Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO had a Q&A session yesterday in his Facebook page and people from all walks of life, including notable celebrities had a chance to ask him a myriad of random questions.
One of the questions that was of interest to me was about the future of social media from a technology perspective in the next 10 years. Zuckerberg responded by commenting about three things his company is working:
1. Internet.org initiative
The first one is about the Internet.org initiative, which if you’re not familiar with is the platform Facebook is pushing to connect the rest of the world that do not have access to the Internet. He said that almost two thirds of the world’s population has no internet access and Internet.org has the potential to connect these masses to the Internet. Locally, the initiative is carried out by Airtel Kenya to provide free access to several websites to its subscribers.
2. Artificial Intelligence
Zuckerberg said they are working on Artificial Intelligence because if A.I could understand the meaning of posts in the News Feed, it could be used to tailor content to a particular user about the things he/she is interested in. He added that if the AI could be used as an Accessibility tool where it can understand what is in an image and could explain that to a blind person. Zuckerberg said that the technology is actually within their reach in the next ten years.
3. Virtual Reality
Facebook is working on virtual reality because they think it will be the next big computation and communication thing after phones. Zuckerberg said in the future people might have some sort of “glasses” which will give them ability to share experiences in immersive ways that are not possible today. His sentiments remind me of Google Glass, probably they will remodel their VR to that form factor is a thing we will have to wait to see. Facebook bought Oculus Rift, a company known for its VR platform for $2 billion and this is an indication of the company’s intention with the platform.
You can check the rest of the conversation thread here
