META CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims humanity will move into the metaverse in the future, leaving reality behind.

He said there will become a point where virtual worlds are so immersive and convenient we won’t want to leave.

The Facebook founder told tech podcaster Lex Fridman: “A lot of people think that the metaverse is about a place, but one definition of this is it’s about a time when basically immersive digital worlds become the primary way that we live our lives and spend our time.

“I think that’s a reasonable construct.”

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Meta plans to spend the next five to 10 years building a metaverse that will include scent, touch and sound.

In Meta’s version of the metaverse which is currently available to users, humans are represented by avatars without legs, however, Zuckerberg says upcoming versions will be more realistic.

During the podcast, Zuckerberg said people are already living their lives in the virtual world – just in 2D.

But people need to feel fully present to keep up the illusion of immersion, he added.

Zuckerberg said: “In the real world you have feelings of temperature, olfactory and touch. We are working on haptic gloves.

“All of these things will be critical to keeping up the illusion you are fully present in the world, and these building blocks will happen in 10 years.

“One of the things we’ve found with hand presence, what’s the right way to represent them?

“When I look in the physical world I see just an arm and it would be super weird to see just a hand, but it turns out not to be the case.

“There are a bunch of psychological cues, where it will be more about getting the details right, which will be possible over a five year period and we won’t need every single thing to be solved to deliver this full sensory presence.”

Zuckerberg said within the next five years, all of the things we gain from meeting in person will be replicated in VR.

He added: “All of the work I do is at the intersection of technology and computer science.

“What I care about is building technology to help people interact with each other.”

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