Zuckerberg Accuses Rivals of Trying to Create AI-Powered God

"I find it a pretty big turnoff."

Idol Worship

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasted unspecified AI rivals for "creating God" in a surprising new interview.

"I find it a pretty big turnoff when people in the tech industry... talk about building this 'one true AI,'" Zuckerberg told YouTuber Kane Sutter during a new chat, referring to industry efforts to build an artificial general intelligence that would surpass that of humans.

"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," he said.

 

In the interview, he essentially argues that an AI god that does it all wouldn't be practical because people have different needs and interests, and this would require many different AIs performing different tasks.

He also criticized closed AI platforms and touted the benefits of open source AI, saying the latter would encourage people to create different AIs tailored for their own needs or those of others.

These comments come as Zuckerberg tries to position Meta in a lead position in the AI tech race, though the company has experienced stumbles as of late, including Apple refusing to integrate Meta's AI systems and Facebook getting larded over with AI-generated slop.

False Gods

Setting aside Zuckerberg's zingers against his competitors, what are the possibilities of AGI becoming a real thing?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AGI is definitely coming at "reasonably close-ish future," and he's prepared to spend an untold amount of cash to make it happen.

And apparently, OpenAI leadership had been so confident about AGI coming to fruition in the past that the company had seriously contemplated auctioning off its future AGI to governments like Russia and China — a move that should send shivers down the spines of every American policymaker or defense professional.

Shane Legg, chief AGI scientist at Google DeepMind, has said that there's a 50 percent probability of AGI coming to fruition by 2028.

But other experts like Grady Booch, an IBM Fellow and chief scientist for software engineering, has expressed skepticism, even telling AI critic Gary Marcus last year that AGI will never happen.

"I, being a historian of computing, have a rather jaded and cynical view of the hyperbolic optimism of our field and as such am somewhat conditioned to be a contrarian when it comes to predictions such as this," he said.

Whatever anybody's predictions, the future is not yet written.

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