By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) -Facebook’s Meta, the owner of Facebook, is working with AI researchers to enable people to have natural conversations with voice assistants. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Wednesday that this was a first step in how humans will interact with AI in metaverse.

Project CAIRaoke by the company is “a completely end-to-end neural modeling for building on device assistants,” Zuckerberg said at Meta’s livestreamed artificial Intelligence event.

Zuckerberg believes that the metaverse will replace the mobile internet. It is a futuristic concept of virtual worlds where people can socialize, work and play.

After a disappointing earnings report that saw it lose a third its market value, the social media giant has made significant investments in building its metaverse focus and has changed its name accordingly. Meta’s Reality Labs business, which is augmented or virtual reality for the public reported a net loss of $10.2 million in its 2021 financial year.

Meta announced recently that the research team behind its new supercomputer for artificial intelligence has been built and will become the fastest computer in the world by mid-2022.

Zuckerberg claimed that Meta was developing a new generation of generative AI models which allow users to imagine a world and then generate elements. Builder Bot, an AI concept that allows people to specify what the AI should do — was shown by Zuckerberg. As a legless avatar living on an island, he demonstrated how he could command AI via speech to build a beach. Then, AI would add trees and clouds.

Zuckerberg stated, “As technology advances further, you will be able create nuanced realms to share experiences and explore with others with just your voice.”