Privacy invader Mark Zuckerberg has a $10 billion plan to make it impossible for remote workers to hide from their bosses

[Governor Swill]

Zuckerberg is a fucking asshole.

At least digital humanoids don’t get Zoom fatigue—yet.

During the Meta Connect 2022 live keynote last week, CEO Mark
Zuckerberg discussed his new plans for Meta to bring
avatars—uncanny digital stand-ins for human workers—to video
chats.

They would be customized to match a person’s exact skin tone,
hairstyle, and outfit choices. According to Zuckerberg, an
entirely virtual roundtable meeting would consist of you and
your coworkers’ avatars chatting in something like a “third
mode” between fully camera-on and camera-off.

“You can still express yourself and react, but you’re not on-
camera, so it’s kind of like a better camera-off mode,” he said.

The social media giant invested $10 billion in building the
metaverse last year, a digital space where users can interact
with experiences and other people using VR technology.
Zuckerberg revealed the video chat avatar feature in the key
note after announcing partnerships with several companies,
including one with Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella that
would bring Microsoft apps to Meta Horizon Workrooms—the VR
metaverse rooms where workers’ avatars meet—to create “a
unified, digital office we think can make distributed work so
much better.”

As Intelligencer’s John Herrman points out, all of this could be
a strategy to diversify Meta’s business—but it could also be a
play at acknowledging execs’ challenges with remote work and
trying to rectify them. The opportunity for a “better camera-off
mode” just might be an answered prayer for the bosses unhappy
with the remote workers who tend to join meetings with their web
cameras off.

Is seeing still believing?
Proximity bias, which describes bosses tending to prefer workers
they can see in person, has long been proven. It also may
explain why managers who are used to commandeering a physical
office would be thrilled if they could see their workers—even if
that required them to wear an elaborate headset that costs as
much as a Peloton.

A 20,000-person survey by Microsoft itself found that bosses are
still regularly questioning their remote employees’ productivity
levels. Some have even taken draconian measures to ensure that
their ideal level of productivity is met. Per August research
from the New York Times, eight out of the 10 largest private
employers in the U.S. track productivity metrics, including
active online time, incidence of keyboard pauses, how long it
takes to write an email, and even individual keystrokes.

Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm about metaverse meetings, and the
support from a tech sector heavyweight like Nadella, may speak
to exactly this kind of “productivity paranoia.”

But some experts are wary of a full-scale pivot to the
metaverse. “We would have to carefully attend to the physical
implications of headsets,” Roshni Raveendhran, assistant
professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of
Business, told Fortune last year. “Like if it harms our eyesight
or implicates our brain functions; we don’t know any of these
things now, and we won’t know until there’s more of a continual
usage pattern. We need to pay attention to some of those before
we go into full-scale adoption.”

The metaverse is unlikely to be as all-encompassing as
Zuckerberg hopes, says Cathy Hackl, a futurist and metaverse
expert. For instance, meetings that hinge on deeper bonding or
team building, such as new hire orientations or holiday parties,
are still best done in person. “Your company can’t treat you to
a cocktail virtually,” she told Fortune.

And with even the most advanced VR devices, Hackl added, she
hits her limit around the 45-minute mark. “I don’t think I could
wear a headset for a six-hour video call.”

https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-meta-avatars-
video-chat-zoom-fatigue/

[Governor Swill]

Zuckerberg is a fucking asshole.

At least digital humanoids don’t get Zoom fatigue—yet.

During the Meta Connect 2022 live keynote last week, CEO Mark
Zuckerberg discussed his new plans for Meta to bring
avatars—uncanny digital stand-ins for human workers—to video
chats.

They would be customized to match a person’s exact skin tone,
hairstyle, and outfit choices. According to Zuckerberg, an
entirely virtual roundtable meeting would consist of you and
your coworkers’ avatars chatting in something like a “third
mode” between fully camera-on and camera-off.

“You can still express yourself and react, but you’re not on-
camera, so it’s kind of like a better camera-off mode,” he said.

The social media giant invested $10 billion in building the
metaverse last year, a digital space where users can interact
with experiences and other people using VR technology.
Zuckerberg revealed the video chat avatar feature in the key
note after announcing partnerships with several companies,
including one with Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella that
would bring Microsoft apps to Meta Horizon Workrooms—the VR
metaverse rooms where workers’ avatars meet—to create “a
unified, digital office we think can make distributed work so
much better.”

As Intelligencer’s John Herrman points out, all of this could be
a strategy to diversify Meta’s business—but it could also be a
play at acknowledging execs’ challenges with remote work and
trying to rectify them. The opportunity for a “better camera-off
mode” just might be an answered prayer for the bosses unhappy
with the remote workers who tend to join meetings with their web
cameras off.

Is seeing still believing?
Proximity bias, which describes bosses tending to prefer workers
they can see in person, has long been proven. It also may
explain why managers who are used to commandeering a physical
office would be thrilled if they could see their workers—even if
that required them to wear an elaborate headset that costs as
much as a Peloton.

A 20,000-person survey by Microsoft itself found that bosses are
still regularly questioning their remote employees’ productivity
levels. Some have even taken draconian measures to ensure that
their ideal level of productivity is met. Per August research
from the New York Times, eight out of the 10 largest private
employers in the U.S. track productivity metrics, including
active online time, incidence of keyboard pauses, how long it
takes to write an email, and even individual keystrokes.

Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm about metaverse meetings, and the
support from a tech sector heavyweight like Nadella, may speak
to exactly this kind of “productivity paranoia.”

But some experts are wary of a full-scale pivot to the
metaverse. “We would have to carefully attend to the physical
implications of headsets,” Roshni Raveendhran, assistant
professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of
Business, told Fortune last year. “Like if it harms our eyesight
or implicates our brain functions; we don’t know any of these
things now, and we won’t know until there’s more of a continual
usage pattern. We need to pay attention to some of those before
we go into full-scale adoption.”

The metaverse is unlikely to be as all-encompassing as
Zuckerberg hopes, says Cathy Hackl, a futurist and metaverse
expert. For instance, meetings that hinge on deeper bonding or
team building, such as new hire orientations or holiday parties,
are still best done in person. “Your company can’t treat you to
a cocktail virtually,” she told Fortune.

And with even the most advanced VR devices, Hackl added, she
hits her limit around the 45-minute mark. “I don’t think I could
wear a headset for a six-hour video call.”

https://fortune.com/2022/10/18/mark-zuckerberg-meta-avatars-
video-chat-zoom-fatigue/