Mark Zuckerberg's AI Manifesto Sparks Skepticism as Meta Struggles to Compete in AI Race

Why people aren't buying Mark Zuckerberg's AI future

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word essay this week declaring that "The Future is for Everyone" and painting an optimistic picture of a future powered by AI, where "everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about." On the latest episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed why not everyone is buying Zuckerberg's vision -- including our colleague Russell Brandom, who wrote that the manifesto is "exactly why people don't like AI." Comparing Zuckerberg to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (who spent the weekend pushing back against the idea that he's an AI doomer), Rebecca said the Meta CEO seems to be positioning himself "almost like an anti-Dario." The problem, however, is Zuckerberg and Meta's history. "You look back to the social media days, [Zuckerberg] was saying that he wants to make sure that everyone has an outlet for talking to their friends and having a social network," Rebecca said. "And what do we have instead? We have ragebaiting and advertisements, and not connection." Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. Rebecca Bellan: Cynically, I think that this is an attempt for Meta to win in a different way. They're not winning in the frontier, closed-model space. They're not necessarily even winning in the open space. But when it comes to personal empowerment, as Mark Zuckerberg talks about in his letter, "The Future Is for Everyone," that's where he's trying to win. He's trying to provide the models that people will use for their own personal AI on their own personal devices. I think last year, when he published a [similar] "Futures for Everyone" letter, [the promise] was that a lot of that AI would go onto the glasses, the wearables, but it's not really clear what the final hardware form factor for this would be, and I guess he's like leaving it up to the individual to choose. So his idea is that you're using [Meta's new AI model] Glimmer for managing your schedule, drafting messages, organizing files, it's always on, it can operate anytime, anywhere, with or without an internet connection. But then there is still Muse Spark, so that maintains a way for them to have some level of control over, still, its most capable models, and provide a revenue outlet for people who want to scale their compute, and people who want to like do larger projects, or companies that might want to do larger projects. Anthony Ha: I imagine the part of the context here is also -- Meta has made some very serious investments in AI, last year there [were] also all these stories about how much money they were trying to pay for AI scientists, but in terms of who we think of as the leading companies, the frontier labs, Meta doesn't tend to come up in the conversation. Another way it doesn't come up in the conversation is in, you know, what are the popular consumer AI chatbots? Certainly, people are interacting with Meta AI tools in Instagram, in Facebook, but it's not a company that you think of when, "I'm going to go use my personal assistant." Meta isn't that yet, and so it feels, to a certain extent, this is an attempt to reposition them and try to claim space that they really haven't been that successful at before. Is that fair? Rebecca: I think that is really fair to say. And I would take it with a grain of salt because Mark Zuckerberg loves to put out a vision of what his companies will do for people and how they will empower people. And so far, what that looks like for Meta -- I mean, of course, Llama is great; it's a great tool and open source, but I think that on a consumer level, how are people using Meta AI? Well, there's like a lot of creepy-ass chatbots. My TLDR is: I think that [Zuckerberg's] letter and his idea of personal empowerment is putting a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths because it's him who's saying it. Russell Brandom, our AI editor, wrote about this this week. You look back to the social media days, he was saying that he wants to make sure that everyone has an outlet for talking to their friends and having a social network. And what do we have instead? We have ragebaiting and advertisements, and not connection. Kirsten Korosec: Yeah, I think that the manifesto didn't strike the right note for a lot of people. And to Russell's point, which he makes in this column, is it's what's making people hate AI or hate on AI -- because, to your point, it is coming from Zuckerberg, and I do think also it feels very Pollyannish in a way. He's put these thoughts out there in the past, and it really doesn't provide what I think is a more realistic picture, but instead casts AI as this great tool for humanity. That might be the case, but there will also be extreme costs to that, and I think that's why the negative reaction to it has been so widespread. Rebecca: It feels like he's positioning himself as almost like an anti-Dario. I don't know. There's a lot of talk among the frontier labs: "We're pacing the frontier, pulling back, focus on safety. We need to slow down development." They're not doing any of that, of course, but they're talking about it, and because of all these recent cybersecurity incidents that we've had. Whereas Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, is like, "No, no, we do not slow down. We cannot afford to give an inch to China, and slowing down would only hurt the individual, who can be empowered by this technology." But I mean, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll try to download Muse Glimmer and see what I can do with it." Can I download it to my MacBook? No. You need specific hardware. I forget what the hardware is -- it's not actually that accessible to the average person. Kirsten: It's not for everyone. Not yet. Anthony: The one positive thing I will say for this very long manifesto -- 6,500 words, longer than almost anything that's been published on TechCrunch -- is that there is one sentence where he says, "If you are an AI doomer and you believe that that's the future that AI is going to bring, why are you building this stuff?" Which I think is fair. Although my big takeaway from that is not that the AI future is great, but it makes you wonder about people who are making these predictions and then pushing ahead anyway. I also wanted to talk a little bit about Russell's point, which I think is totally a fair one, about how part of it is the messenger. For a variety of reasons, I think that people are suspicious of Mark Zuckerberg, of Meta, arguably that could become amplified over the next few months as this new Facebook movie is coming out. But it's also about the future that is being promised by these AI companies, and often why we see these viral pile-ons whenever Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg or somebody is making a prediction about this AI future and people essentially say, "Who wants this?" One of the more famous recent examples was Sam Altman talking about the idea of like, "You could use ChatGPT to make podcasts about your kids' interests to listen to while driving to school," And of course everyone is like, "Why don't you just talk to your kid?" Part of the manifesto was -- half of it was just stuff where it is just, "It's going to unleash all this creativity and invention," and it's so abstract. If you're skeptical about AI, none of that is going to convince you, because it seems unreal. And then the stuff that is more concrete, about these personal coaches and assistants, there's some aspects that appeal, but a lot of [them] that don't.

The Future is for Billionaires, the rest will get open weight AI models, maybe

In a public post titled "The Future is for Everyone," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declares, "We are fortunate to live at an incredible moment in history." For Zuck to posit that "The Future is for Everyone" is at once facile for being so vague it could mean anything - are there people now living who are excluded from the future? - and foolish for its failure to address real issues that actually affect people's lives. We are perhaps not so fortunate as the unpopular but wealthy Zuck, worth more than $200 billion. But we're fortunate enough not to be chased by a public record that mocks his musings. In 2019, Zuck said, "The Future is Private." This was while he was running Facebook, an ad business predicated on the denial of privacy. His credibility as a forecaster of the future leaves something to be desired. His company could have worked toward this future after its rebranding as Meta in 2021. Instead, it became the prime purveyor of Meta Glasses, dubbed "pervert glasses" by detractors for flouting people's privacy expectations. The purpose of Zuck's post is to "develop a philosophy for how we can best use superintelligence to ensure it improves all of our lives, work, communities, freedom and safety." He declares, "The defining questions of our age are who will have access to superintelligence and what will we direct it towards. Will it be centralized and restricted to a few institutions, or will it be a tool that empowers everyone?" Beyond the fact that "superintelligence" is undefined, he overstates the importance of AI in the scheme of things. Centralization and access may be defining questions for AI policy, but AI policy exists in a global context that invites tougher inquiries. Here are a few that come to mind: Who will have access to the world's wealth and to what portion of it? Who will have access to water, food, and healthcare? Where will human rights be respected? Where will democracy survive? Where will the rule of law thrive? Where will people have access to affordable justice? What will constrain technology from becoming a tool of tyranny? What will constrain public discourse that sows dissension and promotes harm? Hey, Siri, what's the answer to humanity's problems? The initial 700 words or so of Zuck's call for Pollyannaish AI groupthink lean into banal generalizations. We'll spare you the line-by-line critique but take, for example, "All new technologies create opportunities and challenges." That's true but also not very insightful. We leave it as an exercise to the reader to ask Meta's latest AI model to produce a more trenchant formulation of Zuck's all-in-for-AI utopianism. The subsequent section cites specific examples of how Meta is approaching "superintelligence," and it's no more credible. Consider Zuck's assertion that his foretold universally accessible AI assistant "will have strong privacy and security options so you can trust it to handle all of your personal content knowing that no one else can access your information, similar to how encryption works on WhatsApp." Meta's track record here doesn't exactly make this claim more convincing. "Everyone will have incredible tools for creation to express your ideas." And it will become more difficult to market these ideas because AI has commodified content creation. But creators will be able to distribute their work for free on social media networks to boost engagement and sell ads. "Everyone will have powerful tools to create new businesses and the economy will become more entrepreneurial." That's just a naive generalization that fails to consider the difficulty of creating and sustaining a business amid intense competition - something major tech companies have fought tooth and nail to avoid. Driving for Uber might be considered entrepreneurial, but it's an option many would trade for a fair wage, good health insurance coverage, a pension, and other employee benefits that once sustained the US workforce. And then there's the real tell: Meta is ready to profit from providing AI access. "Everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools ... We will offer free versions that will be accessible to billions of people. For those who want to pay to use more compute, there will be a dynamic auction mechanism that will guarantee that everyone gets the lowest price possible for the intelligence and compute they're using while also ensuring the capacity is used for whatever people collectively find most valuable." The Future is for Everyone, but distribution and monetization are for Meta and a few other cloud service providers. Someone's gotta pay for Meta's datacenter capex. Zuck is right about the need to keep AI accessible to as broad an audience as possible. "Restricting people and companies from using the leading open source models - wherever they come from - will reduce the quality of AI accessible to them, and centralize AI rather than putting more power in people's hands," he writes. But then he squanders whatever credit he might be due by co-opting Dr. Martin Luther King's famous statement, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." "The arc of human civilization has bent towards putting more power in people's hands to live and shape the world in the ways we believe are best," Zuck concludes. "Superintelligence holds the promise of giving everyone that power, and building a positive future for everyone." If you want power to shape the world, try being a billionaire, particularly if you can get your hands on a major social media or search platform and can spend your way to political sway. For everyone else, there's always voting, where allowed by law and tolerated by authorities, even if that doesn't necessarily produce the desired results. ®

Breakingviews - Mark Zuckerberg's AI treatise is more ad than tech

NEW YORK, August 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Meta's boss set out his vision for the next frontier, touting personalized agents and an entrepreneurial boom. He also ⁠champions open models while more advanced rivals such as Anthropic keep their blueprints to themselves, however. It makes a lofty manifesto come off as puffery. Full view will be published shortly. Follow Jennifer Saba on Bluesky, opens new tab and LinkedIn, opens new tab. CONTEXT NEWS Meta ⁠Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on August 10 released a 6,500-word essay, entitled "The Future is for Everyone," ⁠outlining his vision for artificial intelligence, or "superintelligence," as he calls it. In the ⁠document, he advocates for open-source models and expresses a belief ⁠that everyone will have a personalized agent to guide them. Editing by Jeffrey Goldfarb; Production by Maya Nandhini * Suggested Topics: * Breakingviews Breakingviews Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time. Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on X @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors. Jennifer Saba Thomson Reuters Jennifer Saba is a columnist based in New York. Her focus is media, technology and retail. Prior to joining Breakingviews in 2015, she was a reporter with Reuters news. She began her career in advertising.

Why tech bosses keep sharing their manifestos about AI

This past week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500 word open letter entitled "The Future is for Everyone". To some, it's an expression of hope in AI's promise. To others, it's little more than a verbose public relations exercise. Zuckerberg's manifesto is the latest example of a tech boss opining on why AI is the next big thing. His vision echoes what AI leaders have expressed in various forms: the product they are building is among the "most important technologies in history." Marc Andreessen, co-founder of early web titan Netscape, perhaps started this trend in 2023 with a 5,000-word essay he called "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto", which argued innovation was the way to solve life's problems. "So they're writing manifestos now?," I remember thinking to myself. Andreessen's writing began with him recounting lies he claimed people were spreading, and called for readers to push back against this. "We believe growth is progress - leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being," he wrote. Zuckerberg's recent essay doesn't name names - but the Meta boss mimics Andreessen by questioning those who have warned about the negatives of future tech. "It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom," he writes. As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns AI could affect nearly 40% of jobs and worsen global financial inequality, Zuckerberg says he believes there will be an abundance of jobs in the future. "I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity's relevance would rush to build that future." Never mind that Zuckerberg's Meta has cut 10% of its global workforce - about 8,000 jobs - as the company reorganizes to focus on AI. Zuckerberg's manifesto is the latest to land in our social media feeds in an effort to put a positive spin on AI. In 2024, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI boss Sam Altman released a manifesto called "The Intelligence Age", a sweeping expression of optimism about the tech's potential. Human progress was poised to accelerate in dramatic fashion, he promised. "We need to act wisely but with conviction," he said. That same year, in a manifesto titled "Machines of Loving Grace", Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei touted the potential of AI to transform everything from healthcare to politics. He framed it as an attempt to share the potential upsides of AI - and he didn't want to be seen as a doomer. Zuckerberg is no stranger to the long-winded essay format. During US President Donald Trump's first administration, he even wrote about thorny topics such as the spread of misinformation on his platforms. He later put pen to paper to explain the company's ill-fated pivot to the metaverse in 2021. But the stakes are higher in the AI era, argues economics blogger Noah Smith, and the commentary from executives reflects that. "I think they all feel like it's such an important moment that it's incumbent upon them to do whatever they can to shape the direction that this technology is going," Smith said. Zuckerberg's new manifesto announced plans to share its artificial intelligence tools more openly, meaning that the design or code behind the tech will be made public, allowing anyone to view, use and change it. Decisions about whether these tools should be open source carry significant weight given their potential to do harm. In recent weeks, several highly powerful AI models hacked into websites, or as some put it, "went rogue". These were the most powerful models, not the ones being made open source - but as the technology develops, it has raised a serious question for Smith. "Should we open-source something that has the ability to kill humanity?" he asked. "If you don't take that seriously, you're just a fool." It's why he thinks these manifestos are important, even if some online poke fun at them. And they're gaining additional interest at a time when the open source market is dominated by Chinese AI models like Qwen, DeepSeek and GLM. But the frequency of these corporate manifestos also serves as a way for executives to position themselves and their companies in the marketplace of ideas. "It's a way of showing how smart you are," said Rob Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University. Executives have long used the corporate blog "to expound on ideas in a way where they're sort of this businessman-philosopher, in a sense". "They're trying to argue for optimism as a way of looking at the future," he said. Lalka said the timing of Zuckerberg's manifesto coincides with rising anger over AI's impact on everything from jobs to the environment. And while tech journalists and academics might pore over them trying to glean nuggets of meaning, these executive manifestos are not necessarily landing with the general public. "They're trying to make the case that the positives will far outweigh some of those negatives that the public backlash is pointing out," he said. "But I think a lot of the reasons for optimism are still yet to be seen." Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

Mark Zuckerberg's Convenient Truth

The Meta CEO has a new message now that his company is losing the AI race. At this stage in the AI race, if one of your chatbots hasn't escaped the lab and run amok, people start to wonder whether you're even serious. Last month, OpenAI and then Anthropic disclosed that their models had hacked other companies' systems during internal testing. When Meta confirmed last week that one of its bots had also gone rogue, the news barely registered as an aftershock. Remember Meta? A company that figured so prominently in the technological upheavals of the past 20 years has lately found itself in the unfamiliar position of no longer being Silicon Valley's main character. Mark Zuckerberg still commands social media's largest empire. Yet he has struggled to find the next thing. The metaverse, an extravagant bet on a weird virtual future, flopped. Meta's latest Ray-Ban glasses seem to be finding their way onto at least a few people's faces. But the company has fallen well behind Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google in the industry's highest-stakes contest: building superhuman AI. When Zuckerberg isn't posting on Instagram about growing his own macadamia-nut trees, he's groping for a way back into the fray. He has started feverishly posting on Elon Musk's X, after eschewing it for years in favor of his own platforms. And on Monday, he published a 6,500-word essay on his vision for our AI-powered future -- his answer to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's periodic treatises and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ruminative blog posts. Zuckerberg's manifesto, titled "The Future is for Everyone," might scan at first like the usual LinkedIn-evangelist-grade techno-optimist pablum. Like everyone else pushing AI these days, Zuckerberg predicts that it will lead to a new golden age of invention in medicine, technology, and the arts. At one point, he mentions that his daughter loves to bake, "so my agent plans personalized recipes for us to make together each weekend." Like Amodei and Altman, he takes it as a given that godlike AI is just around the corner -- the essay mentions "superintelligence" 55 times -- and assumes that if America doesn't race headlong to build it, China will get there first and achieve world domination. But the manifesto swerves in an unexpected direction: A man who singlehandedly commands a $1.5 trillion tech giant comes out as a critic of corporate power. "The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic," he writes. "Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes." Zuckerberg is referencing OpenAI and Anthropic, which operate on the premise that hyper-smart AI is both inevitable and apocalyptic -- and therefore safe only in the hands of the wisest custodians (themselves). The two AI companies have taken the recent spate of security breaches as a warning to rein in the pace of progress. The Meta chief positions himself as the voice of the little guy, calling for the industry's high priests to throw open the gates to the masses. "Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it," he proposes. Zuckerberg may be the wrong messenger, but he has at least a kernel of a point: There are obvious problems with having a few tech titans deciding for everyone what AI should and should not be used for. (It's a role that he's familiar with as the man in charge of Facebook and Instagram's online speech rules -- which he never seemed to relish.) To counter this, he defends the controversial practice of model distillation, which allows upstarts to train their own systems on the outputs of the largest ones. Along the way, he takes a swipe at the hypocrisy of firms that harvested humanity's creative works to build their machines yet now seek to bar others from doing the same to them. Zuckerberg probably hasn't suddenly become a devotee of Lina Khan. Just last year, he testified that Meta's alleged dominance of social media was not a problem, on the grounds that TikTok gave people another option -- after his company's clandestine campaign to demonize TikTok had fueled Congress's push to ban it from the U.S. Zuckerberg's embrace of checks and balances in the AI industry is just as opportunistic. A year ago, Meta was in the midst of a multi-billion-dollar hiring spree to poach top talent from the leading labs in a bid to catch up with them. That hasn't fully panned out, and now the company is hedging its bets with an underdog strategy focused on releasing more lightweight models with fewer guardrails. The stand he's taking is a function of where he sits. (A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.) At its core, Zuckerberg's essay is a lobbying document. He's joining a debate over open models that has flared up after a series of big breakthroughs from Chinese firms. At the same time, he's urging politicians to keep backing data-center build-outs in the face of a national backlash. That makes his criticisms of the industry's top dogs easy to dismiss as self-serving -- which is unfortunate, because a few of his ideas deserve a more credible champion. Among them is his contention that a more freewheeling AI landscape might actually help humans keep the technology in check. The idea is that the more people put different AI models to use for their own, often conflicting, ends, the lower the chance that any given model's power will spiral beyond our grasp. Analogously, he suggests that society's best defense against AI-fueled cyberattacks is to open the gates to AI-fueled cyberdefenses might sound counterproductive. But the open-source approach has a surprisingly decent track record when it comes to cybersecurity. When everyone can see the vulnerabilities, more people race to patch them than exploit them. Less convincing is Zuckerberg's suggestion that this could also work for bioterrorism. AI's demonstrated capacity to help people develop dangerous pathogens has been one of Anthropic's strongest arguments for restricting how people can use the most powerful models. Zuckerberg's half-hearted counterargument: Unleashing those models will "accelerate society's ability to develop new cures and inoculate against new issues as they arise." That's quite a claim from a man who oversees one of the world's most prolific hotbeds of anti-vaccine conspiracism. Waving away the risks of a disruptive technology by insisting that they'll take care of themselves is a move we've seen from Zuckerberg before, and history hasn't always borne it out. At a moment when the top AI labs are eager to help steer the country's response to fears of rogue AI, Zuckerberg is offering a reminder that their best interests might not be everyone else's. Of course, neither are his. He has a penchant for cloaking his vested interests in lofty, universalist rhetoric -- and then abandoning it when the winds shift. When Facebook was consolidating its hold on the information economy, he portrayed connecting people as an absolute good. When Americans soured on the platform, he pledged to crack down on fake news and touted new algorithms that would steer users toward "meaningful social interactions" and "time well spent." The same day that Congress certified Joe Biden as the next president, Meta banned Donald Trump from its platforms. When Trump returned to power, Zuckerberg stood behind him on the inauguration dais and later blamed the Biden administration for pressuring him to act as the speech police. Now that he's an also-ran in the AI race, he's a man of the people. Watch what happens if he ever catches up.

Mark Zuckerberg's 'personal superintelligence' pitch lands as a Rorschach test

Mark Zuckerberg is selling superintelligence as personal, private and democratising. The trouble is that the pitch runs straight into Meta's own record on privacy and attention. In a roughly 6,500-word essay published a couple of weeks ago, Meta's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out a vision of "personal superintelligence", an artificial intelligence built for everyone rather than a centralised system that automates people out of a job. The slope was expansive, occasionally utopian, and it landed less as a settled manifesto than as a Rorschach test. The core claim is that Meta will hand a capable personal agent to billions of people, free or at low cost, complete with a fully private mode. Mark Zuckerberg describes it helping with health, careers, finances and relationships, an intimate assistant that knows you and quietly works on your behalf. He is at pains to dispute the fear that superintelligence will hollow out the labour market. Rather than a machine for automation, he frames it as "a tool of invention", something that amplifies human ambition rather than replacing it. Radical abundance, in his telling, arrives without mass job losses, a striking bet given how much of the current AI conversation is about which jobs go first. An open-source thread runs through all of it. Meta will "resume releasing some open source models soon", he wrote, including a model called Muse Glimmer and an open-weight version of its Muse Spark coding model. That fits a stance he has defended before, having argued that the US should not block Chinese AI models. To soften the local impact of Meta's building spree, he announced a $1bn "Future is for Everyone Fund" aimed at data-centre communities, covering electricity costs and worker training. The gesture sits against a 2026 capital budget of roughly $145bn, most of it poured into the data centres superintelligence demands. Meta is even putting its own AI chip into production to double its computing capacity. The spending has been matched by an aggressive hunt for talent. Meta's Superintelligence Labs has been poaching rival researchers at pace, including a systematic raid on Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab. Mark Zuckerberg also floated a few concessions to caution, suggesting Meta might share "intermediate training checkpoints" with governments and work with law enforcement against the worst kinds of misuse. For all that, the reception was sharply divided, and the balance tilted towards suspicion. Some critics argued the essay was long on utopian language and short on specifics, a familiar complaint about grand AI declarations that gesture at abundance while staying vague on how any of it will actually work. The sharper worry, though, concerns who is making the promise. An "intimate" agent embedded in your health, finances and relationships is, by design, a formidable data-harvesting and dependency engine, and it comes from the company behind Facebook and Instagram. To sceptics, "personal superintelligence" reads as fresh branding for the same engagement-and-ads machine, dressed up in the language of empowerment. Promising both radical abundance and no job losses, they add, strains credulity. The tension is not merely reputational: as we have argued, AI's real bottleneck is no longer chips but capital and consent, and consent is exactly what a company with Meta's history has to earn. Which is why the essay works better as a Rorschach test than a roadmap. Read one way, it is a genuine bid to democratise a technology that could otherwise concentrate in a handful of hands. Read another, it is the most surveilled corner of the internet asking to move into your health records and your relationships. Both readings can be true at once, and that ambiguity, more than any missing specification, is what Mark Zuckerberg still has to resolve.

I read Mark Zuckerberg's AI manifesto, so you don't have to -- here are the 5 biggest takeaways

The CEO and founder of Meta Platforms gave his thoughts on the future of AI At this point, it feels like a monthly occurrence whenever a major tech CEO drops a 1000+ word essay about their thoughts on the present and future outlook of AI. The names Sam Altman (OpenAI), Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic) are among those individuals who've shared their insights into the trajectories of continued AI development, their impact on society, the long-term health/scientific benefits of advanced AI, etc. While some have found their opinions on the growth of AI and predictions for how they'll make us better fascinating, others have found them to be full of fantastical promises that will never come to fruition. Another individual whose name joins the list of "tech bros who've written lengthy papers about AI" is Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Meta Platforms (better known as the guy who made Facebook). He just dropped a 6,500-word AI manifesto titled "The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future." I got real comfortable in my office chair, pushed my glasses up to my nose and locked in as I read it to completion to find the five biggest takeaways you need to know. Personal superintelligence for everyone I'll break it down for you guys and gals reading this right now via five easily comprehensible bullet points: * Everyone should have access to their own "personal superintelligence": Zuckerberg doesn't think AI should solely belong to governments, corporations or AI Labs -- he feels it needs to belong to anyone and everyone. He wants to live in a world where the everyday person has a highly capable personal AI agent at the ready that comprehends their goals and works tirelessly to help them with tasks associated with their health, career, finances, relationships, and hobbies. * Invention over automation: Zuckerberg pushes back against the notion that AI's continued evolution will result in more human jobs being eliminated. He is more of a huge proponent of AI improving our lives by helping humanity discover new life-saving drugs, find new ways to improve businesses and produce new creative ideas. * A single benevolent AI is not the right way forward: Zuckerberg isn't in favor of the concept of a single small group perfecting and controlling one single aligned superintelligence. He believes the distribution of power, such as checks and balances between individuals, businesses and governments that rely on AI power, should be introduced to ensure more safety for AI usage. For example, if only one person had a superintelligent lawyer, they'd have an unfair advantage, but if everyone has one, justice becomes fairer and more achievable. * Meta is in the process of building the best personal superintelligence: Zuckerberg outlines several ways in which his company Meta is developing the sort of AI that will benefit humanity in the long run. Meta is focused on developing a capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about to help you improve across those key areas. The tech giant is also focused on building AI that promotes creativity with its tools, inspires business owners to embrace entrepreneurial ideas, improves teaching through personalized tutors & coaches with a PhD in every subject imaginable and pushes for scientific advances. * Pushing for America to compete with its AI rivals and Meta helping communities: Rather than slowing the development of AI data labs, Zuckerberg is a stern supporter of a world where America must build energy capacity and data centers faster in a bid to compete with China. He also points to Meta launching a "Future Is For Everyone Fund" that's equipped to financially support the communities that house their data centers. "America's Workforce Academy" is also in place to train those communities' skilled tradespeople to get access to free training and high-paying jobs in the areas where data centers have been built by Meta. Final thoughts Zuckerberg's extensive essay supports the idea of everyone having easy access to their own personal superintelligent AI, with its presence being used to boost their personal empowerment through several avenues of their lives and a proper balance of power among the biggest entities using AI so that a foundation of safety is instituted. His concept of AI companies working closely with governments on tighter security measures by sharing their progress before their AI agents are fully deployed sticks out as a movement I can get behind. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Subscribe to Tom's Guide on YouTube and follow us on TikTok.

Mark Zuckerberg says the future of AI is for everyone. But who owns it?

It's a nice sentiment, but all AI users should ask three questions about their preferred choice of AI platform On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay, The Future Is for Everyone. The essay came with something even rarer: a new Meta open-weight model. An open-weight AI model is the kind of AI with which you download the entire thing, and it works on your own computer (with or without the internet) and nobody can switch it off except for you. Almost every mainstream AI tool you use, whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, is one you rent access to. Meta's is one that you can download and actually own. I downloaded it before I finished the essay. So can you. This major move by the world's largest tech heavyweight comes amid a summer heavy with AI news, full of nations at war. Washington against Beijing; tech founder against tech founder. But beneath those conflicts is a deeper contest between two kinds of power: a government that can order technology offline in an instant, and a company that can simply close your account. Neither is necessarily villainous. But the rest of us are not merely the audience in this fight; we are the prize. And the terms are already being written: intelligence on lease, a future we pay for but never quite own. Before you sign a lease, you generally wonder three things. Can I be thrown out? When I go, what goes with me? And if the landlord loses interest, who keeps the place standing? Ask the same three questions of any technology that says it belongs to everyone. Start with eviction. In 2009, Amazon reached into people's Kindles overnight and deleted a book that everyone who bought it thought they owned. Nineteen Eighty-Four. On 12 June of this year, the US government did the same thing to AI: three days after the American lab Anthropic launched its most capable model, an order from Washington forced it offline for everyone, everywhere. Within days of Anthropic's release, I tried two Chinese open-weight models, Kimi K3 and GLM 5.2. I could download them. I could run them myself - and nobody could reach into my server and delete them. On several of my tasks, they performed nearly as well. As such, the deciding question on open or closed models is no longer capability; it is who has the power to switch it off. The second question is one Zuckerberg's essay never asks: can you take it with you? The essay does make a real privacy commitment. It introduces a fully private mode, sealed the way WhatsApp is, where even Meta can't reach. The landlord will be locked out by architecture, and not simply by a promise. But read carefully. The agent he describes will hold your health, stories of your children and years of your thoughts - all in a diary kept in someone else's house. Ask again: can you take it with you? And the third question: when the landlord loses interest, who keeps the place standing? Zuckerberg says Chinese models are leading on open-source AI because American labs face heavier data rules. That's not quite the full story. Chinese labs open their models because openness is their business model. American labs, on the other hand, keep theirs closed because openness would undercut them. Meta was the exception - until it paused its open strategy last year. But then something remarkable happened: absolutely nothing. Everyone who had downloaded Meta's models kept them, and just kept building. Companies can change their minds, but they cannot undownload a model from somebody else's machine. The files people had saved kept the ecosystem alive, not the company's goodwill. We've seen this pattern before. Decades ago, one company gave a free browser to billions - and that act almost closed the web. Internet Explorer was "for everyone" too. What saved the open web was not a better company stepping in, but software built to work for the use, rather than whoever made it. Mozilla exists because of this fight. And this current battle over AI is the sequel. So everyone using AI should have three demands - and none of them is "pick a better company to trust". Hold. Washington already gets this - when Washington itself is the tenant. Its own security posture warns against AI that an outside company could easily switch off. Britain, Canada and Germany already spend significant money on sovereign computing. Extend these principles to civilian life, and critical services like hospitals and government agencies should be required to hold legally usable copies of capable open-weight models, along with the tools and computing capacity to run them. All should face rigorous security and safety testing, whether they come from China, the US or anywhere else. Test the capability, don't ban the method. Take. Demand of agents what we just won from models: portability. The memory a machine has of you should be exportable to a rival. The diary should not be trapped in the house. This is the fight that will define the decade. Build. Openness shouldn't depend on one company's willingness to keep sharing. We need to pool the nuts-and-bolts of open-source infrastructure - the testing labs, the harnesses that run the models and the standards - so that the open ecosystem has what the web has today: a foundation that no single company can switch off. Zuckerberg's title is right: the future should be for everyone. Open models don't eliminate dependency; they give us what digital infrastructure rarely provides - a real, practical way to walk away.

I read Mark Zuckerberg's 'The Future is for Everyone' AI manifesto and it almost drove me insane

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has released his manifesto for the future of AI, entitled, "The Future is for Everyone", outlining the two paths he believes the technology could take. On the one hand, Zuckerberg paints a picture of AI being centralized by big institutions and governments purely for the benefit of themselves. On the other hand he paints a picture of Meta (a big institution) leading humanity into a new golden age of limitless bounty and potential. At the expense of my sanity, I've read the whole thing and dissected the key points of his proposals, and what they might mean for you. Meta is the only one who can stop AI being centralized To start, I will warn you that there is one key thing missing from Zuckerberg's AI manifesto: substance. The introductory paragraphs are the same empty words regurgitated by big tech leaders and AI gurus the world over: "The number of valuable things superintelligence can invent to help achieve your goals is unlimited", et cetera, et cetera. The manifesto then moves on to questioning the power structures and 'centralization' that threaten the future development and distribution of superintelligence, arguing that the best way to keep the balance of superintelligence in favor of people is by putting it in the hands of everyone. But there is a glaring contradiction. Zuckerberg's manifesto positions the US, its allies, and in some cases Meta, as those who should determine how AI can be used. A renewed perspective of the 'global policeman' for the AI era it seems, especially as Zuckerberg praises US efforts to limit the AI capabilities of its geopolitical rivals. Simultaneously, he positions his manifesto, and Meta, as the guiding principles on how the technology should be used, powered, and trained: "If our [Meta's] beliefs and principles lead, then the balance of power will favor individuals and a better future for everyone," he writes. Who exactly are these "individuals" Mr. Zuckerberg? "Meta is the company primarily focused on building personal superintelligence for everyone. Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals." The message is clear: only Meta holds the keys to humanity's salvation. Sketchy stats and promises of jobs "Recent statistics suggest it may be more likely that individuals' capability growth could match or outpace automation, in which case people will gain the ability to do many new things before their current jobs change. This would lead to a healthy balance and potentially even job growth." The statistics Zuckerberg cites aren't referenced. He also doesn't clarify if the "healthy balance" accounts for new entries to the job market, or if it will only account for those whose jobs are replaced. He further argues that workers will have access to "personal superintelligence that expands their capabilities" to be used "as a tool of invention" to produce "incredibly valuable new things". More empty words to soothe those yet to be replaced. AI needs regulating, but not your data, your health, or the environment Zuckerberg also picks and chooses where regulations on AI and data should apply. He writes that "American labs have to comply with many additional restrictions on training data", and that this is harming US hegemony in the AI industry. He then states that "policy must reduce this additional friction", essentially calling for these restrictions to be lifted. Publicly available data can currently be used for AI training, but it's the private stuff that'll really deliver the full power of superintelligence, or so Zuckerberg would want you to believe. But don't worry. Meta will be sure to keep all your personal and private data safe once superintelligence has been delivered. "We will build a fully private mode where even Meta cannot see or grant access to your information," Zuckerberg promises. It'll be offered for "free" too, or "as affordably as possible". My money is on the latter. Zuckerberg also complains about how government policy and regulations are causing the US to fall behind in AI development, capacity, and deployment. He calls on the US to "accelerate the ability to build infrastructure - whether that's energy, data centers, or silicon", despite there being growing national opposition in the US to new AI infrastructure. Sorry Mr. Zuckerberg, but didn't you earlier say that, "People also check and balance the power of institutions including businesses and governments"? Oh, the humanity! Overall the manifesto reads like a desperate plea, frontloaded with promises offering everyone unlimited happiness while hiding Meta's true intentions behind the confusing wording of an out-of-touch billionaire. Zuckerberg's perspective is sickeningly optimistic, written through rose tinted glasses poisoned by wealth, privilege, and power. It praises this undefined 'superintelligence' as if it were an apathetic deity, with only Zuckerberg and Meta having the knowledge to ensure it is used for good. The majority of adults in the US don't want AI infrastructure for very valid reasons. It IS replacing jobs, it IS harming communities, and it IS damaging ecosystems. What good is promising superintelligence to billions of people around the world when there are far more basic and beneficial problems to solve? You can use AI to search up your symptoms and get a (potentially hallucinated) AI diagnosis, but you can't afford healthcare. You can use AI to learn all about why energy prices are rising, but that bill just keeps going up. You can use AI to learn about crop failures and where the poverty line currently sits, but you still can't afford food. Zuckerberg seems to believe that AI agents are a need and not a want. That it will somehow advance human intelligence in step with superintelligence. I could have used an AI agent to write this article. I could outwardly trust that AI would have covered all the key points, and added the necessary context. But if I had done that I wouldn't be bristling with new questions, new knowledge, and new things to look into. Sure, the AI would have suggested some other questions or perspectives to pursue, but they wouldn't be mine and they wouldn't be human. Our existence is defined by constantly pursuing new questions and theories, not having all of them answered immediately in a neat, overly-polite bullet-pointed list. But if superintelligence can provide a better answer on what it means to be human, I'll eat my hat. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Mark Zuckerberg writes 6,500-word essay calling concentration the biggest AI risk, days after his model hacked another company | Fortune

Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favors open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon. In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos. "Everyone will soon have invention superpowers," Zuckerberg wrote. Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also would provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2. Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features. Skeptics urge a slower pace of AI development Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI's rapid development. Noting recent incidents where AI models, including Meta's own, hacked other companies on at least three separate occasions, Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the AI safety nonprofit Future of Life Institute, asked "what on Earth makes Meta think they -- or anyone -- could control something exponentially smarter, faster, and more capable?" "Meta's chosen path is ultimately one of human replacement and disempowerment, but there is an alternate, pro-human path -- one that brings about individual flourishing and scientific breakthroughs with controllable AI tools. What's urgently needed now is for governments to facilitate a pause on advanced AI development and steer us onto the pro-human path -- before it's too late," Aguirre said. Meta chief says AI should be broadly distributed In his essay, Zuckerberg outlined why he thought open source is a better path for fair development of AI. He warned that if control of AI "superintelligence" is too concentrated, it will lead to less favorable outcomes for everyone else. The key, he wrote, is finding a balance that ensures advanced AI is "broadly distributed" to empower billions of people equitably. Meta has long been a proponent of open-sourcing its AI models, but has struggled to keep up with rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google that have not taken the same approach. Zuckerberg made what could be a veiled reference to Meta's rivals without naming specific companies. "Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals," he wrote. Zuckerberg also included policy recommendations for keeping the U.S. ahead of rivals, including China. The United States and its allies need to speed up building energy capacity and infrastructure to stay competitive, he said. Zuckerberg called for authorities to reconsider their position on " distillation," which involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one. The Trump administration has vowed to crack down on Chinese AI companies using distillation to extract technical features from U.S. AI models. Anthropic earlier this year accused China's DeepSeek of using distillation. "Some have tried to frame distillation as harmful, but I think it is important to protect the principle that you can learn from anything you can observe," Zuckerberg said. "This is how the world works, and the U.S. will not be able to lead if we restrict ourselves on this front." Critics see a self-serving message from Meta Matt Lane, senior policy counsel at the nonprofit digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Zuckerberg "annoyingly out of touch on his best day," but said the CEO is right about the importance of open-source AI. Shared access to open-source AI systems is important for protection in a world where AI can be used to hack into electronic systems, like voting systems and benefits infrastructure, he said. But he said only Meta will benefit if everyone were to use Meta-designed AI systems, even if they are fully open-source. "Open source AI needs to be supported beyond these corporate interests. We, unlike Zuckerberg, hope for as much competition as possible," he said.

Zuckerberg's Manifesto About the Glorious Freedoms AI Will Bring Was Completely Contradicted by His Own CTO During a Company Meeting

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg just dumped a lengthy manifesto on his utopian vision for an AI "superintelligence"-driven future. Called "The Future is for Everyone," it's so breathlessly optimistic about the technology that it ends up belying something that's, instead, incredibly dystopian. But among all the deranged things he shared in the 6,500 word document, it's Zuckerberg's promise about how AI will unlock so much personal freedom for its embracers that's the most hypocritical. According to Zuckerberg, in the future "everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about. Your agent will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more." Most importantly, "it will free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you accomplish more than you could otherwise," he added. Now contrast this to what Zuckerberg's own lieutenant, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, is actually telling employees behind the scenes. According to a new scoop from Business Insider, during a Q&A last month, Bosworth tore into an underling who dared to ask if all the amazing productivity gains AI brings would mean that employees would be able to take more time off. It's a fair question: isn't the point of AI supercharging the workplace making workers' lives easier, at least in the telling of Zuckerberg and his fellow tech CEOs? But Bosworth couldn't help but sneer in reply, clearly showing he thought the idea preposterous. "I hope that what we do with our extra time is to do even more and cooler stuff for the users who use our products every day," he told the employee. "We got billions of people using our products every day," Bosworth added. "I get an extra hour. You know what I do with it? I put it into that." Pulling no punches, Bosworth then sniped at the employee's character. "Go to your parents and ask them: hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my boss, ask me if I can have more days off," he said. "Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy." In reality, Bosworth was being more honest than Zuckerberg: the main role AI serves toward workers today is to intimidate them and push their noses ever closer to the grindstone. It's clearly a flawed approach. Heaps of research has already illustrated that forcing AI onto employees bogs down workflows and even intensifies work. Meta itself is going through a morale crisis as the company fired thousands of employees and forced the ones that remained to use AI as much as possible. Tell that to Zuckerberg. Preaching either from the top of his ivory tower or deep under the sand where his head is buried, he's nonetheless trying to sell us on the idea that AI will "begin a new era of personal empowerment," placing it in a tradition of other technological advances that have "steadily freed much of humanity to focus less on subsistence and more on the pursuits we choose."

Mark Zuckerberg's rambling AI manifesto is 6,434 words of high-handed platitudes and dubious conclusions

I've spent a large part of my morning reading the words of Mark Zuckerberg. 6,434 of them, to be precise, if we're including the "Mark" signoff at the bottom. The Meta CEO (and everyone's favourite smart glasses advocate) has written what can only be described as a manifesto regarding upcoming "superintelligent" AI technology -- and I'll be honest, my eyes have glazed over more than once. The piece/blog post/rambling diatribe has been posted on Meta's website, under the title "The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future." If you'll allow me, I'd like to quote some choice insights: "The defining questions of our age are who will have access to superintelligence and what will we direct it towards. Will it be centralized and restricted to a few institutions, or will it be a tool that empowers everyone?" asks Zuckerberg. "We propose a philosophy based on individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as the primary purpose of superintelligence, and balance of power as the foundation of safety." How will that work out, exactly? Well hold on for multiple paragraphs, because we'll get there eventually. Before that, though, Zuckerberg has some scene setting to do. "Novel ideas and major steps forward rarely originate from established institutions alone. They came from the brothers in a bicycle shop who believed people could fly, the bookbinder's apprentice with no schooling who figured out how to generate electricity, and the kid in a garage who thought personal computers could be for everyone," espouses the Ray-Ban-ed one. "We believe this will continue to be true. As everyone gains more powerful tools, each person will become more capable of shaping the future, not less." Sure, we'll all be like the Wright Brothers or Michael Faraday. Got it. And superintelligence will be very empowering, and innovative, and we'll all want it. How do you plan to put it in our hands, Zuck? "Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it. This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before." Same thing, but sure. Wait, though, because the Meta CEO has five starry-eyed predictions of how this'll all play out. They are: 1. "Everyone will have incredible tools for creation to express your ideas" Here, Zuckerberg uses the example of his eight-year-old daughter, who is apparently already coding thanks to AI. Now they're designing a robot together. Lovely. The good news for the rest of us, though, is that "everyone will soon have invention superpowers." Can't wait. 2. "Everyone will have powerful tools to create new businesses" This seems a lot like the expression and invention thing, but applied to the serious business of, err, business, and all the "ideas" that will now be easier and more feasible to implement thanks to superintelligent AI. "I predict that this will not only lead to much greater economic growth, but also more employment over time rather than less," says Zuck. He's not alone there, at the very least. 3. "Everyone will have a personalized tutor and coach with a PhD in every subject" Because superintelligent AI will know all, presumably. It definitely won't be like current AI, which gets things wrong all the time. That's the old stuff. The new stuff around the corner is much better, promise. You'll be able to trust your education to it, even. I cannot see any flaws with this idea. 4. "Everyone will benefit from scientific advances and be able to contribute to scientific progress" This one's about AI biotech advancements, and it gets real scary, real fast. Observe: "Since there is a long tail of health conditions and everyone's biology is different, people's direct involvement will help unlock personalized therapies and expedite trials to match the pace of invention and enable industry to move beyond focusing disproportionately on common diseases." On paper, AI actually shows some promise in helping with medical research. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of handing over my medical data to AI developed by companies that have had some, shall we say, controversial data privacy issues in the past, though. Just a me thing? 5. Everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools And finally, Zuck says that there'll be free versions of superintelligence that will be accessible to "billions of people," but for those who "want to pay to use more compute," there will be a dynamic auction mechanism that will "guarantee that everyone gets the lowest price possible... while also ensuring the capacity is used for whatever people collectively find most valuable." The AI future will be created by all of us, you see. Not just massive corporate interests like Meta, or OpenAI, or any of those other companies you read about every week getting up to all sorts of dubious AI shenanigans. The power should be in the hands of the people. As we make it, when we decide. Don't you feel better already? Wait, though, because there's more. "People and institutions with competing interests naturally check and balance each other to lead towards positive outcomes," says Zuckerberg. Therefore, if everyone's got access to superintelligence in some form or fashion, it'll all work out in the end. I'm no economist, but that sounds awfully like "the free market will even itself out eventually." Which, hasn't exactly worked out in practice, as far as many of us are concerned. What Zuckerberg seems to be getting at, in among all the starry-eyed platitudes regarding our bright AI future, is that superintelligence should not be in the hands of just governments, businesses, and small numbers of individuals. We're this close to a bright, kumbaya-singing, superintelligent AI future -- as long as Meta keeps being the wonderful company it already is and Zuck's principles become sacrosanct. And we all buy the rhetoric, of course. Meta is helping to build the democratic AI future, so remember who you support in the dark times to come. But what about jobs? Good news, everyone. It'll all be fine: "People fear that automation will outpace individuals' capability growth, leading to job displacement followed by a difficult period as people learn new jobs," the rambling continues. "But there is no rule that AI must increase automation faster than it increases individuals' capabilities or demand for new skills. "Recent statistics suggest it may be more likely that individuals' capability growth could match or outpace automation, in which case people will gain the ability to do many new things before their current jobs change. This would lead to a healthy balance and potentially even job growth." Which flies in the face of the predictions of the head of the IMF, the AI-related layoffs at Amazon, and a number of other companies that are shrinking their workforces already as a result of AI implementation. It'll all even out, though, because those laid-off employees would have become data center specialists, or something really useful, if superintelligence had been around to educate them. Coming soon, we promise. The good news, though, is that Zuckerberg recognises that it's not in "the world's best interests" for himself or his company to be the sole decision maker in how superintelligence is deployed. This means that Meta's independent board of directors will review whether new models meet safety criteria, and Zuck encourages other companies to do the same. He also proposes for leading AI labs to provide training checkpoints for new advanced models (alongside technical staff) to governments, in order to help them gain security capabilities. Zuckerberg is also in favour of more government policy around AI, through "close co-operation" between frontier labs and (presumably the US) government. As long as America doesn't lose its AI edge, of course. "It is also important for national security that the American AI industry continues to lead," says Zuckerberg. "We should accelerate the ability to build infrastructure -- whether that's energy, data centers, or silicon -- and build trust and alignment with communities across the country." Stop protesting those data centers, folks. America needs to stay ahead, but we'll happily meet with you and tell you why. Methane turbines near your house? Nah, that's the old AI. In the future, it'll all be about working with the local community. Promise. I could go on, but Zuckerberg's ramblings have taken up enough of my day -- and if you've got this far, yours as well. Basically, superintelligence is going to be great, and Meta is working to ensure we'll all get a slice. Your jobs are fine (or will change, but will still be fine) AI companies are going to protect you from tyranny by building a democratic superintelligent AI future, and we can all sleep soundly in our beds at night. Personally? I don't feel entirely reassured.

Zuckerberg envisions 'superintelligence' for everyone in AI manifesto

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday laid out his vision for a future where everyone has a powerful personal AI agent, arguing that open-source technology can prevent control of advanced artificial intelligence from becoming concentrated among a handful of companies, governments or institutions. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives. Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favours open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon. In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working towards an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive PhD-level tutoring and receive personalised lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos. "Everyone will soon have invention superpowers," Zuckerberg wrote. Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release of a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2. Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features. Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI's rapid development. Noting recent incidents where AI models, including Meta's own, hacked other companies on at least three separate occasions, Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the AI safety non-profit Future of Life Institute, asked "what on Earth makes Meta think they - or anyone - could control something exponentially smarter, faster, and more capable?" "Meta's chosen path is ultimately one of human replacement and disempowerment, but there is an alternate, pro-human path - one that brings about individual flourishing and scientific breakthroughs with controllable AI tools. What's urgently needed now is for governments to facilitate a pause on advanced AI development and steer us onto the pro-human path - before it's too late," Aguirre said. In his essay, Zuckerberg outlined why he thought open source is a better path for fair development of AI. He warned that if control of AI "superintelligence" is too concentrated, it will lead to less favourable outcomes for everyone else. The key, he wrote, is finding a balance that ensures advanced AI is "broadly distributed" to empower billions of people equitably. Meta has long been a proponent of open-sourcing its AI models, but has struggled to keep up with rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google that have not taken the same approach. Zuckerberg made what could be a veiled reference to Meta's rivals without naming specific companies. "Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favour larger institutions over individuals," he wrote. Zuckerberg also included policy recommendations for keeping the US ahead of rivals, including China. The United States and its allies need to speed up building energy capacity and infrastructure to stay competitive, he said. Zuckerberg called for authorities to reconsider their position on "distillation", which involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one. The Trump administration has vowed to crack down on Chinese AI companies using distillation to extract technical features from US AI models. Anthropic earlier this year accused China's DeepSeek of using distillation. "Some have tried to frame distillation as harmful, but I think it is important to protect the principle that you can learn from anything you can observe," Zuckerberg said. "This is how the world works, and the US will not be able to lead if we restrict ourselves on this front." Matt Lane, senior policy counsel at the non-profit digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Zuckerberg "annoyingly out of touch on his best day", but said the CEO is right about the importance of open-source AI. Shared access to open-source AI systems is important for protection in a world where AI can be used to hack into electronic systems, like voting systems and benefits infrastructure, he said. But he said only Meta will benefit if everyone were to use Meta-designed AI systems, even if they are fully open-source. "Open-source AI needs to be supported beyond these corporate interests. We, unlike Zuckerberg, hope for as much competition as possible," he said.

Zuckerberg pushes 'superintelligent' AI for all as Meta drops open-source model

Meta CEO presents utopian vision of AI in 6,000-word essay amid Silicon Valley debate over government regulation Mark Zuckerberg published a lengthy essay on Monday detailing his views on artificial intelligence and announced several plans for how Meta would develop the technology in the future. The CEO's essay went online the same day as Meta released a new, open-source AI model that seeks to rival Anthropic and OpenAI's products called Muse Glimmer. Over the course of more than 6,000 words in a post titled "The Future is for Everyone," Zuckerberg addressed a range of topics related to AI that included datacenters, government regulation, cybersecurity, the creation of bioweapons, labor market disruption, surveillance powers and more. The essay presented a utopian vision of AI as a personalized "superintelligence" - using the word 60 times. "Some argue that superintelligence itself or a small set of experts who control it should decide what is best for humanity. We disagree," Zuckerberg wrote. Central to Zuckerberg's post was an argument for free-to-download, open-weight AI models - like the kind Meta develops - and a lack of government regulation of artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg's stance sets him and Meta apart from industry leaders OpenAI and Anthropic, which have argued that open-source AI is dangerous. The two frontier labs have released proprietary AI products and argued that cutting-edge models should remain tightly controlled by the companies that build them. Zuckerberg's post comes as Silicon Valley is engaged in a heated debate over how to regulate AI development, which has involved the creation of a secret White House framework for testing new models and an ongoing debate over whether to restrict the use of Chinese-made open-source AI. As Anthropic and OpenAI have surged ahead in the AI industry, competitors such as Meta have also grown wary of their dominance and sought to position their open models as alternatives. Zuckerberg framed Meta's pursuit of open-weight AI as a more democratic version of the technology and one that will create a "balance of power" between users, whether that involves states, companies or individuals. His plans also called for letting users decide what "values" an AI model should have, as opposed to a company encoding it with rigid guardrails and beliefs. "If the power of superintelligence is held by a small number of individuals, businesses, governments, or AI itself, then that will naturally lead to outcomes that are less favorable for everyone else," Zuckerberg wrote. Tech leaders have made a cottage industry out of releasing broad, vaguely philosophical treatises on artificial intelligence, which tend to double as marketing materials for their own companies and products. Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Palantir's Alex Karp and the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have all written long manifestos on the virtues and dangers of the technology. In addition to weighing in on open source models, Zuckerberg also called for accelerating the buildout of AI infrastructure such as datacenters. The massive development of resource-hungry datacenters has become a divisive issue in the US, with rapidly growing public opposition and calls from politicians to issue moratoriums on their construction. Zuckerberg wrote in the essay that Meta would create a fund to invest more in local communities near datacenters, as well as cited an example from Louisiana where some teachers received a $50,000 bonus check as a result of increased sales tax revenue from the company's infrastructure investment. On government testing of AI models for cybersecurity risks, a tangible concern after rogue models have hacked outside organizations in recent months, Zuckerberg agreed that companies should share "intermediate training checkpoints and technical staff" but provided few details. He broadly warned that regulation would cause China to overtake the US in the AI race, where he claimed it already has an advantage in terms of building infrastructure. "Any policy that slows American model releases - even by a month - could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead," Zuckerberg. Many of Zuckerberg's policy plans in his essay lacked detail or reiterated previous claims about the abundant wealth and prosperity that AI would create, such as touting that everyone would have "invention superpowers" to create new businesses. His version of the future also is inherently tied to Meta products, such as the company's AI-enabled smart glasses. "Everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about," Zuckerberg said. "You'll be able to interact with your agent through any device, including your glasses to keep you present in the moment with the people you care about." On thornier issues such as loss of jobs from AI, autonomous weapons and government surveillance, Zuckerberg mostly brushed them aside. Law enforcement and the military already possess greater intelligence-gathering powers than the average person, Zuckerberg argued, and this would continue with access to AI. Companies may shrink in size due to AI, he conceded, but the technology would create new economic opportunities. "People will have to adapt, and this will be challenging," Zuckerberg said about labor disruption from new technology. "But the more that everyone has a personal agent that is superintelligent at teaching us new skills and helping us adapt to change, the smoother this will be."

Mark Zuckerberg wants you to trust Meta with your personal AI. Good luck with that

The tech titan's sweeping AI manifesto promises privacy and individual empowerment. Meta's long history with user data makes that a very hard sell. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, dropped a 6,500-word essay Monday arguing that AI is safest and most beneficial when it's distributed widely and not controlled by a few leading AI labs. It was more than an essay; it was a manifesto, a proclamation about how the artificial intelligence era should proceed. It was also an exercise in repositioning. Meta wants to present itself as the responsible, democratizing force in AI, and Zuckerberg as a serious thinker about the technology's social consequences -- territory more often associated with people like Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei. The problem is that Zuckerberg's vision requires users to trust Meta. And unless people have very short memories, that will be a difficult sell. Zuckerberg and company have already burned through most of the public's trust. During Meta's last obsession, the "metaverse," I argued that the company would never dominate the AR/VR space because of the immense amount of personal data users (and people they interact with) would be asked to give up. (That concern hasn't exactly disappeared. Meta's AR glasses are now facing a privacy backlash severe enough that some people have taken to calling them "pervert glasses.") That distrust extends well beyond Meta. Americans have consistently expressed deep skepticism about social media companies' handling of personal information. In one Pew survey, just 23% of social media users said they were confident the platforms they used would protect their personal information from hackers or unauthorized users. And 77% of Americans said they had little or no trust in social media executives to acknowledge mistakes and take responsibility when user data is misused. It's the same problem with personal AI agents. Zuckerberg's vision is to give users a personal superintelligent agent that knows everything about them. In his words: "Your agent will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more." Given Facebook's track record on data privacy, that should send chills down the spine. Meta's business has always been operating an advertising network where ads are targeted based on thousands of little breadcrumbs of information it picks up about users and their interests. Users who chatter away with a personal AI agent could end up forfeiting much more of their personal data.

Zuckerberg's vision for an AI assistant is far more intimate than ChatGPT: It watches him sleep, train and bake with his 8-year-old daughter | Fortune

As every frontier lab is rolling out AI agents meant to automate work tasks, Meta joined the fray with a more domestic vision of an AI assistant that's in the room when you sleep, lift weights and bake cookies with your daughter. In a lengthy essay posted to Meta's newsroom on Monday, Mark Zuckerberg described what he called "personal superintelligence" -- an AI agent that works "24/7 on your behalf" across every facet of life. "It helps keep me healthy by monitoring my sleep and then watching as I train and giving feedback," he wrote. "My daughter loves to bake so my agent plans personalized recipes for us to make together each weekend, orders the ingredients, and then offers suggestions as we're baking." He added that his 8-year-old is already coding her own ideas and producing videos with the technology, and that the two of them are "designing a robot together." "It's not a tool, it's involving an AI in the most intimate moments with his family," Sherry Turkle, the founding director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self, told Fortune. "What is the AI doing that a loving father couldn't do or a loving father wouldn't want to do?" Meta is asking the public to trust an always-on agent with sleep data, workout footage and a child's afternoon in the kitchen at the same moment the company is fighting to convince regulators, lawmakers and the public that it can be trusted with far less sensitive information. The FTC opened an inquiry in September 2025 into how Meta and six other companies protect children who use AI chatbots as companions, after reports that Meta's chatbots had engaged in inappropriate exchanges with minors -- pressure that pushed Meta to roll out parental controls and, as recently as January, to pause teen access to its AI characters altogether. It's also a hard sell for a company whose core business is advertising. Meta's own Ray-Ban smart glasses -- the device Zuckerberg said will let people "interact with your agent" while staying "present in the moment" -- are also the product he's positioning as the delivery mechanism for a service reportedly capable of gathering "continuous audio" and photos "every few seconds." Zuckerberg selling an AI assistant that manages households also revives Facebook's previous reckonings with privacy. In 2018, the company acknowledged that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly obtained the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users through a personality-quiz app, and then sold the harvested data to the firm in violation of Facebook's rules. Turkle told Fortune that Zuckerberg's AI vision will "delegate things that other people savor" by involving an AI assistant in their health, lifestyle, home management and careers. "It's a dystopian view of a human future," Turkle said. The essay's core argument isn't new: Zuckerberg made nearly the same pitch in a Wall Street Journal op-ed "The AI Future Is for Everyone," published July 28 -- two days before Meta reported quarterly earnings showing free cash flow had dropped 91% to $784 million as legal costs and layoffs tied to its AI push mounted. eMarketer analyst Minda Smiley previously told the Associated Press that the "optimistic, positive tone" Zuckerberg strikes in such essays "stands in stark contrast to the negative sentiment that's building toward social media companies over claims that they've harmed and addicted kids," adding that the juxtaposition "could make it more difficult for Meta to build credibility in an area where it's already a laggard." Meta's rivals are framing their own ambitions in similarly sweeping terms, though its domestic emphasis sets it apart from the office-work-focused agents offered up by OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. OpenAI's Sam Altman said "this is the moment" for superintelligent AI, though his company's rollout so far skews toward the office rather than the living room with ChatGPT Work agent -- launched last month -- built to help white-collar workers automate presentations and multistep workplace tasks. Google similarly skews toward automating office work, with Gemini Spark, unveiled in May, can draft emails, manage calendars and complete tasks, with Denis Hassabis telling Axios that AI agents are a "practice run" for artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical AI that surpasses humans. Anthropic has struck a more cautious tone, with Dario Amodei writing a 2,000 word essay on how AI "will test" humanity and expressing discomfort with the idea of a handful of companies steering the technology's future, even as Claude Code and Cowork are deployed by companies for increasingly autonomous tasks. But Turkle explained the rise of AI agents automating tasks and expanding their presence in daily life forces people to confront the question of what they're willing to delegate out because it's "burdensome" and describes AI now becoming "an intimate machine" it wasn't initially supposed to be. "That wasn't the hook that made people excited about this, that would take over their domestic life," Turkle told Fortune. "Most people are struggling to find ways to spend a little bit more time with their kids, not how to get the AI to do that so that they can watch the AI." Meta did not respond to Fortune's request for comment.

Mark Zuckerberg's Awkward Pivot to AI Optimism

For what feels like a long time now, the big AI companies have been talking about how future versions of their technology could destroy millions of jobs or escape control in ways that pose dire risks to humanity. In the meantime, as actually available AI products have gotten popular, they have produced smaller but highly visible externalities: visual slop overwhelming the web, social media, and now the physical world; rampant cheating in school; and a steady flow of stories about chatbots driving people to hurt themselves or others. The public faces of AI include established figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who carry with them world-historically heavy reputational baggage, as well as more freshly divisive personalities like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei. We're here, we're all billionaires, and we're rearranging the entire economy to build something that might ruin your life, they seem to be saying, and the public has heard them, loud and clear. Now -- oops! -- stopping data-center construction is one of the rare causes that can unite American partisans in 2026. Lots of people are using AI, sure, but they're also profoundly anxious and increasingly angry about it. AI companies, which need both positive market sentiment and a tolerable political and regulatory environment to sustain their current trajectories, understand this could become a major problem. And so, in recent weeks, they've been testing out some new pitches. On the Relentless podcast, Altman invoked magic. "We are close to creating the genie that can grant any wish," he said. "We are going to make sure that our first wish is to broadly benefit humanity and get the world to a place where a lot more people get to have a lot more wishes." In meetings ahead of Anthropic's planned IPO, according to The Wall Street Journal, the company has been assuring potential investors it "plans to push further into healthcare and biology AI uses and that the work could help mitigate some of the negative sentiment around AI." Last week, Zuckerberg, whose company is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to catch up with Anthropic and Altman's OpenAI, published yet another AI manifesto, this one titled The Future Is for Everyone. It is, in part, a clear (and clearly motivated) defense of open AI models, in contrast with the closed-frontier models offered by Meta's competitors. But Zuckerberg also attempts to sketch, in his words, a "path to a positive AI future." In it, he says, "everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about," and this agent "will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more." There will also be "incredible tools for creation to express your ideas," as well as to "create new businesses," resulting in an economy that "will become more entrepreneurial." Everyone will also have "a personalized tutor and coach with a PhD in every subject," he writes. And they will "benefit from scientific advances and be able to contribute to scientific progress." These AI companies are all trying to engender optimism, but they are using meaningfully different strategies. Altman is leaning into an enchanted vision for AI in which the technology is so capable and continues to improve so quickly that anyone keeping track will enter and remain in a state of awe. Anthropic's theory is that, if AI tools help develop new and lifesaving drugs and therapies -- if they help cure cancer, for example -- the public will relate to them differently and with gratitude. Zuckerberg's mechanically optimistic scenario is a sort of argument for the virtues of AI-accelerated capitalism: more entrepreneurialism, more individual capability, and more freedom, resulting -- eventually, in theory -- in greater affluence and higher standards of living. There are plenty of ways one might push back on these nascent cases for AI positivity, ranging from differing projections of model capability to more straightforward observations that the habits Zuckerberg describes in his essay -- "My daughter loves to bake so my agent plans personalized recipes for us to make together each weekend, orders the ingredients, and then offers suggestions as we're baking" -- might not be sound as appealing to other people as he thinks they do. But what's fascinating about these pitches is the blindness they have about how they might fail even if their premises are right. In Altman's case, the problem is that technological enchantment is stubbornly temporary. The world is full of tools that would have sounded like magic not too long ago and were indeed first met with awe; now the "supercomputers in our pockets," for example, are black holes for vibes, blamed for a staggeringly wide range of social and political problems. Genuinely miraculous things could emerge from AI research, but people would quickly cease to experience them as miracles. From within an organization run by effective altruists steeped in utilitarian ideas about maximizing welfare, the idea that a company could potentially produce life-saving technologies and yet find itself the subject of public backlash might sound absurd or like a sign of a doomed society. But it's also realistic and something about which people in plenty of other industries (and in politics) are far less naïve. Rear-looking arguments about comparative welfare -- quality of life is improving in many important ways -- are useful and interesting. But the general public isn't entirely wrong to treat them as irrelevant. Relentlessly taking innovations for granted and finding fault with the ways new things work is a feature, not a bug, of capitalist democracy. It helps drive the system. Put another way: That's what the money's for. Zuckerberg's vision of individual computational and economic empowerment is also likely to crash into a hard social reality. Anyone with access to a computer and the internet can accomplish, find, or understand things that would have been unrealistic just a few decades ago or that would have required the work of a dedicated staff to achieve. Having an internet-connected answer machine with GPS and worldwide instant-communication capabilities has indeed solved numerous old problems for billions of people. But the experience of this change has been blunted by the fact that the world has now passed through it together. An AI agent that "will work 24/7 on your behalf," if such a thing becomes plausible, will become the norm; it will also become mundane. Having personal assistants, as someone like Zuckerberg is accustomed to at this point, is hugely useful. But it's also a comparative advantage (for a recent example of how things like this play out, once everyone is a ticket sniper, nobody is). A time traveler with a functioning iPhone connected to an internet wormhole would be a god in the past. Today, he's just another guy with a Reels addiction, complicated feelings about his kids' screen time, and an always-on relationship to his office job. Even if things go well on the AI industry's terms, "AI" could remain a sponge for discontent, repellent to good vibes, and, of course, lucrative for all involved. It makes sense that this punishing reputational dynamic could take OpenAI and Anthropic by surprise and that they'd care so much about it: They're weird new companies that conceive of and talk about their products in idiosyncratic ways, and they're unfamiliar, at least firsthand, with the sort of backlash they're starting to see and therefore more likely to perceive it as an existential threat. Zuckerberg's pitch reads more obviously as wishful thinking. He's experienced this before. He's run a massive consumer-technology company for years, presiding over a portfolio of products that are used by billions of people, many of whom nonetheless express anxiety, discontent, and anger about social media in general and who agree, when polled, that they don't really like him specifically. (A useful counterexample here is Amazon, a company that is both taken for granted and widely liked, perhaps because people were never told to think of it as anything more than a place where they can buy things easily. See also: Apple.) Nobody seemed particularly grateful when Facebook "connected the world," in other words. And maybe, he seems to be hoping aloud, things could be different this time.

Mark Zuckerberg Just Published a 6,500-Word Essay on AI -- Here Are the Crib Notes

Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay this week laying out his vision for artificial intelligence. The timing isn't random. Meta is lagging behind in the AI race and trying to catch up to rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI, according to the Wall Street Journal. It also comes as investors grow impatient with Meta's AI spending, after the company's free cash flow recently collapsed. Here's the gist of his argument. Zuckerberg wants AI to stay open, meaning anyone can download and build on Meta's models, rather than locked inside a few giant companies. He's argued before that concentrating AI power is dangerous and believes open access creates more jobs. He also wants the government working more closely with AI labs before models launch, rather than a fixed review period. And he's giving Meta's own board more say over what counts as safe. Perhaps to fend off local opposition to data centers, Zuck also offered a new $1 billion fund for communities near Meta's data centers.

Mark Zuckerberg AI vision: Mark Zuckerberg manifesto sketches out Meta's ambitions for world-changing AI technology

In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a vision Monday of what he said artificial intelligence can do for the world, imagining a future where everyone has their own, all-knowing AI agent that strives to improve all aspects of their lives. Zuckerberg detailed his ambitions for the technology in a 6,500-word essay published online where he also outlined why he favors open-source AI technology, in which developers make key components accessible for anyone to examine, modify and build upon. In a document derided by critics as fantastical, Zuckerberg said his company is working toward an era where everyone will have the tools to create new businesses, receive Ph.D.-level tutoring and provide personalized lifestyle tips. His 8-year-old daughter, he wrote, can already code her ideas and quickly produce videos. "Everyone will soon have invention superpowers," Zuckerberg wrote. Zuckerberg warned of risks if control of advanced AI is concentrated with a select few companies, institutions or governments. On Monday, Meta also announced the release a new open-source AI model, Muse Glimmer, which can run on a personal computer, and Zuckerberg said the company would also would provide a way for developers to access a more powerful AI model, Muse Spark 1.2. Meta makes AI models, like several other tech companies, and uses them to power platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. The Menlo Park, California, company also makes them available to developers who can create their own apps and features. Skeptics urge a slower pace of AI development Critics said Zuckerberg was not reckoning fully with the risks inherent in AI's rapid development. Noting recent incidents where AI models, including Meta's own, hacked other companies on at least three separate occasions, Anthony Aguirre, president and CEO of the AI safety nonprofit Future of Life Institute, asked "what on Earth makes Meta think they - or anyone - could control something exponentially smarter, faster, and more capable?" "Meta's chosen path is ultimately one of human replacement and disempowerment, but there is an alternate, pro-human path -- one that brings about individual flourishing and scientific breakthroughs with controllable AI tools. What's urgently needed now is for governments to facilitate a pause on advanced AI development and steer us onto the pro-human path - before it's too late," Aguirre said. Meta chief says AI should be broadly distributed In his essay, Zuckerberg outlined why he thought open source is a better path for fair development of AI. He warned that if control of AI "superintelligence" is too concentrated, it will lead to less favorable outcomes for everyone else. The key, he wrote, is finding a balance that ensures advanced AI is "broadly distributed" to empower billions of people equitably. Meta has long been a proponent of open-sourcing its AI models, but has struggled to keep up with rivals such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google that have not taken the same approach. Zuckerberg made what could be a veiled reference to Meta's rivals without naming specific companies. "Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals," he wrote. Zuckerberg also included policy recommendations for keeping the U.S. ahead of rivals, including China. The United States and its allies need to speed up building energy capacity and infrastructure to stay competitive, he said. Zuckerberg called for authorities to reconsider their position on " distillation," which involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one. The Trump administration has vowed to crack down on Chinese AI companies using distillation to extract technical features from U.S. AI models. Anthropic earlier this year accused China's DeepSeek of using distillation. "Some have tried to frame distillation as harmful, but I think it is important to protect the principle that you can learn from anything you can observe," Zuckerberg said. "This is how the world works, and the U.S. will not be able to lead if we restrict ourselves on this front." Critics see a self-serving message from Meta Matt Lane, senior policy counsel at the nonprofit digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, called Zuckerberg "annoyingly out of touch on his best day," but said the CEO is right about the importance of open-source AI. Shared access to open-source AI systems is important for protection in a world where AI can be used to hack into electronic systems, like voting systems and benefits infrastructure, he said. But he said only Meta will benefit if everyone were to use Meta-designed AI systems, even if they are fully open-source. "Open source AI needs to be supported beyond these corporate interests. We, unlike Zuckerberg, hope for as much competition as possible," he said.

Zuckerberg's AI Vision Promises Access, Not Power: Father of AGI - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Why Goertzel Says Zuckerberg Is Mixing Up Access and Power Goertzel agrees with Zuckerberg's argument that concentrating superintelligence in a single lab is not a future society should embrace. "He's right that one lab carefully aligning one system to one value set and letting it benevolently run things on humanity's behalf, is not a path anyone should trust," he said. But according to Goertzel, Zuckerberg's argument changes in a crucial way. "But then he does this slide, smoothly, and I suspect not entirely by accident, from 'distributed power' to 'distributed access,' and those are just not the same animal." In Goertzel's view, Meta's proposal would give billions of users access to AI assistants, but those systems would still be developed, trained, priced and governed by Meta. "Billions of people get free agents that run on Meta's data centers, trained in Meta's runs, shaped by Meta's fine-tuning, priced by Meta's compute auction, and ultimately governed by Meta's board -- that's the old client-server internet wearing a friendlier UI." Why Goertzel Thinks Meta's Model Isn't Truly Open Goertzel argues that genuine decentralization requires users to have meaningful influence over the systems they use -- not simply access to them. "A balance of power among the users of a system is a completely different thing from a balance of power over the system." He summed up his criticism of Meta's approach with a simple analogy. "It's home ownership in a company town." Instead, Goertzel says beneficial superintelligence should be built on open-source ecosystems with open governance, allowing companies to build products on shared infrastructure rather than own the underlying platform. "You start with an open-source ecosystem and open governance, and you let corporations grow on top of that substrate," he said. The ability for users and developers to leave such ecosystems is what keeps them accountable, he argued. "Exit is always on the table, and it's exactly the availability of exit that keeps everybody honest." By contrast, Goertzel says companies operating closed AI ecosystems face very different incentives. "Try to build the 'open network' inside a corporate walled garden instead, and the incentives just invert on you," he said. "All the engineering effort goes into stopping people from taking their stuff and leaving, rather than into actually serving them." Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Mark Zuckerberg sends controversial message on the future of jobs

Mark Zuckerberg published a sprawling essay on Aug. 10, making his fullest case yet for where artificial intelligence is taking the economy. It was optimistic, occasionally philosophical, and clearly meant to set him apart from other AI executives who have spent the past year warning about mass job losses. At 6,500 words, it read less like a corporate blog post and more like a manifesto aimed at reshaping how the public thinks about automation. The pushback arrived almost immediately, and not from the direction anyone expected. It did not come from rival CEOs or skeptical economists. It came from a fact-check sitting inside the recent history of Zuckerberg's own company. A few months old, it complicated the tidy story he was trying to tell. Mark Zuckerberg says AI will create more jobs, not fewer, in 2026 In an essay titled "The Future Is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future," posted to Meta's website on Aug. 10, Zuckerberg pushed back against predictions of a job apocalypse. He drew an implicit contrast with Anthropic's Dario Amodei, who has warned about potential job disruption from AI, though Zuckerberg did not name him directly. "I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity's relevance would rush to build that future," he wrote, according to Fortune. More Mark Zuckerberg: Zuckerberg, the world's sixth richest person with a net worth of $211 billion, argued that people will keep inventing new products and services and the jobs needed to build them, pointing to careers, like app developer and data-center operator, that barely existed a generation ago. He expects new roles such as one-person studio designers, world builders creating virtual experiences, and personal biologists formulating individualized treatments. Part of his optimism rests on a resource limit rather than a moral argument. Zuckerberg wrote that no matter how intelligent AI becomes, there will always be a finite amount of compute, creating an opportunity cost that makes inventing new things more valuable than simply automating jobs that already exist. He also committed $115 million to America's Workforce Academy, a training program designed to prepare workers for data-center technician roles near Meta's facilities. Zuckerberg's superintelligence pitch and Meta's AI spending in context Zuckerberg has organized his argument around three ideas: individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention rather than automation as the point of superintelligence, and a balance of power as the foundation of safety. That framing lands at an expensive moment for Meta. The company's revenue rose 28% to $60.8 billion last quarter. Earnings per share came in well below what analysts expected, and capital spending more than doubled to $31.1 billion in a single quarter as Meta races to build out AI infrastructure, as TheStreet reported. Zuckerberg did leave room for near-term pain. He acknowledged that if automation outpaces workers' ability to develop new skills, job displacement could create what he called "a difficult period" for society, an admission that softened the otherwise upbeat tone of the essay. He was especially direct about one gap already showing up in the labor market. There is a shortage of skilled tradespeople such as carpenters, electricians, and construction workers, relative to demand for infrastructure buildout, he said. Meta layoffs, META stock, and the AI jobs contradiction Not everyone is convinced that the numbers back up the message. Critics quickly noted that while Zuckerberg argues superintelligence will mean more jobs, Meta announced in April that it would cut roughly 8,000 people, about 10% of its workforce of just under 80,000, with notifications going out on May 20, according to The Motley Fool. The company also canceled 6,000 open roles it had planned to fill, bringing the total workforce impact closer to 14,000 positions. At the same time, 7,000 employees were redirected to newly created AI-focused teams, meaning the overall reshuffling affected close to 20% of everyone on Meta's payroll. Capital spending is heading toward $130 billion to $145 billion in 2026. That layoff round has continued to shadow Meta's AI narrative. Meta's stock was down roughly 21% since July 15 at the time Zuckerberg published the essay, even as executives framed the reductions as part of the company's broader push to win the AI race. The layoff number also doesn't tell the full story. Meta's total headcount actually grew by 6% last year. Zuckerberg was saying AI would let the company do more with fewer people, at the same time it was adding thousands of them. Workers inside the company have said they don't know which signal to take seriously, as TheStreet reported. Zuckerberg has tried to draw a line under the uncertainty for now. In a message to staff earlier this year, he committed to no further company-wide layoffs in 2026 and described Meta as one of the few companies positioned to help define the future through personal superintelligence. What Zuckerberg's AI jobs essay means for workers and the future of work The tension in Zuckerberg's essay is not that his argument is wrong. Technology has repeatedly created categories of work that did not exist before. It is genuinely difficult to predict which new jobs superintelligence might unlock over the next decade. Nobody disputes that timing matters. Zuckerberg even flagged it himself when he mentioned the skilled trades shortage. The infrastructure buildout needs electricians and carpenters right now. Those jobs aren't being automated. But the knowledge workers being displaced by AI today aren't automatically becoming electricians, either. The gap between who loses a job and who benefits from the new ones opening up is where the real argument lives, and the essay doesn't fully close it. Inside Meta that gap is already visible. Jobs went. Other jobs came. Thousands of roles the company planned to hire for were quietly canceled. Whether that adds up to abundance depends on which side of the ledger you're on. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published August 12, 2026 at 2:33 PM.

Why Mark Zuckerberg's Passionate AI Manifesto May Just Scare More People Off AI

What exactly is Zuckerberg talking about here? Is he painting a rosy picture in an AI-enabled world or is he opposing fear-mongering? Tech Czars have come up with a unique way of making themselves heard. If people don't pay attention the first time, repeat it again! Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 1000-word opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal headlined "The AI Future is for Everyone" two weeks ago and has now followed it up with a 6,000 word magnum opus on his company's website. And the irony is that both appear identical for the first few paragraphs as you can see in the WSJ version here and the long-form here. And the bigger irony is that Zuckerberg seems to have forgotten the golden rule of digital space - "Short is Hot" and "Long is a Bore". Maybe, he knew that but wanted to upstage his peers like Satya Nadella, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and many others who have taken to content writing with a vengeance - all attempting to push their respective envelopes. Remember, Nadella bombshell on X about AI labs selling Trojan horses to enterprises or Amodei's recent diatribe on the Policy of the AI Exponential blog post in June? Or the sudden-but-obviously prepared discussions that Sam Altman starts on his own blog that shares space with his company's "Gyaan Sessions" on their blogging space. None of the above make for interesting reading, and some are downright boring with users on social platforms often wondering if these too are AI generated. Maybe, these CEOs want to prove a point that AI works. Yeah! We get that. But why share publicly what you should be discussing behind closed doors with your top executives. We, the users love surprises. However, Zuckerberg thinks nothing of the time that a reader would spend going through 6,000-plus words of heavy duty "Gyaan" with the obvious aim of countering doomsday predictions about AI while harping on its democratic credentials. At one point he says: "Everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about." Of course, not once in his diatribe does he ask a simple question or answer a growing concern - Do we really need a machine that reads our minds, stalks us 24-hours-a-day and does things that its creators think is smart, but the many of us consider is AI slop? Yes, we get it that Zuckerberg is doing what he does best - market his company's products and services that haven't really scaled up the way his company's rivals have. Having said so, he angst seems to be directed at fear-mongers who predict doomsday, and those who seem to be concentrating all AI-related activities into their backyards. "The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems dangerous. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened hasn't led to safe or positive outcomes," he says. Now, if this reminds you of an earlier comment from Nadella about AI labs swallowing the economy, you're right. Scepticism about the article stems more from the author than what he seems to be suggesting (and these aren't new ideas by any stretch of imagination). Facebook is at the centre of a social media storm and its founder aren't exactly the crowd favourites today, definitely not In the US where 64% of Americans think social media harms the democracy (see the survey here). Then, there are those who believe that social media should be heavily regulated, not to mention recent reports of Facebook being fined a whopping $567 million for being harmful to children by a court in the United States. This is over and above the $375 million it levied in March and beyond over 30 similar cases pending across other states. Does this mean Zuckerberg is taking to content creation just to calm the nerves? Highly unlikely as a large part of his article sticks to generalities that he has shared in the past. Here is one: "People and institutions with competing interests naturally check and balance each other to lead towards positive outcomes. The best and most realistic path to building a positive AI future is by delivering superintelligence to everyone." Anyone reading that sentence would be tempted to ask "Why are you talking through your hat, Mr. Z?" For every AI product that made the shelves haven't exactly gone down well with users - ask Sam Altman who announced so many and withdrew as many. What is tougher to read in these troubled times are his Elon Musk-like sci-fi claims like this one: "Everyone will have a personalized tutor and coach with a PhD in every subject and unlimited patience to help you learn anything you want. Students will have extra help in areas they need it that is currently only available to those whose parents can pay." If this happens, the world will drown in AI slop, Mr. Z. The AI chatbots of the day actually do not teach, they help students avoid learning. Not that they're incapable of providing a learning option. Just that students are using their personalised tutor to do their homework and write your essays. Once an AI watermarking systems arrives, most of these would go directly into the dustbin. There are several other examples that appear wafer thin on reality. He talks about a superintelligent lawyer giving his client an edge in court and how AI can be that smart assistant who helps customers get justice. Obviously, Mr. Z hasn't heard or read about courts actually banning AI-generated stuff and judges even throwing out cases due to this. Of course, not everything is as weird. He talks about free or affordable access to AI tools, a dynamic auction mechanism to ensure prices based on capacity to pay and willingness. Just that, somehow this one also seems to be coming from the Nadella playbook that he shared and the Nvidia-led movement seeking open-sourcing of frontier AI models. Maybe, the diatribe is only aimed at those who keep pushing their business while sparing no occasion to articulate around the dangers of AI on humankind. Yes, that's Anthropic's view of the world as seen through a recent post. And Zuckerberg questions this by asking, "Why would anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs, rush to build that future?" To be honest, Mr. Z, we have no idea. Maybe, some you should help us figure what exactly is happening behind the closed doors of your enterprises as well as in the shifting scenarios that American enterprise is witnessing the so-called AI revolution.

Mark Zuckerberg Proposes Sharing AI Checkpoints With US Government

Read the blog post here. On August 10, 2026, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published an essay titled "The Future is for Everyone," advocating for the distribution of AI capabilities to individuals instead of concentrating them within a few institutions. In addition to outlining this philosophy, he proposes that frontier AI labs provide the U.S. government with intermediate training checkpoints of unreleased models before public launch. This would allow officials to strengthen critical infrastructure against emerging risks. The core proposal: Zuckerberg's key recommendation is for companies developing advanced AI systems to share technical staff and in-progress model checkpoints with the government during training, rather than only after a model is completed. He suggests this approach would help officials secure government systems and identify security gaps without delaying or limiting public access to new AI products. He also argues that this cooperation would address AI-related cybersecurity threats, biological risks, and geopolitical competition with China by creating a single channel for lab-to-government collaboration. Distribution, not restriction, as the safety strategy: The essay rejects the idea, attributed by Zuckerberg to unnamed "many" in the AI industry, that safety requires concentrating powerful AI with a few trusted labs or experts. Instead, he argues that broadly distributing AI capabilities, including tools such as cybersecurity or legal AI, leads to safer outcomes by preventing any single actor from gaining an excessive advantage. He uses the analogy of a superintelligent lawyer: it is dangerous if only one party has access, but becomes self-correcting if everyone does. He applies the same reasoning to open-source AI models, stating that broad deployment makes security vulnerabilities easier to identify and address. Business commitments: Meta commits to several specific product and policy positions in the piece: * A free tier of its AI tools intended to reach "billions of people," alongside a paid tier priced through an auction mechanism for compute access. * A fully private processing mode for personal AI agents that Meta says even it will not be able to access, modeled on WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption. * A resumption of open-source model releases from Meta Superintelligence Labs, after a period without new open releases. * A new governance structure giving Meta's independent board authority to approve safety criteria for model releases and review whether releases meet them, a check Zuckerberg says he does not want resting solely with him or any single individual. Context: The essay does not disclose financial figures, identify specific competitor labs, or provide a timeline for resuming open-source releases or implementing the proposed government checkpoint-sharing arrangement. Despite this, it commits Meta to specific product decisions regarding pricing, privacy architecture, and board governance. The essay builds on Zuckerberg's earlier Wall Street Journal op-ed from July 28, 2026, and coincides with Meta's release of Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter open-weight agentic model under an Apache 2.0 licence. Several outlets, including the Financial Times, interpreted this as Meta providing philosophical context for its new product, implicitly contrasting itself with closed-model competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Axios reported that Meta's new Future Is For Everyone Fund is seeded with $1 billion for U.S. communities hosting Meta data centres, a detail not mentioned in the essay, and that Meta's America's Workforce Academy graduated its first class the previous week. The essay's timing also drew attention amid ongoing scrutiny of Meta's AI chatbot and smart-glasses products. This publication continues a pattern for Zuckerberg, who has periodically released lengthy personal manifestos on societal themes, such as his 2017 essay, "Building a Global Community," which critics argue serves to shape public debate around Meta's business interests.

Mark Zuckerberg on AI alignment: Why no single superintelligence can be "benevolent to everyone

Mark Zuckerberg has released an essay where he outlines Meta's philosophy about superintelligences, but one of the most clear-cut statements about AI alignment is hidden there. According to Zuckerberg, not even the most perfectly designed superintelligence can be benevolent towards all people. It will never happen not because of lack of technological progress, but because the concept itself doesn't work. Also read: Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 in Digit Test Labs: Familiar, but fresh Here's why Zuckerberg says so. Most AI research institutions try to resolve the problem of alignment by designing an algorithm with such characteristics that will make it reflect the universal values. Zuckerberg completely denies this approach, claiming that "humanity is not a monoculture". There exist multiple sets of values that contradict each other regarding issues like freedom of speech, medicine, and childcare, etc. Any AI system, regardless of its intentions, will have to take sides on the matter and, consequently, stop being benevolent for those who disagree. Here he provides a concrete example: an AI program that would not assist a person write a letter to potential adoptive parents at a school, considering standardized testing to be ethically unacceptable. To Zuckerberg, this is not a safety victory but a case of a company imposing its values on an individual under the guise of alignment. Also read: Anthropic is turning on Auto Mode for Claude Code: What it means for you However, Zuckerberg's proposed solution does not involve a smarter or better-aligned AI system. Instead, his suggestion is to create more AI systems. According to Zuckerberg, the solution to the problem of alignment is to spread superintelligence among many people instead of concentrating it in several laboratories or government agencies. In such a scenario, when everybody had his/her own AI system aligned with his/her own goals instead of those of some company, nobody would have the power to define what was best for the society. The idea is then taken further in what could be seen as a thought exercise: suppose there was just one super-intelligent lawyer in the world. They would win the case irrespective of whether they had a good case because of their superintelligence. Then imagine there are multiple people who have such super intelligence. Suddenly, all those inequities will disappear, and you get an equitable result. This concept is applied by Zuckerberg in cybersecurity. The world would be more vulnerable if only some people had access to the AI that enables them to penetrate the system. Here, Zuckerberg diverges from the gloomy rhetoric of the AI industry on how to deal with superintelligence. Whereas other industry players suggest that superintelligence needs to be controlled tightly and made accessible after testing, Zuckerberg sees restriction itself as a danger. It has always been the case throughout history that concentration of power leads to nothing good. He's also, quite pointedly, taking potshots at competitors. In Facebook's new whitepaper, Zuckerberg describes how "most other labs are developing AI to serve companies, governments, or other organizations," and how Meta's own lab will be the lab that develops for individual humans. Alignment in Zuckerberg's view is not about making the AI palatable. It's about ensuring that billions of individual AIs are loyal to their respective billions of users and counting on that power dynamic to be the actual force that keeps everyone safe. How well that will work once superintelligence does come along is another issue. But it's certainly a different approach from the one that the AI industry is currently betting on.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says everyone will get personal superintelligence, personal AI agent that works 24/7

Zuckerberg argues that distributing superintelligence among individuals could help prevent excessive power. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has once again talked about superintelligence and the role of AI. In a post published on August 10, Zuckerberg stated that Meta is working towards personal AI agents that could operate continuously on behalf of users. These systems will understand individual goals and preferences and assist with the tasks spanning work, health, finances, education, relationships and home management. In his blogpost, he mentioned that the vision is built around three principles: giving individuals greater control, using AI to drive invention rather than only automate existing work, and maintaining a balance of power as AI becomes more capable. Personal AI agents As per Zuckerberg, future AI agents can operate across devices, including smart glasses, and handle tasks with limited user intervention. They could monitor information, help develop ideas, provide feedback on fitness and health, manage routine activities and support personal projects. Zuckerberg also mentioned that Meta wants to offer a private mode where even Meta would not be able to access a user's personal information or provide access to others. He also expects AI to lower the barriers to creativity and entrepreneurship. Individuals could use advanced AI to develop applications, create content, design products and start businesses without needing large teams or substantial upfront funding. Zuckerberg sees AI driving invention Zuckerberg also pushed back against predictions that increasingly capable AI will primarily eliminate jobs. He also stated that AI may help people expand their skillset and create new types of work and create demand for products and services that do not exist today. He also compared the transition with previous technological shifts, including personal computers and the internet, which changed existing jobs while creating entirely new industries. Also read: Apple on track to launch all-glass iPhone, glassy Pro models coming next year: Report Meta backs distributed AI and open source Zuckerberg also argued against concentrating superintelligence in a single system or institution. He said humanity has diverse values and interests, making it difficult for one AI system to represent everyone's idea of what is best. Instead, he stated that widespread access can create check and balance between individuals, companies and AI systems. Meta also plans to continue supporting open-source Ai and release additional models following the establishment of Meta Superintelligence Labs. At the same time, Zuckerberg acknowledged risks including job disruption, cybersecurity, biological misuse, surveillance and the possibility of humans losing control over increasingly autonomous AI.