On October 28, the Facebook group announced to change its name and became Meta, "a strategic gesture stressing its desire to make the metarers its new priority".A priority to which the company plans to devote "several tens of billions of dollars per year".And on the recruitment side, Meta must hire 10,000 people on the subject in five years.Only for Europe.
The metavers is a "digital lining in the real world", a "virtual universe" connected to the real universe.Users, after having created their "personalized avatar", will be able to "interact in real time with other people", by means of "virtual reality headsets with sensors and controllers", "haptic combinations allowing to feel thephysical contacts ”, or augmented reality glasses.
New experiences
The applications are multiple: teleworking, shopping, or "playing sports with a coach" and "organizing a birthday party with relatives living on the other side of the planet".
"The user will be able to live very strong emotional experiences, which will upset their codes," warns Laurence Devillers, professor of computer applied to the social sciences, CNRS and Paris-Sorbonne 4 University, which recalls the experience ofThis Korean mother "who was able to see her daughter who died through virtual reality" (see.Augmented reality: a Korean mother between virtually in contact with her dead daughter)."Since our digital data continues after us, it is possible to imagine the multiplication of experiences of this kind," she said.
A new buoyant market?
"Right now, from GAFAM to start-ups, including investors, everyone is interested in the metarers because they see enormous opportunities," said entrepreneur Carlos Diaz."If Silicon Valley is ready to invest massively in the metarers now, it is because of the convergence of several factors," he explains: the improvement of the technologies necessary for its realization, the rise of the blockchain and thethat, since the covid and the confinements, people are more and more active online and consumers of virtual reality ”.
For its part Microsoft chose to launch "mesh" on November 2."A new feature of the Teams team work platform which should allow its users next year to appear during meetings in the form of avatars".
Environmental consequences
Creating these "persistent virtual universes" requires the construction of "new data centers all over the world", points Manuel Bronstein, product manager at Roblox, a game platform (see.Artificial intelligence, energy -consuming experience).
And the "three quarters of the digital environmental impact resident in the manufacture of equipment, far ahead of data storage," said Frédéric Bordage, creator of Green IT and specialist in "digital sobriety".Consequently, "Tomorrow, virtual reality and equipment that we do not imagine will accentuate pollution linked to the extraction and transformation of rare materials", while "these components are also used in the sectormedical "."Is it really reasonable to use these limited resources for virtual reality headsets rather than MRI?", He questions.
A virtual reality, real risks
With the metarers "interaction changes in nature", alerts Laurence Devillers.It becomes "sensory, felt in the flesh"."There is no longer any question of personal data, but behavioral data.It’s your reacting body ”.
And while "the risks of emotional manipulation are well perceived today, in particular addictions to video games" and that biases already appear with the Internet - "people interact seven times more with negative content", "how to be calm,Posed and rational in an environment that is constantly playing on your emotions, models in relation to your interactions, where all the images are manipulated?"Asks the professor.And "In this system where you will evolve as an avatar, you will have to be able to know who you interact with: are these real people or artifacts?It is essential that users understand the issue of their interactions, know how the system changes and adapts to their person, says the researcher.
Set up upstream rules?
"Many alumni from Silicon Valley explain that the technologies they created exceeded them," said Laurence Devillers.They castigate the lack of research on their implications."For her," you have to change the essence of this technology or stop it ".
"If we have to live together on this platform, we must absolutely set rules upstream.This is why people have to wake up and participate in reflection, "she said.Because "without safeguards, the network will only be piloted by people who are only looking for one thing: to capture attention to sell advertisements".In the third quarter of 2021, Facebook recorded a turnover of $ 29 billion.In "increase of 35%"."Increasingly targeted thanks to the progress of artificial intelligence", advertising is sold "more and more expensive" and "constitutes most of the group's income".
Sources: La Croix, Noémie Taylor-Rosner (12/21/2021);Audrey Dufour (12/21/2021);Laurence Devillers interviewed by Pierre-Henri Girard-Claudon (10/22/2021)-Photo: ISTOC
