Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared more of his thoughts on the current state of artificial intelligence in a New York Times interview published on Wednesday, saying he is “skeptical” of how his Silicon Valley peers seem to be approaching the technology.
“So much of the discourse from a lot of the other labs that are developing this is overwhelmingly filled with doom,” Zuckerberg said, without specifically naming rival companies such as Anthropic or OpenAI. “There needs to be a voice or several voices that are bringing realism to this debate.”
“I think a lot of people have this notion that if you build some kind of singular AI, you can, through some idealized form of alignment, make sure it is benevolent to humanity,” he continued. “I’m personally skeptical of that path.”
The interview echoes Zuckerberg’s Tuesday op-ed with The Wall Street Journal — entitled “The AI Future Is for Everyone” — in which the billionaire detailed how a centralized AI framework could stifle our potential as humans, rather than empower us as a species.
The Facebook and Instagram boss instead suggests a “personalized” model able to be suited to individual users, as opposed to a singular benevolent one that would not be applicable to all. “I think it is literally impossible to have a single benevolent superintelligence that is simultaneously aligned with everyone at once,” he explained.
“I don’t know if the goal is to have everyone agree on everything … almost by definition, if you believe what I do, you don’t need to convince everyone of everything,” Zuckerberg concluded. “I believe the general arc of the industry has been toward more openness and putting the power of tech into more people’s hands, not fewer.”
His interview with The Times comes just a few days after Meta rolled out some new updates and capabilities for its AI assistant, including the ability to create daily updates for users, help with research projects and even access Google Calendar and Gmail.
