There won’t be a news conference or major statement since he would have to admit that he was mistaken.
But, Mark Zuckerberg just buried the metaverse, so be clear-headed. The death of the metaverse.
For the social media tycoon, the metaverse was intended to be the Next Big Thing. He even went so far as to rename his empire, which was made up of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as Meta Platforms in 2021.
The metaverse, to put it simply, is a fully immersive virtual environment where we are expected to interact with one another through the use of special glasses and virtual reality headsets.
According to Zuckerberg, who Tesla CEO Elon Musk dubbed “Zuck the Fourteenth” in apparent homage to the French king Louis the XIV, who was infamous for his vanity and extravagance, it was the future of technology.
A Top-Level AI Team is Created by Meta.
To the dismay of the company’s shareholders, Meta has invested billions of dollars in this highly publicised endeavour as proof that the company is committed to the concept.
Reality Laboratories, the division that houses metaverse initiatives, suffered cumulative losses of around $24 billion in 2021 and 2022, including $13.7 billion only last year.
Because the metaverse is finished, the losses will dramatically decrease during the upcoming months.
By focusing on artificial intelligence, the next great shiny thing, Zuckerberg has just conducted the funeral.
In a statement on Facebook on February 27, Zuckerberg stated, “We’re launching a new top-level product division at Meta centred on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this field.
We’re beginning by combining several of the teams working on generative AI across the firm into a single group dedicated to creating engaging experiences around this technology.
We’ll concentrate on creating expressive and creative tools in the near future,” he stated. We’ll concentrate on creating AI characters that can assist humans in a number of ways in the longer term.
Because Meta will continue to create relics of this virtual world, like headgear, but with a more specific target market in mind, like videogamers and the cryptocurrency industry, the metaverse’s legacy will endure.
To Zuckerberg’s credit: He avoids embarrassment by skillfully and covertly focusing his critics’ attention to AI, which the majority of experts view as a legitimate technological revolution.
There is no disputing the benefits for both customers and companies: The most prominent application of the AI innovation is ChatGPT, which has fundamentally altered internet search. Query replies will now resemble those of humans. Companies can now use chatbots to efficiently complete tedious and repetitive activities.
The Metaverse Was Only a Phrase
AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a concept that refers to highly autonomous systems that mimic and excel at human performance at the majority of economically relevant tasks.
In essence, the paradigm change anticipated since the advent of the internet has occurred. Zuckerberg has already changed his course after realising this.
The computer tycoon still responds to new concepts and trends quite fast, even though he is not as often a pioneer as he once was. Always flexible, he gives the impression that he is out on the trail right away.
Zuckerberg has a talent for capturing the culture of the moment. His might is what enables him to covertly bury the metaverse today.
“A bit more than 80% of our investments go to our family of applications, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and the accompanying ad revenue, which is our core business. The CEO stated at The New York Times Dealbook conference in November that less than 20% of our investment goes to Reality Labs.