With that kind of outlook on Apple's vision for augmented reality, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is trying to present the social giant's alternative view of how AR should be implemented and where it can have the most profound impact.ĭuring an interview (paywalled) with The Information's Alex Heath and Matthew Olson, Zuckerberg didn't mention Apple by name, but made some remarks that were obviously targeted at Cupertino. This vision will require a lot of technological advancements to be made to current display and projection hardware, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is confident that AR can become mainstream in a decade, especially if it's not done the way Apple would do it.Įarlier this week, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Apple is not only ready to expand into the mixed/augmented reality space, but also planning to launch three waves of wearable AR products that will cover different use cases. So if Mark Zuckerberg really cares about lowering planet-warming emissions, maybe he could start with a more robust solution to combat climate denial, axing avenues for deniers to advertise lies, and generally not funding them or their events in the first place.Forward-looking: Facebook idea of the future involves using AR glasses and machine learning to project a realistic digital avatar of yourself into virtual meetings with people of your choosing. In every other sense, though, there’s little evidence that VR goggles will really do that much. And branding the glasses as green could help him in doing so. Making VR goggles the next big thing could be great for Zuckerberg’s quest to enrich Facebook and himself given the company’s stake in the technology. But then, of course, he has to - his job is to make Facebook money. Zuckerberg, though, has remained staunchly anti-regulation. The world’s leading climate scientists say we need high levels of government regulation to clamp down on pollution from aviation, cruises, cars, and other polluting sectors. We can’t expect people with his level of extreme wealth to simply act in good faith and make personal decisions that are better for our collective future on Earth! In other words, we can’t simply depend on people choosing to buy new, fancy technologies to fix the climate crisis. In some sense, though, that’s not entirely Zuckerberg’s fault. It’s hard to imagine him forgoing trips there to stay at home on the VR headset instead. In addition to flying for business, Zuckerberg also has a $US100 ($130) million mansion in Hawaii. Yet Facebook covered nearly $US3 ($4) million in private jet costs for Zuckerberg in 2019, according to federal disclosures. A single PJ flight across the country can produce nearly double the entire annual greenhouse gas output for an average American. If flying on planes is bad, taking private jets is far worse. Just 1% of the global population was responsible for half of the world’s commercial flight emissions that year. But the global elite, the study found, are flying with no abandon. In fact, one recent study found that just 11% of people globally travelled by plane at all, and no more than 4% of the world’s population took international flights. Of course, not everyone in the world is going on tropical holidays. “I doubt people will choose to use VR instead of going on a tropical holiday,” he said.
And as for travelling for fun, Koomey doesn’t think it has much of a shot. In order to make much of a dent in business travel, VR technology would likely have to be used quite widely in other sectors, then. The millions of people employed in those industry will still continue to commute. VR also isn’t a substitute for in-person jobs which require face-to-face interactions and work, from construction to food service.
If it substitutes for business travel and meetings it will be a net positive,” Jonathan Koomey, an energy and climate researcher who runs a sustainable IT consultancy, wrote in an email, though he added that “there are so many unknowns about this that it’s hard to say anything definitive.” “Videoconferencing already to a limited degree, but I don’t think anyone can say in advance whether VR will be cool enough to get people to forego leisure travel.
Right now, though, we don’t have enough information to know for sure. Studies on the greenhouse gas output of VR technology are limited, but it’s true that the carbon emissions associated with an individual call on Zuckerberg’s prospective smart glasses might be lower than those associated with a plane trip across the country, for instance. But will virtual reality goggles help us cut down on carbon emissions? Maybe.