How Facebook is building safety and empathy into AR/VR avatars and shared spaces

Facebook has made both augmented reality and virtual reality experiences that reach a lot of people — more than a billion users in the case of its Spark AR smartphone apps. But the realism of the avatars and the perceived safety of those experiences still need improvement.

So the company showcased what it’s doing on those fronts to make VR and AR avatars more expressive and shared social environments safer. Those efforts followed the day two theme of “responsible innovation” at Facebook’s F8 conference in San Jose, California.