The Facebook technological director will be replaced by the "Metaverse" specialist

Mike Schroepfer, Facebook technological director, announced on Wednesday that he would resign from his post in 2022 and would then be replaced by Andrew Bosworth, who currently heads the augmented reality laboratory, where we explore the "metoversh", theparallel universe that makes digital giants dream.

"This is a difficult decision because I love Facebook and I am very enthusiastic about the idea of the future that we build together," said Mike Schroepfer on his profile.Coming from Mozilla, the engineer joined Facebook in 2008.He has held the position of technological director since 2013 and notably supervised the rise of artificial intelligence systems within the Californian group."Mike played a crucial role in just about everything we have built," said Mark Zuckerberg.

To read also "Metaversse", the dizzying future of the Internet

Self-learning software is essential to the business model of the company, based on very fine and very large-scale advertising targeting, but also to meet the challenge of content moderation, source of major scandals for several years.Under the supervision of Mike Schroepfer, the Facebook engineering teams have developed artificial intelligences capable of supporting the moderators of the social network.To the point that more than 90% of moderation acts are today the result of these software.

Last May, Mike Schroepfer thus presented an algorithm deployed in 2020, to detect problematic content (violent, hateful, etc.) by crossing different signals (text, image) and thus have "an overall vision", instead of'Interpret too literally a word taken without its context.

Andrew Bosworth, a faithful of Mark Zuckerberg

The departure of Mike Schroepfer, much appreciated internally and perceived as the "voice of reason" among the direction of Facebook, worries certain observers.“When I left Facebook at the beginning of the month, several employees asked me who would now be their best ally on the question of the societal impact [of the social network].Who was every time in my list?Schrep [The internal nickname of Mike Schroepfer] ”, tweeted Samidh Chakrabarti, who has been working on these themes since 2015."This news is worrying, especially for those who think that platforms must act responsible for societal issues.»»

Mike Schroepfer's successor Andrew Bosworth has the reputation of being a faithful lieutenant of Mark Zuckerberg. Le surnommé «Boz»» a rejoint Facebook dès 2006.Engineer, he was part of the group at the origin of the news feed, before taking care of technology behind the advertising display on the mobile application of the social network.Today, he embodies in the company the futuristic technologies, still in its infancy.

À la tête du «Facebook Reality Labs»» (FRL), il chapeaute la réalité augmentée, qui permet de surimposer des informations sur son environnement réel via un écran ou des lunettes.He is also responsible for the Oculus brand and its immersive virtual reality helmets, mainly used for entertainment purposes...for the moment.

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Fin juillet, Mark Zuckerberg, le patron du groupe, a aussi donné à «Boz»» la direction d'une équipe dédiée au «metaverse»», c'est-à-dire un «méta univers»» où réel et virtuel se fondent jusqu'à se confondre, une vision de science-fiction déjà présente dans des jeux vidéo. Le fondateur de la plateforme aux près de 3 milliards d'utilisateurs mensuels espère devenir une «entreprise du metaverse d'ici 5 ans environ»», d'après un entretien au site The Verge.

Mike Schroepfer indicated that he would stay at Facebook as an advisor and could spend more time to his family and philanthropy.