Reality Labs, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

At Facebook Reality Labs, we bring together the brightest cross-disciplinary minds in one place to deliver our mission: build tools that help people feel connected, anytime, anywhere. Developers, researchers, engineers and designers all working together to help build a more expansive - and more inclusive - future for all of us.

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The word “metaverse” might not yet be popular in the zeitgeist, but many experts predict it is quickly becoming the next big thing. What is the metaverse, who will have access to it, what does it mean for our economy, and how might it be regulated? Join Vice President of Facebook Reality Labs (FRL), Andrew Bosworth and Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs​, Nick Clegg, as they discuss how the metaverse could reshape our society.

Speakers:
Andrew Bosworth, Vice President, Facebook Reality Labs
Nick Clegg, Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications, Facebook
Peter Rubin, Contributing Editor, Wired

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I have been working in immersive technology for over ten years now, I have been mostly super excited about its role in claiming human potential. So I should be excited to see billions of dollars and a firm commitment planted on realizing the technology from Meta(Facebook)? No, instead I am left more concerned than ever. And I feel the need more than ever to speak out about why.

Skip ahead
0:00 Intro
1:37 What is the metaverse and Snow Crash
5:33 Next evolution in communication technology
7:02 How using this tech changes us
8:45 Its a bridge
10:50 The spectrum of realities
13:54 Some of Eric's lab experiments
18:58 Benefits in learning
20:15 Main concerns of Meta's future
21:38 Final thoughts

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One of the things that perhaps made me feel a bit ickky about the recent news of Meta is the lack of signals around anything changing around the current business models from the company and the incentives those models promote. Selling attention, collecting and exploiting data, and advertising as it is done on the host of Facebook apps brought into immersive media I think have the potential to greatly exacerbate many of the harmful issues we are seeing today.

In this video I take a look at these incentives and give some research and ideas about how these current behaviors might play out when AR/VR/MR tech is more widely used.

Contents
0:00 Intro
1:08 Feelings
3:25 The Concerns
4:10 #1 - Automation
10:30 #2 - Privacy
11:54 #3 - Psychology of Engagement Algos
14:35 How Zuckerberg Addressed these Concerns
18:36 Final Thoughts

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Signals are useful for people who are trying to anticipate a highly uncertain future. They tend to capture emergent phenomenon sooner than traditional social science methods. Unlike trends, they turn our attention to possible innovations before they become obvious.
In this video I try to wrap up this short series by taking some signals from Facebook, Oculus, and Mark's Meta Keynote to see how my concerns for Meta's Metaverse might unfold, from testing advertising in VR to changes in the terms of service.

Contents
0:00 Intro
1:12 What are signals?
2:15 Advertising in VR
7:10 Data Collection
13:00 Interoperability
19:06 Final Thoughts

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