Montrealers, the metaverse? In part, yes. Because the immersive environment that Facebook founder and current Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dreams of cannot exist without artificial intelligence (AI), and much of the AI research done at Meta takes place in its laboratories located in Montreal.
The person who directs Meta’s research center in Montreal is called Joëlle Pineau. She is a recognized expert in machine learning from McGill University. Not only does she work with her colleagues within the Californian company, but she also maintains links with several university centers around the world, including that of Yoshua Bengio, at the University of Montreal.
All this is not anecdotal. Machine learning is that function of AI that allows a computer system to interpret data ever more accurately. Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg explained in a public address how his metaverse would improve the lot of its potential users precisely thanks to a new variant of this technology called self-supervised machine learning.
According to this approach, a computerized system can, without instructions from a human source, complete an incomplete image from only a few fragments, for example. The result produced may be imperfect, but, if the algorithms are well tuned, it should be surprisingly close to the truth. It is a further step towards a form of autonomous “reasoning”, rather than a simple execution of successive processes.
In short, it is a step closer to artificial intelligence. “The big difference is that we no longer need to annotate the type of data that we transmit to the machine. This deduces what it is according to their structure and can then interpret them correctly. It can correctly complete a sentence in which a word or two is missing, for example, or automatically extend a series of numbers,” says Joëlle Pineau.
“It’s largely the kind of research we’re doing in AI right now in Montreal. »
“Hello, hee! »
Joëlle Pineau had no idea, when she took charge of Facebook’s AI labs in Montreal in the fall of 2017, that she would be leading the development of the technology that could enable the company we now call Meta take control of virtual and augmented reality.
But this is the bet that the Californian company is currently making. Because the concrete applications that the Californian company could draw from the work done by its researchers are aimed precisely at making immersive digital environments more inviting for the general public. Mark Zuckerberg gave a fine example of this simplicity during his public presentation by explaining that it would be enough to ask aloud to create “a world on an island with water around it” for the metaverse to form on-the- field a digital universe representing this environment.
Another expertise that was partly developed in Montreal and that could end up in the metaverse is that of instant translation. Current translation software is far from accurate every time. Just visit Google Translate to find out. These software sometimes have the defect of translating languages through a reference language. Thus, they will translate a word from French to English, then to Spanish, to perform a translation from French to Spanish.
At Meta, we dream of a more advanced AI which could, on the contrary, leaf through the literature of one or even two languages which are totally unknown to it and which would be able in the same spirit to translate from one to the other without effort.
In such a world, which certainly has a utopian je-ne-sais-quoi, no one would be greeted by this “Hello, hey ! » which irritates more than one. It would rather say “Hello! “. Or “ Hi ! », « Halo ! », «¡ Hello ! in short, regardless of the language originally used, the interlocutor would hear the words in his own language or in the language of his choice.
Science fiction buffs who have always wondered how civilizations from hundreds of different planets can all come to understand each other have found their answer: all you need is the right tools. At Meta, this tool takes the form of an AI that will be integrated into its metaverse.
Glasses
The word “metaverse” itself comes from science fiction. It’s just blurry enough to encompass just about anything remotely resembling an immersive digital environment. These days, it looks like an Internet connection that will be from certain clothing accessories. Like glasses, first. Then, maybe, gloves or a tank top. There are intelligent textiles that can capture and then reproduce on an avatar the slightest gesture of the human body. Meta is also working on that.
Mark Zuckerberg has already promised it: glasses for the metaverse will be released later this year, probably next summer. It will suffice to put them on to see information from the Internet displayed before our eyes. A first foray into the metaverse, in a way.
One of the first applications that we can see there? Joëlle Pineau is thinking of an instant translator. She doesn’t promise anything, but “this is the kind of experiment you can imagine doing” in Meta’s AI labs. Laboratories that are partly located in Montreal.
Like what the metaverse is not that far from us…