San Francisco (AFP)

Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer on Wednesday announced that he would resign his post in 2022 and be replaced by Andrew Bosworth, who currently heads the augmented reality lab, where the metaverse is being explored, the parallel universe that makes digital giants dream.

“It’s a tough decision because I love Facebook and I’m very excited about the future we’re building together,” said Mike Schroepfer on his profile.

He has held this position since 2013 and has notably supervised the rise of artificial intelligence systems within the Californian group.

Self-learning software is essential to the company's economic model, based on very fine and very large-scale advertising targeting, but also to meet the challenge of content moderation, which has been the source of major scandals for several years.

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

The social media giant is accused by politicians and civil society, either of not fighting enough against disinformation, or of "censoring" certain opinions too much, especially among the conservatives, who are nevertheless very active on the platform.

Andrew Bosworth, nicknamed "Boz", embodies within the company futuristic technologies, still in its infancy.

At the head of "Facebook Reality Labs" (FRL), he oversees augmented reality, which allows information to be superimposed on one's real environment via a screen or glasses.

He is also responsible for the Oculus brand and its immersive virtual reality headsets, mainly used for entertainment purposes ... for now.

At the end of July, Mark Zuckerberg, the group's boss, also gave "Boz" the direction of a team dedicated to the "metaverse", that is to say a "meta-universe" where real and virtual merge until 'to be confused, a vision of science fiction already present in video games.

The founder of the platform with nearly 3 billion monthly users hopes to become a "metaverse company in about 5 years," according to an interview with The Verge.

Mike Schroepfer has indicated that he will remain at Facebook as an advisor and thus be able to devote more time to his family and philanthropy.

© 2021 AFP