Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #398
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as a demonstration that VR presence can feel close to talking in person.
What it is
Lex Fridman interviews Mark Zuckerberg in the metaverse, with both appearing as photorealistic avatars from separate locations. They discuss Meta's AI, VR and the future of avatars.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2023 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec lambdaba · 2025-01 · on “Four causes for 'Zoom fatigue' (2021)”
The Fridman - Zuckerberg VR interview really convinced me of this, if you haven't seen it, check it out, it's incredible [this video]
Recommends somsak2 · 2023-10 · on “Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It”
Have you seen some of the virtual reality from FB? I think it's getting close to the point where it's just as good as talking to someone in person, with the obvious benefit that not everyone has to be in the same physical office. [this video]
Recommends minton · 2023-10 · on “Reality Labs has lost $11.4B during 2023 (there's still one quarter left)”
I think VR can enable human connection where it otherwise isn’t possible due to distance. Of course, it isn’t a full substitute for in-person interaction, but it doesn’t have to be either or. We can have a great remote connection via VR and still exist in the real world. Check out this podcast[0] between Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg where they meet remotely via the metaverse. [0] [this video]
Cites clnq · 2023-09 · on “'Counterfeit people': The danger posed by Meta’s AI celebrity lookalike chatbots”
Lex Fridman talked to Mark Zuckerberg about this just a few days ago [0]. It didn't sound like Meta is has good answers for how this should be done. So it seems unlikely that they'd be significantly more than 6 months into research like this (as the tweet chain says). It seems like Meta is exploring AI avatars, but for much more practical, menial tasks. [0] [this video]
Cites indeedmug · 2023-10 · on “The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy”
The biggest lesson I took away from all of these hype cycles is how unpredictable they are in their arc. Some trends like AV seem like they were going to take over the world, but they died down as quickly as they rose when we realize how hard safety is. VR seem like it was dead with Google Glasses and Meta. But recent releases show that the [vision of VR is more real than I thought]( [this video] ). Apple releasing their VR definitely provides more legitimacy to the idea. Technology is always hard to actually implement in the real world. I think have expectations that the world would flip over with new innovations in a matter of months. But it actually takes years of hard work to get people to ad
Cites muglug · 2023-12 · on “Gaussian Head Avatar: Ultra High-Fidelity Head Avatar via Dynamic Gaussians”
I think the tech in that paper was demoed for this podcast: [this video] The big roadblock to commercialisation for the moment is the original capture — for the paper they used a 110-camera capture rig under ideal lighting conditions. In the above podcast Zuckerberg mentions that in the future people will be able to use their phones to do that same capture, but I don’t think that tech is coming next year. I wonder if there’ll be an interim period where people who want high-quality avatars will have to book an appointment.
Cites abrichr · 2024-01 · on “Mark Zuckerberg’s new goal is creating artificial general intelligence”
Perhaps this qualifies: Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #398 [this video]