Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at SIGGRAPH 2024, offering a glimpse into the company’s ambitious vision for the future of AI and its role in shaping the metaverse.
Zuckerberg emphasized Meta’s long-standing commitment to AI, highlighting the company’s work on recommendation systems, computer vision, and real-time translation. He sees generative AI as a transformative force, not just for enhancing existing products like Facebook and Instagram, but for creating entirely new experiences.
“I think in the future a lot of the stuff is going to be created with these tools,” Zuckerberg said, envisioning a world where AI-generated content becomes commonplace. He also discussed Meta’s AI Studio, a platform designed to empower creators and businesses to build their own AI agents, allowing them to personalize interactions with their communities and customers.
Zuckerberg’s open source philosophy, evident in the release of the Llama language model, is a key driver of Meta’s AI strategy. He believes that an open ecosystem fosters innovation and collaboration, ultimately leading to better products for everyone.
“I’m kind of hopeful that in the next generation of computing we’re going to return to a zone where the open ecosystem wins,” Zuckerberg said, drawing parallels to the success of the open Windows operating system in the PC era.
The conversation also touched on Meta’s vision for the future of AR and VR, with Zuckerberg highlighting the potential of smart glasses to become the next major computing platform. He sees these devices as a natural evolution of smartphones, offering a more immersive and personalized experience.
While acknowledging the challenges of building a closed ecosystem, Zuckerberg believes that the future of AI lies in a balance between open and closed systems. He sees the open-sourcing of Llama as a catalyst for innovation, allowing researchers and developers to build upon Meta’s work and create a diverse range of AI applications.
The conversation concluded with a lighthearted exchange of jackets, symbolizing the collaborative spirit that drives innovation in the tech industry. Both Zuckerberg and Huang emphasized the importance of open collaboration and the potential of AI to revolutionize the way we live, work, and interact with the world.
