This week’s Meta Connect smart glasses event was, let’s admit it, a little cringeworthy. Or at least I cringed when two of Meta’s live demos epically failed. (A third live demo took some time but eventually worked.)
During the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed it on the Wi-Fi connection. Now we know what actually happened. Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth addressed each of the live demos in an Instagram AMA (ask me anything) session on Thursday.
Let’s start with the first demo fail. Special guest chef Jack Mancuso, wearing the new Meta Ray-Bans Gen 2, was supposed to show off how the new Live AI feature could process the ingredients on the table, then give him a step-by-step guide to making a “Korean-inspired steak sauce” recipe.
Things went wrong immediately. The Live AI started listing the ingredients laid out, and Mancuso interrupted to ask what he should do first. With the feature clearly glitching on the sequence of tasks, Mancuso asked again, “What do I do first?” Confused, the AI-powered smart glasses told him he “already combined the base ingredients” as if the cooking process had started, even though the bowl was empty and the ingredients hadn’t been touched.
The Museum at MPK 21, where the in-person keynote address was given, can hold up to 2,000 people, so that’s a lot of potential smart glasses. “That obviously didn’t happen in rehearsal,” he added.
The second live demo fail was when Zuckerberg tried to showcase the new integrated WhatsApp video calling and was unable to pick up a call from Bosworth.
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