Facebook captured more than 2,000 hours of first-person video to train next-generation A.I. - CNBC

The footage could teach artificial intelligence to understand or identify something in the real world, or a virtual world, that you might see from a first-person perspective through a pair of glasses or an Oculus headset.

The data set could be deployed in AI models used to train technology like robots to more rapidly understand the world, Grauman said.

"Traditionally a robot learns by doing stuff in the world or being literally handheld to be shown how to do things," Grauman said.

Facebook and a consortium of 13 university partners relied on more than 700 participants across nine countries to capture the first-person footage.

Facebook says Ego4D has more than 20 times more hours of footage than any other data set of its kind.

"An important design decision for this project is we wanted partners that first of all are leading experts in the field, interested in these problems and motivated to pursue them but also have geographic diversity," Grauman said.