By Mathew in AI Applications — 16 Mar 2025

Imagen-The Future of Computing: Zuckerberg's Vision for AR Glasses, AI Integration, and Digital Connection

Key Points

Meta's Orion glasses represent the first full holographic augmented reality glasses after 10 years of development
Zuckerberg believes AR glasses will be "the next major computing platform after phones"
The future of Meta's vision centers on two pillars: creating a sense of presence and delivering personalized AI
On the decline in friendship: Zuckerberg argues technology isn't replacing existing connections but can enable connections that otherwise wouldn't happen
There's an ongoing debate about open source AI, with Zuckerberg arguing that open models lead to greater innovation and safety

In a wide-ranging conversation with Dylan Lindelof on the podcast "Huge If True," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his vision for the future of technology, discussing everything from AR glasses to human connection to artificial intelligence. The interview provided a comprehensive look at the future Zuckerberg and Meta are trying to build—a world where digital and physical reality blend seamlessly, enabled by increasingly capable artificial intelligence.

The Next Evolution in Computing: AR Glasses

The conversation began with Zuckerberg showcasing Meta's most ambitious hardware project to date: the Orion glasses, which he called "the first full holographic augmented reality glasses" in the world. These aren't simply a display attached to glasses but a complete system capable of placing digital objects—holograms—that appear to exist in physical space.

"This is the culmination of 10 years of research and development," Zuckerberg explained. "We've basically miniaturized all the computing that you need to have glasses—not a headset, but glasses—that can put full holograms into the world with a wide field of view."

The technical achievement is significant. Zuckerberg detailed the complex components packed into the frames: micro-projectors that shoot light into waveguides with nano-etchings, eye-tracking cameras, computing units, batteries, microphones, speakers, and environmental sensors. All of this technology allows the glasses to understand where you are and place digital objects appropriately in the physical world.

Why build such a device? Zuckerberg believes AR glasses represent "the next major computing platform after phones."

"If you look at the grand arc of computing over time, you've gone from mainframes to computers that basically live on your desk or on a tower, to phones that you have in your hand that you can take with you everywhere," Zuckerberg said. "But it's pretty unnatural—it takes you away from the world around you. I think the trend in computing is it gets more ubiquitous, it gets more natural, and it gets more social."

The Spectrum of AR/VR Products

Zuckerberg doesn't see a one-size-fits-all approach to AR and VR. Instead, he outlined several distinct product categories that will coexist:

Display-less glasses (like Ray-Ban Meta): Good for AI interactions through voice without a display
Heads-up display glasses: Limited field of view (20-30 degrees) for text, notifications, and directions
Full holographic AR glasses (like Orion): Premium product for immersive experiences
Full VR/MR headsets (like Quest): More powerful computing for gaming and intensive applications

"I think they're all actually going to end up being important long-term product lines," Zuckerberg explained. This diversified approach represents a shift from Meta's original vision, which assumed full holographic AR would eventually be the ultimate product for everyone.

Two Pillars: Presence and Personalized AI

According to Zuckerberg, Meta's technology vision centers on two primary values:

1. Creating a Sense of Presence

The first pillar is delivering a feeling of presence—making interactions with people who aren't physically present feel as real and meaningful as possible.

"There's something that I think is just really deep about being physically present with another person that you don't get from any other technology today," Zuckerberg explained. "When people have a very visceral reaction to experiencing virtual or mixed reality, what they're really reacting to is that they actually, for the first time with technology, feel a sense of presence."

This focus on presence has been central to Zuckerberg's work for decades: "I've focused on designing social apps and experiences for 20 years. That's sort of like the Holy Grail of that—being able to build a technology platform that delivers this deep sense of social presence."

2. Personalized AI

The second pillar centers on artificial intelligence that understands individual context.

"I think where [AI] is going to get really compelling is when it's personalized for you," Zuckerberg said. "In order for it to be personalized for you, it has to have context and understand what's going on in your life, both kind of at a global level and what's physically happening around you right now."

This is why glasses are the ideal form factor for AI, according to Zuckerberg—they can see what you see and hear what you hear, the two primary senses we use to understand our environment.

The Limits of Digital Connection

Despite his enthusiasm for digital connection, Zuckerberg acknowledged that technology can't replicate everything about human interaction. When Lindelof mentioned missing being able to hug his mother, Zuckerberg agreed: "I miss hugging my mom too. That never goes away."

While he believes we'll make progress on haptic technology (especially for hands), certain physical experiences will remain difficult to replicate. He noted that the development of presence is less about creating one perfect element and more about avoiding anything that breaks the illusion: "More than any one thing that provides a sense of presence, it's actually more the case that any one thing done wrong breaks the sense of presence."

Interestingly, Zuckerberg observed that digital environments don't need to perfectly mimic reality to feel authentic. For instance, people accept photorealistic avatars in cartoonish environments and vice versa, as long as the avatar moves in a way that feels authentic to the person it represents.

The Decline in Friendship and Connection

One of the most thought-provoking segments of the conversation addressed research showing that Americans have fewer close friends now than in previous decades. Lindelof cited concerning statistics: the average American's time spent socializing in person has dropped 30% over 20 years, while the percentage of Americans without a single close friend has jumped from 3% to 12%.

Zuckerberg argued that these trends largely predate modern technology and stem from broader socioeconomic changes. He rejected the notion that online interaction has directly replaced physical connection:

"I think whenever you're talking about building digital types of connection, one of the first questions that you get is, 'Is that going to replace the physical connection?' And my answer to that, especially in the case of something like this, is no, because people already don't have as much connection as they would like to have. It's not like this is replacing some sort of better physical connection that they would have otherwise had."

Instead, Zuckerberg believes that technologies like AR glasses will supplement and enhance our ability to connect with distant loved ones: "It's not going to make it so, if I have glasses, I spend less time with my wife. It's going to make it so that I spend more time with my sister who lives across the country."

AI: Building Muscles vs. Removing Struggles

Lindelof raised an interesting philosophical question about AI: When should technology remove struggles, and when is the struggle itself valuable for human development?

"I think we're always going to find new things to struggle with," Zuckerberg replied. He used coding as an example—while AI will make basic programming more accessible, people will still face challenges as they push the boundaries of what's possible: "Kids will be able to just describe the things that they want and build incredibly complex pieces of software... but these things are not exactly what I want them to be, so now I need to go back and edit them."

Zuckerberg acknowledged that certain foundational skills remain important even in an AI-driven world: "I think there's some things that you need to be able to do yourself... it's still good to be able to do kind of basic math in your head because there are a lot of things that come up throughout the day that you just want to have a general numeracy around."

Similarly, he believes that teaching children to code will remain valuable, not necessarily for the coding itself but for the rigorous thinking it develops: "Teaching someone how to code is teaching them a way to think rigorously... I think it's going to just make you generally a better thinker and better person."

When asked how generative AI will change social media, Zuckerberg described several potential developments:

Enhanced user-generated content: AI tools will help friends create "funnier memes and more interesting content"
Automatic content creation from captures: "Your friends have glasses and they capture a bunch of stuff, and before they might not have been able to edit it to make it interesting... but now the AI is like, 'Hey, I made this thing for you out of your content'"
AI-powered creators: Creators will use advanced AI tools to make more compelling content
Pure AI content: Content generated specifically for individual users
AI versions of creators: "If you're a Creator, one of the big challenges is there are only so many hours in the day and your community probably has a nearly unlimited demand to interact with you"

The Open Source Debate in AI

One of the most substantive parts of the conversation addressed the ongoing debate about open-source AI models—an area where Meta has taken a different approach than companies like OpenAI and Google.

Zuckerberg framed this as a choice between two visions: a centralized future where a few large models (like ChatGPT or Gemini) dominate, versus a more diverse ecosystem where many different AI systems serve different purposes.

"At a high level, I look at the vision that a bunch of companies have—OpenAI, Google—they're building an AI, like one AI," Zuckerberg explained. "They think you're going to use Gemini or ChatGPT for all the different things that you want to interact with. At a high level, that's just not how I think the world is going to go."

He believes every business will eventually have its own AI—just like they have a website, phone number, and social media accounts—to interact with customers and provide services.

On the safety debate, Zuckerberg argued that open-source approaches have historically proven more secure: "What we've traditionally seen is that open-source software is safer and more secure, largely because you put it out there, more people can scrutinize it... By adding more scrutiny to the systems, the holes became apparent quicker and then were fixed."

The Biggest Open Question: AI Scaling

When asked about the biggest open question on his mind, Zuckerberg highlighted the uncertainty around how far current AI architectures can scale:

"With past AI architecture, you could feed an AI system a certain amount of data and use a certain amount of compute, but eventually it hit a plateau. One of the interesting things about these new transformer-based architectures over the last 5 to 10 years is that we haven't found the end yet."

This leads to a critical question for Meta's infrastructure investment: "It's totally possible that at some point we just hit a limit... but it's also possible that that limit is not going to happen anytime soon."

Zuckerberg is personally betting on continued scaling, which would require investments of "hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure," but acknowledges this is one of the biggest questions in the field today.

Conclusion: Navigating an Uncertain Future

Throughout the conversation, Zuckerberg emphasized that while technological change can cause anxiety, we've already been through significant technological shifts with the internet and smartphones.

His advice for young people preparing for this future? "I just think maintaining curiosity about things is important. I do think we can overstate to what extent the next 10 years is going to be sort of different from the last 10 or 15... It's not like this is the only time in history where there's some technology [that's] going to make it so there's new opportunities and things change."

For Zuckerberg, the people who will thrive are "people who are generally curious about it and dig in and try to use it to live better lives, rather than the people who try to fight it in some way."

This conversation offers a window into Zuckerberg's vision for the future—a world where digital and physical reality blend seamlessly, where AI becomes a personalized assistant that understands our context, and where technology enables new forms of human connection rather than replacing existing ones. Whether this future proves as utopian as Zuckerberg hopes remains to be seen, but Meta is clearly investing enormous resources to make it a reality.

For the full conversation, watch the video here.