Meta Is All About AI These Days But The Metaverse Is Still In The Air

While AI has long been on the activity schedule of Meta Platforms Inc META, the social technology and online ad company was often left outside the AI conversation compared to Microsoft Corporation MSFT who is not only talking about AI, but betting everything on it. On Tuesday, Meta revealed its researchers will be able to access a new human-like AI model that can analyze and complete unfinished images with greater accuracy compared to existing models. But despite all the AI-talking, the metaverse is still in the air. 

Zuckerberg Touts ‘Incredible Breakthroughs’

In a meeting last Thursday at the Hacker Square pavilion at Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters, Zuckerberg laid out the areas where Meta is using generative AI, emphasizing that over the last year, the company has seen some incredible qualitative breakthroughs. 

A New Kind Of Training

Meta’s AI chief stated that current artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT are barely smarter than a dog and that is one of the limitations of generative AI such as the one created by Microsoft and Open AI in ChatGPT. LeCun finds that the reason for these models not to have reached human intelligence is because they are solely trained on language which is why Meta is training AI on video as well, which is a more challenging task.

I-JEPA

Unlike other generative AI models that only look at nearby pixels, Meta’s model will fill in the missing pieces of images by using background knowledge about the world. That approach is the the kind of human-like reasoning advocated by Meta's AI chief, Yann LeCun, as it helps the technology to avoid errors that are common to AI-generated images, such as hands with extra fingers.

Meta Does Not Believe That AI Is A Threat

Meta’s executives have dismissed warnings about the potential dangers of further AI research, declining to sign a statement last month that backed by top executives from OpenAI, DeepMind, Microsoft and Google GOOGL who equated its risks with pandemics and wars. The letter, which contained over 31,000 signatures, included even Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk who believes AI is one of the biggest risks to the future of civilization. Palantir Technologies Inc PLTR CEO Alex Karp believes that those are calling for a pause are doing so because they don’t have a product in store. The AI believers are very much in the A.I. race, and these players believe it is only a question of whether they will keep leading or admit defeat.  

This debate was perhaps best explained by Jacques Attali at Wednesday’s Viva Tech conference. The French economic and social theorist put it simple: if AI is used for a bad purpose such as to develop weapons and fossil fuels, it is terrible, but if it gets used to serve healthcare, education and culture, it can be extraordinary. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella can no longer imagine life without AI and is beyond excited for the world it can help create. 

AI Is The Way Forward Towards The Metaverse

Besides trying its AI tools internally, Meta will provide Instagram users with tools that can help them modify photos via text prompts as it continues incorporating generative AI features into all of its consumer products.

Meta is also bringing AI-generated stickers to Messenger and says they are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of what’s coming. Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s vice president of AI explained that with AI-generated stickers, users are gaining an infinite range of options for self-expression. Al-Dahle adds that the company is also “working on AI models that are going to transform any image you want in any way you want”, such as the ability to turn a picture into a painting. Meta is certainly showcasing its AI creations, but it’s still struggling with an identity crisis since it changed its name from Facebook to Meta, with the metaverse still being far from reality. But during the latest earnings call, Zuckerberg assured investors that the new focus on AI does not mean Meta is abandoning its metaverse plans as this technology will be used to develop the virtual world, especially to create the 3D visuals for the metaverse that, for now, is still only a word and an idea. 

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