridman appeared to each other as photorealistic avatars in 3D with spatial audio, providing an immersive and lifelike experience.

Fridman expressed his amazement at the realism of the metaverse, emphasizing how it could revolutionize human connections on the internet. He observed that the avatars could capture the subtleties of facial expressions and human motion, making interactions more meaningful.

"It feels like the future. This is truly, truly incredible," Fridman remarked.

Process of creating ultra-realistic avatars

The discussion touched on the process behind achieving such photorealism. Both participants had undergone detailed scans for Meta's codec avatars research project. These scans included various facial expressions and were used to create computer models of their faces and bodies. These models were then compressed and transmitted as data, making the avatars highly bandwidth-efficient compared to traditional video calls.

"It captures everything. Perfection isn't what leads to immersion; it's the little subtle flaws," Zuckerberg emphasized.

Zuckerberg and Fridman highlighted how the metaverse avatars captured imperfections and subtle details, emphasizing that these flaws contributed to a more immersive experience than perfection would.

Zuckerberg also delved into the future accessibility of this technology. While the current scanning process is time-consuming, Zuckerberg outlined Meta's goal to streamline it. He envisions a future where users can create high-quality avatars with just a quick scan using their smartphones, making the metaverse more accessible to a wider audience.

Zuckerberg emphaises on the future applications of the technology. He said, "Stuff like that is going to be super powerful. So we’ve got to still build out all those applications and the use cases around it. But I don’t know, I think it’s going to be a pretty wild next few years around this."

"The thing that you can do in the Metaverse that is different from what you can do on a phone is doing stuff where you're physically there together and participating in things together," Zuckerberg noted.

Zuckerberg emphasized that the metaverse is not limited to video calls but opens up new possibilities for shared physical experiences, including gaming and meetings. As augmented and mixed reality technologies advance, the metaverse could blend the physical and virtual worlds, enabling photorealistic avatars to interact seamlessly in various environments.

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