When will facebook incorporate generative AI?

July 12, 2023

Facebook will make a move on generative AI very soon. Artificial intelligence (AI), not the metaverse, is the wave that will propel Meta Platforms Inc. (Meta) back up to a trillion dollar valuation. Meta's current market capitalization is almost $793 billion. Meta has recovered super well from the catastrophic drop in value it experienced in 2022. 

Meta's current market capitalization is almost $793 billion. We forecast a 20% increase in Meta's valuation within the next 12 months. The rise will be propelled by Meta's incorporation of generative AI into facebook, Instagram, and Threads. 

Bookmark and share this article to see how the predictions above fare out. 

Please note that this article is a mix of AI-generated content and biological intelligence (BI) conjectures, hunches, and guesses that AI cannot generate as of yet. We are working on it though. Please do your own research and due diligence, or consult a professional before going long on Meta or making financial or investment decisions. 

Facebook's metaverse was a meta flop. 

On October 28, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that facebook would be renamed to Meta Platforms Inc. The company would be rebranding itself and focusing on the unlimited opportunities presented by the metaverse. 

Facebook's pivot to the metaverse was premature. Humans are not ready yet to fully immerse themselves in the digital metaverse. The technology feels too immersive and isolating for most users. Mark Zuckerberg's move to the metaverse proved to be one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, corporate rebranding strategies in the history of technology companies. On September 7, 2021, facebook's stock was trading at an all time high of $382. A little over a year later, on November 3, 2022, Meta's stock was trading at an all-time low of $88. 

It was not all Facebook's fault. The move to the metaverse coincided with a bear market caused by fears of a post-COVID19 pandemic recession. Globally, stocks lost approximately $30 trillion in 2022. Meta was a poster child of the bear market. From September 2021 through November 2022, Meta lost a whooping 77% in value, or almost $700 billion in market capitalization. Mark Zuckerberg himself lost approximately $88 billion dollars on paper wealth during that period of time. He stated that waking up every morning during that period felt like getting punched on the stomach.  

What is the metaverse anyways? 

The "metaverse" refers to a virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other people in real-time. It is often described as a collective virtual shared space that encompasses the entirety of virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet. In the metaverse, users can engage in various activities, such as socializing, working, learning, gaming, shopping, and exploring virtual environments.

The metaverse is envisioned as a fully immersive and interconnected digital realm, offering a seamless integration of virtual and physical experiences. It goes beyond individual virtual reality experiences or isolated online platforms and aims to create a unified and persistent virtual space that can be accessed by multiple users simultaneously. Metaverse proponents envision a future where people can use virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, or other devices to enter this shared virtual space and interact with others through avatars.

The metaverse is expected to offer a wide range of possibilities, from entertainment and social interactions to education, commerce, and beyond. It has the potential to reshape how people connect, collaborate, and experience digital content. However, the full realization of the metaverse as a widespread and seamless digital environment is still in its early stages of development and implementation.

Why Mark Z got so obsessed with the metaverse?

Mark Zuckerberg is a genius copycat. Mark Z is always looking to what is popular, and what competitors are doing to see what he can acquire or adapt to move his company up and forward. Living in his billionaire chairman echo chamber, Mark somehow got into a tunnel vision that convinced him that the metaverse technologies that other companies were developing would become the inevitable next big thing in technology. 

Seeing incredible and potentially unlimited on the idea of the metaverse, Mark Z quickly moved to acquire and copy everything he could. Copying a move from Google's playbook, he decided to rebrand his company as an umbrella or conglomerate under a new name and logo. 

Facebook's transition to the metaverse did not work out, or has not worked out yet. Meta has burned about $20 building a metaverse that no one cares about. Yes, Mark Z has burned $20 billion to date developing a metaverse. No one seems interested in Mark's metaverse, at least not yet. 

Facebook has had many flops in its history. We will discuss them in a future article. For now, let's set a foundation by briefly mentioning how Facebook began. 

Was Facebook a copy right from the start?

Yes and no. From its very first day, Facebook was arguably a copy (or "adaptation") of the many social media platforms that were around prior to thefacebook.com that Mark Z launched for Harvard University students almost 20 years ago in 2004. Did facebook copy MySpace? You be the judge. Did facebook adapt and innovate? Yes, it did, and did it super well, especially with the News Feed feature discussed below.  

Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Initially, Facebook was created as a networking platform called "TheFacebook" exclusively for Harvard University students. You can think about it as nothing more than an online yearbook. Its popularity grew rapidly, leading to its expansion to other Ivy League universities, and later to colleges and universities across the United States and Canada. By 2005, Facebook expanded to high schools in the United States.

The revolutionary and highly addictive News Feed that changed the world

In 2005, Facebook introduced the revolutionary "News Feed" feature that quickly became the central feature of the social media experience. The News Feed allowed Facebook users to receive copies of the posts added to the page by their friends. This was a novel feature by the time, and became incredibly popular and addictive to facebook users and abusers.

Facebook's News Feed proved to be highly addictive to primates nationwide and worldwide. Facebook is one of those ventures that unites us as humans, members of the only one race, the human race. Facebook users receive a pleasant hit of dopamine when "spying" on their "friends". 

How come facebook proved to be so addictive?

We are all animals; we are primates. As animals, we are controlled by the pain / pleasure mechanism of life. As primates, we are very sensitive to social pressures and norms. Human brains have evolved to reward us with dopamine when we obtain information for processing. 

Receiving information about our "friends" and frenemies is highly rewarding dopamine wise. The dopamine load or hit that facebook users began to experience in 2005 with the News Feed feature was a mild version of digital opium, cyber cocaine, computerized caffeine, internet nicotine, or whatever other analogy you may come up with. 

The ability to digitally spy on on "friends" was the dopamine hook, and the secret to Facebook's success. Mark Z himself admits that he got completely hooked to his own creation, checking Facebook News Feed many times daily, almost uncontrollably. We are all "monkeys" after all. The rest is history.

What has facebook done throughout the years?

In 2006, Facebook opened to the general public, allowing anyone above the age of 13 with a valid email address to create an account in the addictive social media platform. Facebook me became a thing, everyone adding friends and relatives to their accounts to communicate, and most importantly, to track their social moves. Facebook continued experiencing an explosive growth in its user base, quickly becoming the dominant social media network worldwide.

In 2008, Facebook introduced its advertising platform, allowing businesses to reach a vast audience and algorithmically target prospects by specific demographics. This marked a significant milestone in the company's monetization efforts and paved the way for its financial success.

In 2009, Facebook introduced the "Like", enabling users to express their appreciation for posts, photos, and other content.  Once again, primates became addicted to the dopamine hit of seeing their content liked by other primates. Copying Twitter, Facebook also expanded into "Pages" for businesses, organizations, and public figures.

In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram, a popular photo-sharing platform, for $1 billion. This acquisition provided Facebook with a strong presence in the mobile space and access to a younger demographic. The Instagram acquisition was probably the most successful one in Facebook's history. 

In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp, an international messaging application popular outside of the United States, for $19 billion. WhatsApp has continued growing exponentially, especially overseas. It has not been monetized as well as Instagram or Facebook itself, but carries incredible potential for monetization and stealing of personal data. As the Catholic Church learned from the Confession sacrament, access to private information of clients is a tremendously valuable asset.  

Throughout the years, Facebook has faced several controversies and challenges due to privacy and user exploitation concerns. A significant issue was the privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica in 2018. The company harvested the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent for political exploitation and manipulation. 

In recent years, Facebook has faced increased scrutiny over its handling of misinformation, hate speech, and its impact on democratic processes. Russian misinformation actors used Facebook to influence and manipulate primates with fake news and global misinformation campaigns aimed at creating social instability. Facebook has implemented various measures to address these issues, such as fact-checking programs, content moderation, and transparency initiatives.

To Mark's credit, Meta is more than Facebook 

Despite the challenges, Facebook remains one of the largest and most influential social media platforms globally. Facebook has almost 3 billion registered users worldwide. About 2 billion primates log into facebook daily. Most are addicted to the dopamine high they receive from spying on their "friends" and staying "connected" to a social circle and circus that feels essential to survival in the digital age. 

In addition to Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook has made many others acquisitions including the following notable ones:  

    Oculus VR (2014): Facebook acquired Oculus VR, a virtual reality technology company, for approximately $2 billion. Oculus VR is known for developing the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and has since released newer versions of the device.

    LiveRail (2014): Facebook acquired LiveRail, an online video advertising platform. LiveRail helps publishers sell video advertisements programmatically and target them to the appropriate audience.

    CTRL-labs (2019): Facebook acquired CTRL-labs, a brain-computer interface startup. CTRL-labs was working on technology that translates neural signals into commands, which has the potential to revolutionize human-computer interaction.

    Beat Games (2019): Facebook acquired Beat Games, the studio behind the popular virtual reality rhythm game called Beat Saber. Beat Saber has become one of the most successful VR games, allowing players to slash through blocks to the rhythm of music.

    Giphy (2020): Facebook acquired Giphy, a popular platform for sharing animated GIFs. Giphy's extensive library of GIFs is integrated into various Facebook services, including Facebook itself, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

    Kustomer (2020): Facebook acquired Kustomer, a customer service platform that enables businesses to manage customer interactions across various channels. Kustomer's tools help companies provide personalized and efficient customer support.

These are just a few examples of the many companies that Facebook/Meta has acquired over the years. These acquisitions have allowed Facebook/Meta to expand its services, diversify its offerings, copy and and adapt the offerings of competitors into their own platform. 

Meta is rebounding

Mr. Z's newfound, childish, and premature obsession with the "metaverse" almost brings the facebook empire to an end. Meta has spent about $20 billion trying to develop a metaverse experience that no one seems interested in seriously pursuing, at least not yet. 

Nonetheless, Meta's mainstream holdings such as facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Reels, and Threads are so strong that Meta's stock has been rebounding remarkably well. Meta is up 143% year to date. Meta is trading today at $306 apiece for an approximate market capitalization of $793 billion. 

Meta has not fully recovered from its catastrophic and historic price drop, and is still about 20% below is all time high. However, our prediction is that Meta will climb up back to the $1 trillion market cap within the next year. 

Generative AI will push Meta's valuation to record high territory soon

More than an alpha innovator like Elon Musk, for example, Mark Zuckerberg is a beta adaptor. Mark Z's strength is figuring out what is popular, and how to acquire it or copy it. That has been facebook's secret to success since day one. Mark has led some innovations, but mainly by stumbling upon them in the process of copying and adapting what others have created. 

Although Mark thought that the metaverse would be the next big thing, Mark is quickly realizing that he was totally wrong. Generative AI is the next big thing. If Mark could go back in time, he would have rebranded facebook to something having to do with AI rather than with the metaverse.

It is never too late for a genius like Mark Zuckerberg to adapt and overcome. Meta will soon announce an integration of generative AI into one or more of its main platforms. It could be that Threads become the playroom for Meta's big jump into generative AI. Or maybe generative AI becomes a central new feature on facebook proper. If integrated well, generative AI can prove even more addictive and lucrative than the legendary News Feed "spy on friends" dopamine dope algorithm of 2005. 

When it comes to generative AI, the best is yet to come. Mark Zuckerberg knows that the metaverse was a mistake, but one that he can afford. Mark knows well that ignoring generative AI is not a mistake that facebook, or any other technology company wishing to control the world, can afford. Mark went all in on the metaverse, and is stacking on chips, to go all in on generative AI soon. Very soon. Stay tuned to Creatix for more about everything AI.  

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