By 
Mark Zuckerberg held Facebook’s first ever live Q&A today, taking questions and giving enjoyably candid answers in the process. His response to one particular question really stood out: “What’s next after VR?” Zuckerberg’s response was nothing short of shocking.
Zuckerberg believes that in the decades ahead, technology will exist that allows us to record and replay our thoughts. The same way that 360 cameras, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality better allow us to capture and relive life experiences, Facebook’s CEO imagines we’re just skimming the surface right now.
Two specific examples were described.
First, Zuckerberg referenced a recent University of California, Berkeley study. Scientists conducted MRIs of people looking at different things and engaged in different activities, anything from reading a book to watching a baseball game. They also conducted control MRIs of those same people doing nothing. Using this historical data, scientists were able to take new MRIs and predict what activity the subjects were engaged with by looking only at the MRI.
That’s a long way from recording dreams, but give it a few decades and that’s exactly where Zuckerberg thinks this research could lead.
What if you could take those recordings/memories and “upload” them to another human being? Sounds scary, right? But Zuckerberg seems to think technology could take us in that direction, referencing a recent study where scientists “recorded” the memory of a mouse that successfully completed a maze, “zapped” the memory into another mouse, and that mouse was blindly able to complete the maze without previous knowledge of the exit location.
He immediately took caution after sharing that mouse study, proclaiming that Facebook is not working on anything of the sort, but he was obviously interested and excited by the prospect. As are we, but also nervous considering top tech companies are already preparing for an eventual robot rebellion.
Zuckerberg’s statements were obviously made in a casual, conversational way to openly discuss the future possibilities in technology, but knowing that scientific studies are headed this direction is eye opening. Facebook and its competitors may seem fully invested in turning Virtual Reality into the next tech craze, but they’ve also got one eye on the semi-distant future. Let’s just hope that someone out there is keeping at least one eye on our backs.
To watch the full Q&A click here and jump to about 25-minutes in for the good stuff.
Comments