- Mark Zuckerberg said it’s a “reasonable construct” for the metaverse to be a time, not a place.
- Some have pondered if the metaverse is a moment when our lives are more digital than physical.
- Zuckerberg said that’ll likely happen once the masses need the metaverse to do their jobs.
Some have posited that the much-hyped metaverse isn’t necessarily a place but a point in time — and Mark Zuckerberg seems to agree.
Computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman sat down with the Facebook founder for a two-hour interview and asked him when a large number of people will start to live out the majority of their meaningful experiences in the metaverse.
Fridman referred to that point in time as a “singularity moment” for the metaverse, referring to the singularity theory in the world of artificial intelligence, or the time when AI becomes smarter than humans.
“A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time,” Zuckerberg told Fridman. “I think that’s a reasonable construct.”
He said many already live their lives in the digital world, just not yet in virtual reality.
And as far as when that’ll happen, he said that depends on how a lot of different use cases play out, including gaming and social experiences. But for many, it’ll be when the metaverse becomes more vital for people to get their work done and it’s much more widely adopted.
Experts previously told Insider that there is indeed a long-held theory in the augmented reality community that there will be a moment when the lines between the real and digital worlds will blur more than ever before, and the metaverse will become necessary to operate in society — much like how the internet has.
But while some technologists are enthusiastic about that notion, others are skeptical. Louis Rosenberg, a 30-year veteran of AR development and the CEO of Unanimous AI, previously told Insider that “it will not be good for humanity.”
“Being in this metaverse will be a bigger part of our lives than being in the outside world,” Rosenberg told Insider in December. “And there are all kinds of things that are terrifying about that.”
The metaverse is a concept that dates back decades, but Zuckerberg thrust it into the limelight in October when he announced he was creating a new parent company called Meta, under which his Facebook, Instagram, and other businesses would live.
It’s become a buzzword ever since, and the rest of corporate America has jumped onto the bandwagon.
However, some are skeptical of Meta in particular building out this new virtual landscape. A new metaverse-focused ETF said Facebook is the “antithesis” of what people want this future to look like.
“We want to make sure this industry develops, without getting ‘Zucked-up’ from those who see the true potential of this space,” the fund’s co-creator Christian Cooper said in January.
Zuckerberg’s fellow tech leaders Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also been vocal about their opposition to the metaverse, calling it a marketing ploy and cautioning the role that VC money could play in it.
