Is telepathy technology in the future? If you were to ask Mark Zuckerberg that question, the answer would be a resounding ‘yes.’ In a recent post, Zuckerberg noted that he believes soon you’ll be able to think of something, and then send that thought to a friend just through telepathy (and some devices or apps, I’m thinking).

The question is: will it be Facebook that creates this technology first? Also, what are the implications of the social network creating such a thing?

Facebook: Not the Most Trustworthy

A lot of Internet companies have been questioned by users when it comes to privacy matters, but Facebook tends to be called out more than most. So what would happen if Facebook decided to work out some telepathic technology service? I’m guessing that a lot of people would be very wary and may not want to use the social network were those capabilities actually possible. The thought of Facebook reading your mind is, well, kind of creepy.

But how close is Facebook to actually implementing anything resembling telepathic technology? Zuckerberg told press that the company is focusing currently on Artificial Intelligence products, and that Facebook wants to further develop things like speech to text. Facebook is also working on vision technology, which is really interesting all by itself.

Vision Technology

Facebook is currently “building systems that can recognize everything that’s in an image or video.” This is kind of like the existing technology that Facebook has that aims to recognize a friend in a photo before you actually tag that friend. But the technology that Facebook is developing goes beyond that too.

The company’s main focus right now with vision technology is helping people that are vision impaired to see what’s in a post. In the future, someone that is blind might be able to scroll through Facebook and be told what they are looking at in great detail - including who they are looking at, and possibly what that person is wearing and seeing and doing.

In addition to vision technology and thoughts on telepathy, Zuckerberg also discussed some of the company’s latest investments into virtual reality. Facebook has been working on some virtual reality technology for a while now starting with the purchase of Oculus VR for $2 billion last year. Why is the company putting so much focus on virtual reality? Zuckerberg notes that VR is the “next major computing and communicating platform,” so the company is really focusing on that next step (before other companies do, presumably).

A Lot in the Future

While telepathic technology might be well into the future, it’s something that Zuckerberg (and by association Facebook) is thinking about. Coupled with technology like virtual reality and artificial intelligence, Facebook is by no means stagnant and content with its place in the world.

So what can you expect to see from the social network next? Right now, everything that Zuckerberg has mentioned in his latest post is far into the future, but you can expect the company to move forward at a decent clip. Mark Zuckerberg holds regular “meetings” on his Facebook page if you are interested in learning more about what Facebook is working on currently.