Resting b!tch face in the metaverse
Dear Reader -
The new Meta Quest Pro is a virtual reality headset produced by Meta and marketed to the corporate and engineer crowd. The headset complements and further drives the development of Meta's social network, Horizons. Horizons is a (moderately monitored) Wild West of digital lands to explore and strangers to engage in conversation. There's a great deal of opportunity met by equal amounts of cringe.
The new Quest Pro headset includes external and internal cameras to help provide a quality user experience and give engineers new functionality options to incorporate into apps.
The internal cameras focus on the user's eyes and face. When using Meta's social network Horizon, the user's eye movement and facial movements map directly onto the user's cartoon-like avatar. ]
For example: When I wink, my avatar winks, when I laugh or yawn, as does my avatar.
This facial recognition aims to help give the user (and those who interact with the user) a more authentic experience. As though you are sharing the same space with the digital stranger. Is that goal met? IMO: Yes. Or, at least, I find that the VR product is well on the road to meeting such goals.
HOWEVER.
Left: An avatar WITH facial recognition activated. Right: An avatar WITHOUT facial recognition deactivated.
For users with an earlier version of the Oculus, where facial recognition is not part of the hardware, the platform AI generates facial reactions based on your interactions and verbal cues, rendering your avatar to appear much more like a cartoon.
This visual effect is an advanced and lovely approach to not looking like a jerk.
For users with the most recent generation of Oculus and with facial recognition active, the system maps your natural facial state to your avatar. Often this renders your avatar bored and disengaged in the conversation. I have been called out on this several times when chatting with strangers.
So! The product recommendation. Should the platform ask the user, "Do you have a resting bitch face, and if so, shall we map a more human reaction to your face when engaging in conversations?" IMO: Yes. We live in a world of filters and AI photo reimaging. The ethics and questions of "what is real" were tossed out the window long ago. Just help me not look like I'm constantly bored in the metaverse when communicating with strangers.
Thanks for reading,
Christian
