Zuckerberg criticizes competitors over closed source code of AI and says they are trying to “create God”

Speaking about how he sees the future of AI, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview with YouTuber Kane Sutter (@Kallaway) that there will be “just one AI,” TechCrunch reports. Emphasizing the value of open source in putting AI tools in the hands of many people, Zuckerberg took a moment to criticize the efforts of unnamed competitors he considers less open, adding that they seem to think they are “creating God.”

“I don’t think that AI technology is a thing that should be kind of hoarded and … that one company gets to use it to build whatever central, single product that they’re building,” Zuckerberg said. “I find it a pretty big turnoff when people in the tech industry … talk about building this ‘one true AI,’” he continued. “It’s almost as if they kind of think they’re creating God or something and … it’s just — that’s not what we’re doing. I don’t think that’s how this plays out.”

In the conversation, Zuckerberg said that there should be many different artificial intelligences that are created to reflect different interests of people. Speaking about companies that create closed artificial intelligence platforms, the Meta CEO said that he does not believe that this is the way to create the best experience for people.

In his comments, Zuckerberg seems somewhat offended, as his statements come shortly after Meta tried to negotiate with Apple to integrate its AI into iOS, macOS, and iPadOS operating systems to compete with OpenAI at launch, but failed. According to Bloomberg, Apple decided not to continue formal negotiations with Meta because it did not believe its commitment to privacy was strong enough.

Without the deal, Meta loses access to potentially billions of iPhone users worldwide. But it seems that Meta’s “plan B” is to create a technology that goes beyond use on a smartphone.

In the interview, Zuckerberg touched on the progress the company is making in the development of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, for example, saying that one day they will have a fully holographic display. However, he said that smart glasses without a screen will have more appeal in the short term.

“I actually think you can create a great experience with cameras, and a microphone, and speakers and the ability to do multimodal AI, even before you have any kind of display on these glasses,” he noted.

In addition, the lack of a display reduces costs. For comparison, Meta smartphones cost about $300, and the Meta Quest Pro virtual reality headset costs $1000.

Zuckerberg predicted the emergence of new products that could compete with smartphones: glasses with a display for augmented reality and fully holographic glasses. In addition, he stated that instead of neural interfaces for brain-connected devices, people will one day be able to wear a bracelet that will receive signals from the brain. This will allow them to communicate with the neural interface by barely moving their hand. Eventually, this could even allow people to type.

Zuckerberg warned that these types of data entry and experience with artificial intelligence may not immediately replace smartphones.

in the history of technology, the new platform — it usually doesn’t completely make it that people stop using the old thing. It’s just that you use it less,” he said.

As an example, he cited the fact that people now use smartphones to do things they could do on a computer 10-15 years ago.

“I think that’s gonna happen with glasses, too,” Zuckerberg added. “It’s not like we’re going to stop having a phone. It’s just that it’s going to stay in your pocket, and you’ll take it out when you really need to do stuff with it. But more and more, I think people will just start saying, ‘Hey, I can take this photo with my glasses. I can ask this question to AI, or I can send someone a message — it’s just a lot easier with glasses,” Zuckerberg said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if 10 years from now, we’ll probably still have phones, but it’s probably going to be much more intentional in usage as opposed to just reflexively reaching for it and grabbing it for any technological thing that you want to do.”