Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI glasses demo went wrong live onstage — twice.
On Wednesday, the CEO took to the stage at the company’s annual Meta Connect event to reveal the second-generation Meta Ray-Bans, a neural wristband, Meta Ray-Bans Display with heads-up display, and sports-centered glasses with Oakley.
To drive his point home that AI should serve people and not just “sit in a data center,” Zuckerberg connected food content creator Jack Mancuso to the big screen for a live demo on how the newly upgraded Ray Ban Meta glasses could help Mancuso cook — and that is when things began to get awkward.
Mancuso asked the glasses with voice control to show him how to mix a “Korean-inspired steak sauce” for his steak sandwich, but instead of starting with the basics, the AI responded that he should use soy sauce and sesame oil. Mancuso pressed the question of what he should do first multiple times, but the AI ignored his inquiries and moved on with its instructions.
“You’ve already combined the base ingredients, so now grate the pear and gently combine it with the base sauce,” the AI repeated twice.
Mancuso handed the stage back to Zuckerberg and chalked the incident up to a “messed-up” WiFi, and the audience gave an encouraging cheer.
“The irony of the whole thing is that you spend years making technology and then the WiFi at the day catches you,” Zuckerberg said before moving on.
The second live demo glitch was not long after he revealed the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses alongside a neural wristband, and called it “one of those special moments.”
The Ray-Ban Display is the newest addition to Meta’s smart glasses lineup. Not only does it have voice assist and camera features like the Meta Ray-Bans, which have been out for two years, the Meta Ray-Ban Display also has a heads-up display, or HUD, that appears on the right side of the glasses to deliver notifications and navigation prompts without requiring users to look down at a phone.
During the live demo of the Meta Ray-Ban Display, Zuckerberg used the wristband to type messages to Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer.
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But the demo had a hiccup when Zuckerberg suggested that Bosworth give him a video call. The CEO repeated hand motions with the wristband in attempts to pick up the calls, but none worked, before Bosworth came to the rescue in person.
“This WiFi is brutal,” said Bosworth.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Zuckerberg responded. “We’ll debug that later. You practice these things like 100 times, and then, you never know what’s going to happen.”
“I promise you no one is more upset about this than I am, because this is my team that now has to go debug why this didn’t work on the stage,” Bosworth added.
An editor at Business Insider noted that WiFi at large conferences is often spotty. Business Insider reached out to Meta for more information.
Meta shares saw moderate gains of half a percentage point after the demonstrations, and the demo glitches did not seem to lower audience morale. To put it in Bosworth’s words, “this is how we know it’s live.”
