Mark Zuckerberg talked about the possibility of “reviving the dead” in the metaverse

A few days ago during a conversation with Russian podcaster Lex Friedman Mark Zuckerberg unveiled super-realistic avatars in what could be considered the first live demonstration of the Pixel Codec Avatars project from Meta.

This project aims to enable virtual reality headsets like the Quest Pro to be able to analyze people’s faces and create avatars in real time which repeat their facial expressions during conversation.

In an almost desperate attempt to justify an investment that has so far failed to produce a return, Mark Zuckerberg indicated that these avatars could one day be used to talk to dead people.

“When someone has lost a loved one and is grieving, there can be ways in which, you know, interacting or reliving certain memories can be helpful, but also there is probably a limit at which it can become unhealthy“he pointed out.

Term zombie plan arose during this conversation, with the possibility of rescuing people who left a digital doppelgänger in the metaverse in mind. Although the idea may seem far-fetched, Zuckerberg emphasized that this is not completely impossible and may be useful for some users.

“Unfortunately, people who use our services die every day, and their families often want access to their profiles,” Zuckerberg explained. “So, yes, there are some best practices from today’s digital world that I think will carry over.”

Some companies are already developing what is known as “mountain boots” or programs trained with data to emulate human behavior, even after death. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, make these ideas increasingly possible.

However, Zuckerberg was cautious on the subject and admitted that he was not an expert on the subject, but told Friedman that he believed the new avatar capabilities would allow for some new experiences, such as conversations with loved ones that passed away.

Meta’s CEO told Friedman, who conducted the interview in what was essentially a meta-universe-like space, that Meta already had experience dealing with death, identity and digital content through Facebook.

Creating these highly detailed avatars takes a lot of effort. resources and time. The CEO of Meta explained that in order to conduct this interview, both protagonists took some scans for “this research project that we have at Meta called Kodak Avatars.”

In the system, after scanning faces, in addition to many different expressions, it builds each of the faces and bodies “the software analyzes your face, sees your expression, and can essentially send a coded version of what it’s supposed to. which you should look at.’

Zuckerberg also emphasized the efficiency of this technology in terms of bandwidth for content transfer High quality 3d. Although it is not specified whether the avatars were generated on the Quest Pro glasses or on an external computer, the fluidity of the conversation in virtual reality is impressive.