There are things, in Meta’s latest Inside The Labs, that are made of the stuff dreams are made of. Landscapes that are born simply by evoking them with words, robotic hands as sensitive as and more than human fingers, machines that understand the world and interpret it as if they were people. And, even if neither CEO Mark Zuckerberg nor his scientists ever mention the Bible, there is also the end of the Babel nightmare, presented in live streaming on a page of the most populated social network in the world, with almost three billion of users. Who speak hundreds of different languages, and who in the near future will be able to communicate with each other without barriers, thanks to artificial intelligence.
From one language to another
The Menlo Park company’s CAIRaoke project is “a completely end-to-end neural model for building virtual assistants,” said Zuckerberg. Facebook is also working on an “instant, word-for-word universal translator” to consist of “real-time language-to-language translations”. “As we advance in this technology, you will be able to create worlds to explore and share experiences with others, with just your voice,” he added. More than 20 percent of the world population speaks a language that is not among those of automatic translators. The CAIRaoke project will also include mostly oral languages, from Africa to India, from China to South America. The secret is in the fact that less data will be needed to train artificial intelligence: the process will therefore be faster and more cost-effective.
The founder of Facebook is leaving behind the social network, back from years of scandals and missteps, and is betting everything on the metaverse, a somewhat sci-fi idea of virtual environments where users can work, socialize and play: in his idea will be a new platform, destined to become as popular as and more than the internet on smartphones and tablets. This is why he renamed the company Meta and started a radical repositioning work, which also involves a series of new slogans.
A world built with words
“The key to achieving many of these advances is AI,” Zuckerberg said. Meta is working on a new class of generative artificial intelligence models that will allow you to create a virtual world simply by describing how it is made in its details. The demo is pretty impressive: thanks to Builder Bot, she built an island in seconds, with a beach, and then added clouds, trees, and even a picnic tablecloth. “As this technology advances, you will be able to create nuanced worlds to explore and share experiences with others, with just your voice,” explained Zuckerberg. There are also sounds, from waves to tropical music: it is a pity, however, that the avatars are always legless.