In a dramatic change from its past plans to create a virtual world known as "the metaverse," Facebook has taken a completely different direction that has not been seen before. It was a project that consumed billions of dollars and resulted in a cumulative loss of $26 billion, despite spending billions on it. As a result, Facebook and other companies were forced to die in the metaverse due to investor pressure, forcing them to pursue the latest trend: artificial intelligence.
After being abandoned by the business world, the Metaverse, a once-hot technology that promised to give users a disorienting video-game-like virtual world in which to interact awkwardly, has died years after being touted as a future new era in communication technology. It had been around for three years at that time.
As CEO of Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg abandoned his ambitious project, Metaverse, to focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the AI industry. Zuckerberg was planning to launch the Metaverse as his next big thing, but he chose to quietly shelve the project indefinitely.
Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Monday, 27 February, that Meta would establish an artificial intelligence product group dedicated to generative artificial intelligence.
There was a time when the advent of the Metaverse was touted as the dawn of a dynamic, remote interactive environment. It was regarded as a turning point in technology. Despite its success, it faced severe criticism and backlash when it became the talk of the town. This was when it became a phenomenon. In recent years, people's interest in these topics has rapidly declined. Mark Zuckerberg reintroduced the metaverse concept, he is no longer pitching it to advertisers for the same reason.
The virtual estate is becoming more popular. The price of Ethereum, the cryptocurrency that powers so much of this activity has a direct impact on the value of virtual land in this metaverse. While Ethereum prices have been volatile recently, many buyers and sellers struggle to keep up with the market.
WeMeta also reports that virtual land parcel average sale prices have plummeted from over US$11,000 over the past year to under US$2,000, a significant drop compared to physical land parcel average sales prices.
There has also been a remarkable 85% decline in virtual land sales in 2022. Ethereum-based metaverse projects, such as Decentraland and Sandbox, are seeing significant reductions in their valuations and other significant metrics as a result.
In February 2022, some of the highest prices for land sold across Decentraland ever reached, at the time of this writing, an average of US$37,200 per acre. As a result, by August, their average value had fallen to US$5,100, a decrease of approximately 25 percent. Furthermore, Sandbox's average sale price dropped between US$35,500 in January and US$2,800 in August. This was with the same price falling from around US$35,500 in January.
A substantial level of uncertainty has been introduced to the market by the volatility of cryptocurrency prices, specifically Ethereum. This has left investors uncertain about virtual investments. Furthermore, there is a lack of proper infrastructure, governance, and collaboration within this version of the metaverse at present. In that regard, it may be that some people believe the metaverse is nothing more than a marketing gimmick at the moment.
The Metaverse has now joined the list of failed tech ideas buried at the deep end of the graveyard. The fact that the Metaverse was born and died in a way that angers the tech world shows the extent to which the industry was influenced by technology.
As technology advances through AI, there is a real possibility of revolutionizing how consumers and businesses run their businesses. This is evidenced by the shift to AI. A chatbot powered by artificial intelligence can help automate repetitive tasks efficiently. A search engine powered by AI, such as ChatGPT, can interact with queries in a human-like fashion. As Reality Labs places more emphasis on AI, it may reduce company losses and open new possibilities for the company to tap into in the future.
AI, one of the fastest-developing fields, continues to make rapid advances in many industries today. These industries include marketing, media, and even healthcare, as the sector develops rapidly. According to Gartner, a leading research company, generative AI in these fields is predicted to grow dramatically shortly. By 2025, large organizations will create more outbound marketing messages from less than 2 percent to 30%. This is a dramatic increase from outbound marketing messages in 2022. However, generative AI won't be the only impact on society.
In the transition from text to video, 90% of the content could be handled by AI by 2030, according to Gartner's projections. This would be possible because 90% of the content would come from AI and the rest from human input.
Generative artificial intelligence has vast possibilities, but its access is not as wide as it could be. As an example, ChatGPT, as well as its mechanisms, are not open-sourced, meaning it is not available to the public in any way. Other companies would find it difficult to replicate this model because of this limitation. While Facebook intends to make these types of AI models smaller, this will, in turn, make them more accessible and easier to use for companies. This will enable generative AI to become more widespread and widely available in the future.
There have been some reports suggesting that this is the end of the metaverse. However, other reports have suggested that we shouldn't think of Meta's redirection as a rejection of the metaverse at large. As an example, computer scientist Roy Amara developed Amara's Law. This states that humans often misjudge technology's timing and potential, overestimating or underestimating their short-term impact, and drastically underestimating their lasting impact in the long run. Skepticism and hype surrounding emerging technologies, such as self-driving cars, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) are examples of this tendency. This is evident in the skepticism and hype surrounding these systems. It was once considered a fad to think that the internet would be a thing of the past.
It may also be that AI, especially generative AI, can lead to more convincing environments and characters in the metaverse. This could lead to significant advancements in the metaverse as a whole.
The fact is that some deny the metaverse's death and even its waning popularity. This is especially true for women. It is predicted that the metaverse will succeed in the future as many companies employ it.
Nevertheless, for this to happen, it will be necessary to implement some structural changes within the organization. For VR headsets to be affordable and more private, they will need to be sold at a significantly lower price.
In the beginning, all inventions were just ideas—ones that had the potential to be terrifying, despite this, as time goes on, these small technological innovations become increasingly integrated into our daily lives to such a degree that we cannot imagine a world without them any longer. It may be that the metaverse tends toward this fate. Perhaps another immersive technological invention will replace it as soon as possible, so it must be discussed whether or not it will emerge again.
A metaverse can be described as a virtual platform that creates a social network of sorts. There is potential here. Nonetheless, it should be remembered that a fully functional system should be able to integrate interactive technologies such as VR, AR, and AI. It should however be noted that generative AI does not necessarily spell the end of the metaverse itself. However, they could benefit each other's development by promoting each other's success.