Metaverse: Mark Zuckerberg fantasized too much Ready Player One

EDITORIAL // Mark Zuckerberg has finally lifted the veil on Meta, the new identity of the company, and on the metaverse, this virtual universe fantasized by Facebook. And there is reason to doubt the utopia that is sold to us.

Chance of the calendar or not, Mark Zuckerberg donned the costume of Sam the firefighter on Thursday, October 29, extinguishing the Frances Haugen fire for a few hours. The boss of the late Facebook unveiled the new physical and visual identity of the group: Facebook is now called Meta, and its logo looks like an infinite symbol, in a 3D plane. A strategy that is not unlike that of Google with Alphabet. Henceforth, therefore, the company’s services will be declined under this model: Facebook by Meta, Instagram by Meta, WhatsApp by Meta, etc.

But the essential is not there. The bulk of the Connect conference revolved around the metaverse (metaverse, in French), a virtual universe that does not yet exist, but which is the new priority site for the company, which also intends to hire 10,000 people. to build it. Just that. And Zuckerberg took the stage for over an hour to sell us a project that nobody seems to understand.

The creation of needs

After trying to seduce tech journalists with great teasing blows, the stage of Thursday, October 29 was to test the seductive power of Facebook on the general public. This future portrayed in video by Zuckerberg is obviously inspired by works of dystopian science fiction, where we attend a concert with his best friend (who seems to see us?), Where we play basketball (with a ball that we feel at the tips of our fingers?), where we box and take hits against a giant robot (will it hurt?), and where we organize work meetings (is what are we as involved with a virtual avatar as with Zoom?). The technical challenge seems immense.

The images are flashy, the universe is ideal, and the metaverse imagined by Facebook does have something of the virtual reality portrayed by the Ready Player One by Steven Spielberg (and Ernest Cline’s book). Everything is also very focused on the game, positive social relations, culture: nothing what Facebook is today.

And it is precisely what is criticized by whistleblowers and specialists in the matter. The platform would not do enough to fight against inappropriate behavior, the discomfort of the youngest, and would even adopt reverse strategies aimed at creating more engagement, making more profits, by promoting outrage and hateful content.

Mark Zuckerberg also mentioned more “concrete” things, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, the potential of which we feel in a virtual reality marketplace. These interactions make us think of what the game is already doing Fortnite, where you can attend live performances by artists. So, why not imagine NFT art exhibits on the metaverse? The thing is likely to remain a delirium of niche (and of the rich?), But is not aberrant.

The ultra-connection and the nightmare of stillness

Facebook is very realistic about the technical side of it: “We need to install hologram screens, projectors, batteries, radios, chips, cameras, speakers, sensors to map the world around you, and more, into five-millimeter glasses. thickness”, explains Zuckerberg. We can dream of bluffing technological performance, but virtual / mixed / augmented reality has been disappointing since its launch, despite the marketing efforts of large companies. How many sensors, gadgets, devices of all kinds will it take to make all these theories real?

After the “wow” effect of the first experiences – mainly video games and porn to be honest – VR headsets quickly ended their short life in closets, when Google Glasses and Snapchat Spectacles type glasses had it all. simply disappeared from conversations. Not better for the glasses of Facebook, which especially animated the debate concerning the protection of private life. And should we even mention the cinema in 3D or 4DX, supposed to offer us exceptional experiences, and become just a checkbox on the list of our social experiences?

“The defining quality of the metaverse will be a sense of presence – as if you were right there with another person or in another place., explains the company. Being truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. ” A technological dream that is simply called reality, right? Who wants to go to a gig with a friend who’s actually not really around to push you into a pogo and share a pint of beer? Even looking years, if not decades, ahead, these metaverse “dreams” described by Zuckerberg seem more like a nightmare of absolute individualism.

It makes : “In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly in the form of a hologram to be at the office without moving, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room.” If the pandemic has given us a foretaste of the perfect world according to the technocrats of Silicon Valley, where each individual can work from home and in addition bring money to social networks, the biological reality is much more complex: l he has a body that needs to be maintained by activity and social interactions. And you only have to see the increase in stress and physical and psychological disorders caused by the various confinements and the lack of real interactions to be convinced of this. Obviously, the idea of the metaverse is probably not to lock people up 24 hours a day in a virtual universe, but isn’t Facebook’s goal to be used more and more?

Only a nerd dream?

Finally, we have to admit that the presentation made by Zuckerberg is a very long-term plan, a goal towards which to strive, an axis of evolution. But without overplaying technological criticism, we are entitled to be extremely skeptical about this project. So what will the metaverse look like? The concept is still too vague to answer with certainty, and perhaps the doubts expressed in this article will finally be dispelled within 10 years. It is nonetheless highly unlikely that the metaverse will look like what Facebook showed on Thursday.

Another question: does the metaverse have the potential to really interest users? An already very technophile audience looks at all this with curiosity, but no one is really asking that we transform our relationship to the world. For now, augmented and virtual realities, except for a few flashes Pokémon Go, do not interest anyone. The PSVR, announced as evangelizer of the general public VR, is not even renewed for the time being. Playstation 5. As for Apple, its AR device projects are endlessly put on hold. It remains to be seen whether the society of 2031 will express the desire for a new world connected to the extreme.

The creation of needs

The ultra-connection and the nightmare of stillness

Only a nerd dream?

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