Facebook: Here comes the AI of the Metaverse

To operate in augmented and virtual reality, Facebook believes artificial intelligence will need to develop an "egocentric perspective." To that end, the company on Thursday announced Ego4D, a data set of 2,792 hours of first-person video, and a set of benchmark tests for neural nets, designed to encourage the development of AI that is savvier about what it's like to move through virtual worlds from a first-person perspective. The project is a collaboration between Facebook Reality Labs and scholars from 13 research institutions, including academic institutions and research labs. The details are laid out in a paper lead-authored by Facebook's Kristen Grauman, "Ego4D: Around the World in 2.8K Hours of Egocentric Video." Grauman is a scientist with the company's Facebook AI Research unit.