4 Things Mark Zuckerberg Will Likely Say in His First Facebook Live Q&A
Thanks to questions provided by people like you.
Mark Zuckerberg will hold his first Facebook Live Q&A on Tuesday and, like nearly all Facebook Live videos, will have awkward moments. But that won’t stop Zuckerberg, who writes in a Facebook post that he will cover the big topics — “connecting the world, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, live video, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and more” — but he will also address user-submitted questions voted on by likes.
Judging from the comments, and recent Facebook developments, artificial intelligence is at the top of Zuckerberg’s mind.
On June 8, a couple hours after Zuckerberg posted about the Q&A, Vaskar Signh Maharjan asked about the pros and cons of A.I. in the future. It only got 74 likes, but it was the only question Zuckerberg replied to directly.
Artificial intelligence is something that Zuckerberg has spoken about plenty of times in the past. At the F8 conference in April, he stated: “Our goal with A.I. is to build systems that are better than people at perception: seeing, hearing, language, and so on.”
During Facebook’s 2016 Q1 investors call, he again mentioned that the company is working on A.I. that is better than humans. In five to 10 years, he said, A.I. will be able to predict things like what a person will like, where a person is, and who a person will become friends with.
Maharjan’s comment was the only one Zuckerberg addressed, but it was far from the most liked:
Basic needs
More than 1,000 people threw their like-vote behind a comment from Umer Usman about fulfilling people’s basic needs. In the second-highest liked comment, Usman states that “we should have to fulfill people’s basic needs” before providing internet around the world. Facebook’s “Free Basics” gives users in developing countries a limited number of internet services for free, but it’s also been called “digital colonialism.”
Pinterest for Facebook
The most-liked comment (over 1,200 likes) came from Maria Kennedy, who asked for “folders to store stuff and find easily.” What Kennedy essentially wants is Pinterest for Facebook, where products that people like can be sorted and saved.
Facebook tried this once before with a Rooms app that let people “create places for the things you’re into.” It was a flop.
Additions to Facebook Live
Zuckerberg will undoubtedly take a meta-moment to speak about one of the features Facebook is pushing the hardest: Facebook Live. A question by David Clinch (over 500 likes) asks if a virtual reality view of events will be coming anytime soon.
Facebook Live is still in its early stages, but it’s already addictively imperfect. A virtual reality addition (viewed through the Oculus Rift, perhaps) could attract some tech-savvy users.
Regardless of what he finally talks about, plenty of people will be watching and commenting live. And as Zuckerberg’s Facebook Live debut showed, anything can happen when it’s live.
