Meta Platformsthe parent company of Facebook, is working on the investigation of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate worlds through speech, improve communication with voice assistants and translate between languages, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday, outlining key steps in building a metaverse.
Zuckerberg is betting that the metaverse, a futuristic idea of virtual environments in which users can work, socialize and play, will be the successor to the mobile Internet.
“The key to many of these breakthroughs is artificial intelligence,” he said at the company’s livestreamed “Inside the Lab” event.
Zuckerberg said that Meta was working on a new class of generative AI models that will allow people to describe a world and generate aspects of it. In a pre-recorded demo, Zuckerberg showed off an AI concept called the Builder Bot, in which he appeared as a legless 3D avatar on an island and gave voice commands to create a beach and then add clouds, trees and even a picnic blanket.
“As we advance further in this technology, you will be able to create rich worlds to explore and share experiences with others, just with your voice,” Zuckerberg said. He did not set a timetable for these developments or elaborate on how the Builder Bot works.
Zuckerberg said Meta was working on AI research to allow people to have more natural conversations with voice assistants, a step toward how people will communicate with AI in the metaverse.
Zuckerberg also announced that Meta was working on a universal speech translator, with the goal of providing instant speech-to-speech translation in all languages. The company had already set a goal for its AI system to translate all written languages.
The social media company, which recently lost a third of its market value following a dismal earnings report, has invested heavily in its new metaverse-building approach and changed its name to reflect this ambition.