"In five years we'll look at Zoom and say it looks like the Stone Age"

"Metaverse", the buzzword in today’s world of technology, was at the center of this week’s panel moderated by Omer Kabir as part of Calcalist's Innovation Week. The panel dealt with the concept and the next generation of artificial intelligence. Participating in the panel were: Gil Rosen, CMO at Amdocs, Gilad Talmon, Co-Founder and CEO of TetaVi, Dr. Tomer Simon, Chief Scientist of Microsoft Israel R&D Center and Dr. Zohar Bronfman, Co-Founder and CEO of Pecan AI.

Gil Rosen, CMO at Amdocs, is sure that the vision is on the way to changing reality: "With the launch of the iPhone in 2007, some waved off the phenomenon and said it would not catch on and certainly not for business people, but the iPhone has turned the internet into mobile and our lives have changed since then - and it will be the same with the Metaverse.”

Rosen added that "in the Metaverse we are experiencing the Internet within the internet for the first time in history. When you are in the Metaverse you’re really inside the experience. When you are in the Metaverse, for example with VR glasses, you are in the experience itself. It is so meaningful and powerful that most of the meaningful future experiences will be there and not through small screens. The Internet has changed forever. "

Gilad Talmon, co-founder and CEO of TetaVi added: “It's one more step than that and an evolution of things that happen anyway, like the same 3D navigation that Google created and you actually see it in front of you, or lots of augmented reality experiences happening. It's a powerful evolution of things that have been happening in the gaming and entertainment world for a long time into the worlds which we all experience on a daily basis. "

Dr. Tomer Simon, Chief Scientist of Microsoft Israel R&D Center, thinks that today we are in the "spring of the Metaverse": "There are some technology trends that are integrating and making the leap and that's what we're experiencing right now with the Metaverse. Technologies like the cloud, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, IoT, make it possible to do something completely different, and we are going to assimilate online whether in VR or augmented reality, games or navigation. We will have very different experiences. "

Rosen noted that "the devices are accessible to everyone and inexpensive, it is evolving very fast. It will not take 15 years like the time that has passed since the first iPhone came out till now, it is going to be much shorter. That does not mean that tomorrow morning we will be walking around in virtual reality but in the next 15 years our lives are going to change completely. The fifth generation cellular network will give us the speed we need and we will enter the world of enterprise and industry. When everything connects it's the 'perfect storm' and it's going to be an integral part of our lives. In five years we will look at Zoom and say it looks like the Stone Age. The new reality will be used for education, medicine, those with disabilities and remote work. Things will look completely different."

Today’s AI

Dr. Zohar Bronfman, co-founder and CEO of Pecan AI, spoke about the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI): "In the last decade it is starting to change the face of business. Almost every business today understands that if it wants to advance it must implement artificial intelligence systems. In order to build artificial intelligence capabilities, we need data scientists who know how to build and operate these models. The market today has a huge gap between demand and a shortage of manpower."

The solution offered by Bronfman: "A process of automation and software building. This process will help non-data scientists start using these models. I do not think the computer science profession is in danger of extinction, because just like in producing the perfect falafel ball, the human touch is always essential and gives it that little extra.”

When the metaverse met AI

Tomer Simon explained that the "Metaverse and artificial intelligence meet everywhere. One of the barriers that exists today is the variety of languages ​​- artificial intelligence knows how to translate over 100 languages ​​in real time and it lowers barriers. In addition, there are 1.2 billion people with disabilities in the world. Through artificial intelligence, it is possible to make instructions accessible in cyberspace, and when taken to the world of the Metaverse, any human barrier to personal, business and international collaborations can be overcome. Artificial intelligence makes it possible right now."

Gil Rosen concluded, "We are moving towards a future where things will be very human and very real and we will really feel it. Software may replace humans with many things, there will be many things that people will not need and there will be completely new things we can not even imagine today. In the world in which we live today, never say never.”