At Metaverse Event, Meta’s Zuckerberg Unveils Work To Improve How Humans Chat To AI – Reuters

Small toy figures are seen in front of displayed Facebook’s new rebrand logo Meta in this illustration taken, October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Feb 23 (Reuters) – Facebook-owner Meta (FB.O) is working on AI research to allow people to have more natural conversations with voice assistants, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, a step towards how people will communicate with AI in the metaverse.

The company’s Project CAIRaoke is “a fully end-to-end neural model for building on-device assistants,” said Zuckerberg, speaking at Meta’s live-streamed artificial intelligence event.

Zuckerberg is betting that the metaverse, a futuristic idea of virtual environments where users can work, socialize and play, will be the successor to the mobile internet.

The social media company, which recently lost a third of its market value after a dismal earnings report, has invested heavily in its new focus on building the metaverse and changed its name to reflect this ambition. This month Meta reported a 2021 net loss of $10.2 billion from its Reality Labs, the company’s augmented and virtual reality business. read more

Meta also recently announced its research team has built a new artificial intelligence supercomputer that it thinks will be the fastest in the world when completed in mid-2022. read more

Zuckerberg said Meta was working on a new class of generative AI models that will allow people to describe a world and generate aspects of it. He showcased an AI concept called Builder Bot — which allows users to describe what they want the AI to generate. He showed a demo where he, as a legless avatar on an island, commanded AI through speech to create a beach and then add clouds, trees and even a picnic blanket.

“As we advance this technology further, you’ll be able to create nuanced worlds to explore and share experiences with others, with just your voice,” said Zuckerberg.

Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

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