Mark Zuckerberg has expressed his commitment to one particular type of tech despite a relative lack of growth and company losses of $60,000,000,000 across just five years, but it could all end up working out in the end if predictions play out correctly.
Virtual reality has been one of tech‘s hottest topics for nearly two decades now, and while for a large part of its lifespan it has remained within the confines of gaming, recent years have shown its potential to expand into wider life.
Meta’s $2,000,000,000 acquisition of Oculus VR in 2014 seemed like a bold move to many at the time, but the years since have shown that it was just the start of many big tech moves into the space, with names like Apple, Google, and more staking their own claim.
While there remains a lot of optimism, and yearly projections indicate that there is a bright future ahead for VR, strong investment from Meta and Zuckerberg is yet to see any real wins and has lost them around $60,000,000,000 in the past five years alone – 30 times what they initially paid for Oculus over a decade ago.
Mark Zuckerberg’s investment in VR with the Meta Quest and more have lost the company $60 billion in the last five years (Amy Osborne/AFP via Getty Images)
As reported by MSN, consumer demand isn’t yet coming close to the investment in virtual reality technology despite continual pushes into ‘real world’ use with augmented realty advancements.
Significant to the disparity between predictions and actual performance is the overestimation of the metaverse, which Mark Zuckerberg and Meta put significant weight behind following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports suggest that the company has lost around $49 billion from investments into the digital world, with projections that people would go to work, shop, and even live in the metaverse not exactly playing out as planned.
Yet Zuckerberg isn’t giving up yet, and remains undeterred by the significant losses suffered so far. He has made it clear that he expects to see continued losses in this field, yet he is committed to what many see as a money sink at this point in time.
What likely keeps his focus locked however is the opportunity to be the market leader in a potential new global technology. He believes VR to be the next smartphone that you will either use alongside or even instead of your iPhone, Google Pixel, or Samsung device, and that would certainly be a powerful position to be in.
The Meta Orion could perhaps be the bridge many consumers need into VR (Julie Jammot/AFP via Getty Images)
If this does work out then it would certainly make up for all of the losses incurred so far, and additional projects like the Bart Simpson-esque Orion glasses – which take advantage of quickly advancing AI technology too – could be the bridge for many consumers.
It still remains a challenging proposition to have many strap a computer to their face for multiple hours a day though, and Apple’s seeming failure to break the market with the $3,500 Vision Pro doesn’t exactly give confidence that the world is ready for VR quite yet.
Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Staff / Tom Williams/Contributor / Getty
Mark Zuckerberg announces these jobs at Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will be replaced by AI
Zuckerberg suggests it’s a good thing that will give people more free time
They warned us that artificial intelligence would be coming for our jobs, but more than just writers, customer service workers, and data entry professionals, others are learning their jobs are being overtaken by AI.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been grabbing headlines thanks to sweeping changes that confirm the company is loosening its rules on free speech, and now, he finds himself back in the news with more controversy.
As reported by Business Insider, Zuckerberg plans to automate coding jobs before the end of 2025.
Mark Zuckerberg is looking to an AI future for Meta (Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty)
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast where the tech entrepreneur fired shots at Apple, Zuckerberg explained: “Probably in 2025, we at Meta, as well as the other companies that are basically working on this, are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of midlevel engineer that you have at your company that can write code.”
Business Insider notes that the average midlevel engineer earns mid-six figures, and although an AI replacement will be expensive to get off the ground, there will be savings in the long run.
Zuckerberg added: “In the beginning, it’ll be really expensive to run, and you can get it to be more efficient.
“Over time it’ll get to the point where a lot of the code in our apps and including the AI that we generate is actually going to be built by AI engineers instead of people engineers.”
Arguing that this AI push will ‘augment’ workers, he continued: “My view on this is like the future people are just going to be so much more creative and they’re going to be freed up to do kind of crazy things.”
It’s important to note that Zuckerberg hasn’t specifically outlined any layoffs. Still, he dodged the issue when Rogan pushed on whether jobs would be lost.
Zuckerberg continued to champion his new regime, saying that most people would’ve been farmers 150 years ago but that figure now sits at around 2%. He says that the history of technology has always suggested advancements will lead to certain jobs going obsolete, although we’re not sure the Meta workers who are in danger of losing their jobs will see this as a good thing in terms of evolving the human race.
With potential layoffs at Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, coding is poised to go from a highly sought-after role to one that’s surplus to requirement. Zuckerberg hopes that Meta will reach a point where all coding within its apps and even the AI it generates will be done by AI itself. That definitely sounds like the Dead Internet Theory to us, especially as Meta was already under fire due to plans to flood Facebook with AI accounts and replace real users with bots.
Meta’s coders aren’t the only ones at risk, and while not being replaced by AI, those who work on the company’s DEI initiatives could also be shown the door. Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, sent a memo to staff saying: “We will no longer have a team focused on DEI.”
Even though Zuckerberg points to how other tech giants are automating their jobs, that’s unlikely to take the sting out of a potential wave of layoffs as we’re replaced by AI.
Featured Image Credit: Bloomberg / Contributor / DREW ANGERER / Contributor / Getty
Mark Zuckerberg takes major dig at Apple in tell-all Joe Rogan interview
No love lost between Meta and Apple
Mark Zuckerberg has appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and he didn’t mince his words when it came to talking about Apple.
The tech giants are at war once again, and it seems those at the top can’t go two seconds without taking a swipe at each other. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has fired shots at Apple in a tell-all confessional with Joe Rogan.
Appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Zuckerberg discussed everything from the Biden administration to ‘masculine energy’. The big talking point of the nearly three-hour discussion was Meta’s controversial promises to restore’ free speech’ to Facebook and Instagram, alongside Zuckerberg’s thoughts on Apple.
As one of the biggest companies in the world, Apple is clearly doing something right, and with our ongoing iPhone obsession, it continues to boom.
Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a fan of Apple’s dominance in the market (NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty)
Still, it seems that Zuckerberg isn’t a fan of the new Apple under the leadership of Tim Cook, firing shots at the fellow tech Goliath over its ‘lack’ of innovation.
When discussing all things Apple, Zuckerberg called out the company’s ‘random rules’ and explained: “On the one hand, [the iPhone has] been great, because now pretty much everyone in the world has a phone, and that’s kind of what enables pretty amazing things.
“But on the other hand … they have used that platform to put in place a lot of rules that I think feel arbitrary and [I] feel like they haven’t really invented anything great in a while.
“It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later.”
He went on to suggest that iPhone sales might be struggling because there’s not enough jump between models to encourage people to upgrade to the latest release: “So how are they making more money as a company? Well, they do it by basically, like, squeezing people, and, like you’re saying, having this 30% tax on developers by getting you to buy more peripherals and things that plug into it.
“You know, they build stuff like Air Pods, which are cool, but they’ve just thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way.”
Zuckerberg says that Apple is pushing back by saying it doesn’t want to violate the privacy and security of its customers, however, he thinks better encryption would solve a lot of its problems: “It’s insecure because you didn’t build any security into it. And then now you’re using that as a justification for why only your product can connect in an easy way.”
He concluded that recent releases like the Vision Pro suggest that Apple doesn’t know what it’s doing: “I think the Vision Pro is, I think, one of the bigger swings at doing a new thing that they tried in a while.
“And I don’t want to give them too hard of a time on it, because we do a lot of things where the first version isn’t that good, and you want to kind of judge the third version of it. But I mean, the V1, it definitely did not hit it out of the park.”
Saying he heard ‘it’s really good for watching movies,’ it doesn’t sound like Zuckerberg will be stumping up for a Vision Pro anytime soon.
As a parting shot, Zuckerberg suggested that Meta’s profits could double if Apple wasn’t so dominant.
Featured Image Credit: PowerfulJRE/YouTube
Elon Musk has three-word response for Mark Zuckerberg as he confirms Meta will be copying X in a huge way
It’s all part of Zuckerberg’s promises to restore ‘free speech’
They say that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
At least that seems to be what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doing, with his latest changes to Facebook and Instagram being accused of ‘copying’ X.
Alongside appointing UFC CEO and Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board of directors, Zuckerberg announced an overhaul of its free speech rules. Zuckerberg claimed that the third-party fact-checkers that were given powers in 2016 aren’t working anymore, with concerns that people are being ‘wrongly’ placed in Facebook jail.
Instead, the shackles are being removed amid a bit to ‘restore free expression’ to Facebook via a new community note system.
While there are worries that slurs and hate speech will soon be flooding our feed, others have called it a win for Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg is making sweeping changes to how free speech works on Meta platforms (Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty)
One person who’s clearly taking note is Elon Musk. The X overlord has similarly been criticized for changes he’s made to the platform since he bought Twitter in October 2022 and rebranded it in his own image.
Musk and Zuckerberg have publicly sparred for years, with the pair challenging each other to a cage fight in 2023 and Musk more recently saying, “Any place, any time, any rules.”
It seems they can at least agree on one thing, with Musk giving a three-word response to Meta’s latest update.
Responding to the news of the X-inspired community note system and sharing a title that says “Facebook dumps fact-checkers in attempt to ‘restore’ free speech,” Musk simply wrote: “This is cool.”
This short and sweet response suggests that the rivalry between him and Zuckerberg has been drummed up for attention, and with Musk being firmly by the side of President-elect Donald Trump, some of the biggest tech companies around look like they’re trying to curry favor.
Apple’s Tim Cook has personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, while Meta has also stumped up $1 million after Zuckerberg reportedly spent some time at the returning POTUS’ Mar-a-Lago residence.
This is cool
It’s all change at Meta HQ, as former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is out as Facebook’s Head of Global Affairs and is being replaced by former Republican Party operator Joel Kaplan to lead its public policy operations.
Although there are grumbles that Facebook is becoming more right-wing, Zuckerberg argues it’s in response to previous political leanings. Discussing the changes, the tech mogul said: “Fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created.”
Facebook will now ‘get rid of a bunch of restrictions’ on issues ranging from gender to immigration, with Zuckerberg concluding: “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions.”
With Trump once threatening to send the Meta CEO to jail for life and his book saying that he’ll be ‘watching’ Zuckerberg closely, there are plenty of theories about why these changes are being made and why it’s happening so close to Trump’s inauguration. Either way, the new-look Meta is set to be a divisive one.
Featured Image Credit: Chesnot / Contributor / Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty
Mark Zuckerberg predicts a super dystopian future that has everybody wearing the same thing
The Meta CEO believes that the future of tech will also double up as a fashion statement
Tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg has predicted a very dystopian future where everybody is wearing the exact same thing.
The Meta CEO has made some interesting predictions about the way we’ll use technology in the years to come, and he reckons we’ll all be wearing it on our faces.
When he spoke to fellow giant in the industry, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, at a conference earlier this week, Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on the future of tech.
Mark Zuckerberg has predictions about the future of tech (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
His forecast might seem bizarre now but apparently one day we’ll all be rocking hands-free AI-powered tech that could double as a fashion statement.
The rise of smart glasses is set to become the new hit trend, according to the billionaire.
At the conference, he said: “I think what you’re going to end up with is just a whole series of different potential glasses products, different price points with different levels of technology in them.
Mark Zuckerberg shared his thoughts with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times)
“So I kind of think, based on what we’re seeing now with the Ray-Ban Metas, I would guess that display-less AI glasses at like the $300 point are going to be a really big product that, like tens of millions of people, or hundreds of millions of people eventually are going to have, and you’re going to have super interactive AI that you’re talking to.”
Zuckerberg’s company Meta launched their own smart glasses in 2021, which was a collaboration with Ray-Bans and earlier this year it announced that AI would be integrated into the glasses.
The Meta CEO envisions a dystopian future for tech (Qi Yang/Getty)
The Facebook co-founder went on to say: “The goal there has been, okay, let’s constrain the form factor to just something that looks great and within that, let’s put in as much technology as we can — understanding that we’re not going to get to the kind of ideal of what we want to fit into it technically, but at the end, it’ll be like great looking glasses.”
The idea is that chips built into the glasses will enable them to have a holographic display.
The Meta smart glasses are a collaboration with Ray-Bans (Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
They also have camera sensors so that users can take photos, videos, and even livestream on Instagram or take video calls on WhatsApp.
There are other companies working on similar products and Google has been trying out different models of these smart glasses since 2013.
A firm called Snap Inc. also made Spectacles, which are glasses with augmented reality enabled.
So, Zuckerberg might be onto something – the future of tech could be built into the glasses we wear.
