Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta, presents the Californian group’s new mixed reality (virtual and augmented) products and services during Connect, its annual event for developers, on September 27, 2023. (AFP/JOSH EDELSON)
“The majority of the world’s population will have their first experience of generative artificial intelligence here,” assures Andrew Bosworth, technology director of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), which has fallen behind its Silicon Valley neighbors in the deployment of this technology.
The social media giant on Wednesday unveiled chatbots with personalities and tools that can create images and text, and interact with the user in everyday language.
These announcements come after months of a frantic race to develop the latest generation of artificial intelligence (AI).
In the lead, OpenAI, with its ChatGPT interface, and the Google and Microsoft groups, which compete with software designed to help humans do online research, be more productive or even educate their children.
But Meta is not behind, says Andrew Bosworth, interviewed by AFP during the California group’s annual event for developers.
“There are lots of cool tools, like Stable Diffusion, for generating images. But they require a lot of expertise and take a lot of time,” notes the manager, better known by the nickname “Boz”.
“We wanted the results to be great and fast, even on smartphones”, when users will create thumbnails directly in messaging, with queries like “hedgehog on a bike” or “happy birthday to a marathon runner”.
– From Galactica to Llama –
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth presents the new Quest 3 mixed reality headset (virtual and augmented) at Connect, Meta’s annual developer event, on September 27, 2023. (AFP/JOSH EDELSON)
In November 2022, two weeks before ChatGPT created a sensation, Meta had released its own generative AI chatbot, specializing in scientific research.
Called “Galactica”, he could “write articles”, “solve mathematical problems”, but also fabricate answers from scratch.
Meta quickly removed it from circulation.
“If it had been up to me, I would have left it,” comments Andrew Bosworth. “We warned that our chatbot was capable of saying anything. The idea was precisely to allow researchers to better understand how to understand (this technology)”.
But after years of controversy surrounding content moderation on its platforms, Facebook’s parent company has less room for error than its competitors ChatGPT, Bing (Microsoft) or Bard (Google).
Lessons learned from Galactica helped Meta refine Llama 2, the second version of its general-purpose language model.
Editorial limits must then be set for applications. Too free, they risk making dangerous comments. Too constrained, they can turn out to be boring.
For its own virtual characters (such as “Becca, devoted mom to her pooch” and “Max, experienced sous chef”), Meta will likely err on the side of caution at first, and “release them over time,” says Andrew Bosworth .
– Legs and eyes –
An employee of Facebook since 2006, in 2017 he created the branch that would become “Reality Labs”, dedicated to virtual and augmented realities, and propelled to the forefront at the end of 2021, when the company became “Meta”, for mark its turning point towards the metaverse.
Bastien Schütz, a director of Meta’s Reality Labs branch, attends his group’s annual conference (Connect) with Ray-Ban smart glasses made by Reality Labs, September 27, 2023. (AFP/JOSH EDELSON)
This strategy has provoked much ridicule and derogatory comments from analysts and observers, because progress has not been as rapid as expected.
“We should have had legs sooner,” Boz jokes about user avatars in Horizon Worlds.
He acknowledges that adoption of this virtual social network has been a little slow, but “the majority of time spent in virtual reality now is socializing,” he said.
On Wednesday, Meta focused on “mixed” reality. Its new connected glasses, for example, allow users to broadcast live what they see.
And the new $500 Quest 3 headset handles transitions between the physical environment and the immersive world much better, to avoid bumping into furniture during a virtual tennis game.
Creating authentic interactions virtually or in the real world requires numerous trade-offs between technology and costs.
For its first mixed reality headset, Apple has developed an ultra-sophisticated device, marketed from $3,500 in early 2024.
“I can build this helmet,” says Boz with a big smile. “But we don’t think that would allow our developers to reach enough users to make sense.”
© 2023 AFP
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