Facebook Developer’s Conference: Top Takeaways in AI, Machine Learning and Optical Displays

Despite recent news stories about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before congress, attendees of May's Facebook Developer’s Conference (F8) were not disappointed. While all eyes were initially on Zuckerberg and how he addressed the scandal during his opening keynote, the annual conference provided developers insight into some of the top trends in artificial intelligence and virtual reality. 

Artificial Intelligence

Facebook’s position on AI is that it is the foundation for everything far beyond just a social graph, but the starting point for creating a safe and engaging platform for all. Facebook announced the launch of Pytorch 1.0, it’s open-source project for developers looking to build on an even greater level of frameworks for machine learning.

Although the platform admits there is a long way to go, it is clear that AI will have the ability within the next year to help small and even medium size businesses scale things such as customer service requests, product information, and help to translate sentiment between languages.

Hashtags: Bigger Than You Thought

Hashtags have a greater impact on visual recognition and optical displays than many may have ever thought. There are more than 3.5 billion images with hashtags across the Facebook family of platforms. These hashtags are now used to help automate the process of image recognition. Facebook states that 1-2% of images can be recognized with no human training, meaning all those hashtags of #puppies and #OOTD may be doing much more for the AI community than previously thought.

AR and VR

One of the biggest reveals at F8 included gifting the new Oculus Go to everyone who participated at the conference. Part of Facebook’s big theme at the conference was helping people not only connect, but feel “present” – from 3D photos via social and artificial reality filters for brands and consumers to try before they buy, the social giant provided ways for people to engage and feel like they are really there.

The Oculus Go, at $199, provides a mainstream entry point into VR – opening doors for many in the gaming and entertainment space to expand on this optical display platform.

The need for developers with background in machine learning, python, and C++ will continue to be in demand. The large volume of applications that will integrate AI and machine learning will only continue to help drive the demand for technologists in this space.