Meta highlights ‘extraordinary potential’ of Metaverse in education

Davos, Switzerland, Jan 18 (EFE).- Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has said that artificial intelligence and its cross-platform online space, known as the Metaverse, have “extraordinary potential” in terms of education, the tech giant’s chief product officer said Wednesday.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chris Cox said the Metaverse “lets people do things that they could not do before” and it has “extraordinary potential in education.”

But beyond the Metaverse’s benefits for customers and businesses, Cox said “interesting work” was starting to be done in areas such as education, training, medicine, and design.

“Astronauts are starting to use virtual reality in order to train for basically immersive experiences that are hard to study in a textbook,” he said, adding that the company hopes to convince industries and companies at Davos to bid for this project as the “next platform.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has developed apps such as Meta Horizon Worlds, which is free for users and allows them to visit an ever-expanding virtual universe.

“You could in effect create a metaverse version of almost any manifestation of current curricula,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, who also stressed virtual reality’s “extraordinary potential” for education.

Thanks to the Metaverse, the former UK deputy prime minister said, children will be able to go for walks “around the streets of Rome” or “amongst the dinosaurs.”

Developments in the Metaverse have also reached other fields, such as nursing or plumbing.

Meta recently announced it was laying off around 11,000 workers worldwide, which Clegg insisted would allow the company to focus on developing the Metaverse. EFE

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