tThe good news is that Mark Zuckerberg has grown tired of sounding like a response to AI’s “the benefit of a teenage villain” message. Bad? While the Meta overlord has moved on from the Caesar hairstyle that has sustained him since 2016, he is now leaning toward overt imperial monomania. At this week’s Meta Connect conference, Mark took the stage wearing a t-shirt that said Aut Zuck Aut Nihil. Either Zuck or nothing. The original was Aut Caesar Aut Nihil and it was enthusiastically adopted as a motto by one of the worst Borgias (difficult course)… but look, I’m sure that’s ironic. Mark is a very talented ironist.
We’ll get to the magic glasses and AI spam he was promoting at this week’s event in a minute, but before we do, let’s recap. Without a doubt, the most significant thing that Mark Zuckerberg has said this year is that he no longer has any regrets; in fact, that I wish I had never apologized for most of the things he had ever apologized for. I paraphrase only slightly. A couple of weeks ago, Zuckerberg appeared on stage for a podcast and called out Facebook’s willingness to safely offer apologies for things it wasn’t to blame for, like election rigging or the effect of social media on mental health. of adolescents, as “a 20-year mistake.”
“And I think it’s going to take us about 10 more years to get through that cycle completely,” he mused, “before our brand gets back to the place it maybe could have been if I hadn’t screwed it up in the first place.” Please: imagine the strength Meta could have if only she hadn’t been suppressed by extremely intermittent synthetic contrition.
The result is that we may never again hear Mark utter all those Facebook phrases asking for forgiveness: “we will learn from this,” “we know we have more work to do.” That said, the counterpoint to his regret is that he has been played pretty well. Sure, from time to time he has had to appear before Congress for hearings that are always described as “tense,” heated,” “fiery,” and even “dazzling.” But these have repeatedly proven to be nothing more than the theater of futility. Not a single federal law has ever been passed to regulate Meta or the other big tech companies. So the occasional few hours in Washington for a suited “my bad” have been the price paid for being the most powerful oligarch in the world, selling the lives of 3 billion monthly users through a platform that has incentivized hate, so… can’t you just pay it? Apparently not anymore.
Of course, you may be one of those who fears the idea of living in a world where Mark Zuckerberg is no longer willing to take responsibility for things. In which case, he has another world to sell you: the metaverse. Like many of the tech titans, Mark really offers an end-to-end service: they make the world worse and then claim to be leading the way. Elon Musk with his aspiration to Mars, Jeff Bezos with his space program, Zuckerberg with his virtual imitation of the real world whose historical improvement is that he controls it absolutely.
Without a doubt, this seems to be its only advantage. For a man seemingly without a cultural background, it is perhaps no surprise that the fantasy world that Zuckerberg’s signature has created is a place of utter conceptual sadness. We’re always told that the metaverse is a place where you can shop, have meetings, do real estate deals, attend conferences… I mean, honestly. Just add “reply infinite email” and you truly have simulated paradise.
We’re not there yet, Mark admitted this week; honestly, he’s right around the corner, but in the meantime he’d love to show you some augmented reality glasses and virtual reality headsets that are cheaper than the ones he asked you to buy. last time. Additionally, now that people are no longer posting as much on Facebook and Instagram, they will gradually start pumping their feeds with custom AI images created by Meta AI. Hmm. Ideally, over time we will completely eliminate the need for human signs.
Or as Meta’s founder prefers: “We are trying to build a future that is more open, more accessible, more natural and more based on human connection.” Continue. “Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology.” Historically, of course, there has always been another way to feel truly present with another person, which is to be truly present with another person. But this is not what the emperor would wish for his citizens. He prefers the atomized world, mediated by his machines. In one of the most lunatic moments of his event, Zuckerberg called an affiliated creator on stage, but then proceeded to have a conversation with an AI chatbot version of the creator on a giant screen, while the genuine article stood like a lemon. on stage, just watching. .
Watching this spooky spectacle, I was reminded of what Mark once said to a Facebook employee whose job eventually became ghostwriter. A kind of flesh and blood AI (very 1.0). She had asked him what he meant by the three-word essay prompt he had given her: “companies, not countries.” “I think we’re moving toward a world where we all become cells of a single organism,” Zuckerberg responded, “where we can communicate automatically and we can all work together seamlessly.” Phew. Well, there you have it. Who couldn’t be happy that a guy who thinks this Now he only regrets having ever regretted it.
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Marina Hyde is a columnist for The Guardian.
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A year at Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar. On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back on a political year like no other, live at London’s Barbican and broadcast live globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
