Mark Zuckerberg believes superintelligence is going to be for all of us, but he wants the US government’s help when it comes to training data.
In much the same way that Vin Diesel spouts updates on Fast Forever that nobody really believes, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg continues to bang the drum for ‘superintelligence’, and not the Melissa McCarthy-headlined movie of 2020.
Zuckerberg, having given up on his metaverse dream that he insisted was the future, is inevitably all in on artificial intelligence. As someone whose books were harvested by Meta for its training data with no recompense to me, I have something of a vested interest in this story, and it’s best I declare that up front.
Still, Zuckerberg has posted a 6000 word plus screed on ‘the future is for everyone’, where he paints his picture of the AI-driven world he wants to see.
The reason he’s writing it is fairly clear a few paragraphs in, where he whines:
Still, it is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom. 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. The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic. Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes.
Notwithstanding the significant environmental damage that AI data centres are doing, and the unauthorised lifting of copyrighted work to train AI systems (imagine how it’d be if we all stole Meta’s work), there’s very much a PR problem here too. One fuelled by big tech companies doing pretty much what they want, daring governments to stop them, and then acting surprised when people don’t like it.
As my colleague Ryan Lambie wrote this morning, “It shouldn’t be legal to beta test AI technology on the planet without any prior discussion. Self-driving cars shouldn’t be being tested on public roads. Glasses that invade privacy shouldn’t just appear on the market without some sort of pushback.”
Yet here we are.
Zuckerberg now has a dream where “everyone will have an exceptionally capable personal agent that understands you, your goals, and everything you care about.”
Presumably with a Meta logo and 10,000 words of terms and conditions to allow our data to be used all built in.
Relevant to those of us who write words and generally create for a living, deep in the essay comes what feels like a key part of what Zuckerberg actually wants: a relaxation of copyright.
Appealing directly to the American government, and let’s face it, Zuckerberg has put in the hard yards there, he floats the idea of non-US companies taking the lead.
“Foreign labs currently hold several advantages here since American labs have to comply with many additional restrictions on training data,” he moans. “US policy must reduce this additional friction if we want American open source models to lead over time.”
Additional friction. One of those Orwellian nu-speak phrases that doesn’t take much scratching at to get to what he means. He wants to be able to train Meta’s servers on more copyrighted work, without fear of legal pushback.
Yet Meta isn’t a charity. It’s a business. Zuckerberg isn’t doing this out of benevolence. Meta’s annual revenue last year was $200bn. Zuckerberg himself is worth $187bn. He and his company can afford to pay for the material they want to use.
They just don’t want to.
This is one businessman, whose glasses are already raising huge ethical concerns, whose company is currently in court about its alleged lax attitude towards the young, asking for more. And more. And more.
He isn’t a government official. He isn’t sacrificing his own $187bn to do this. Instead, he just wants free access to more of my books, lest “foreign labs” knock one percent off his share price.
As Ryan notes, “The way they’ve gone about this has been absolutely terrible. Smug, indifferent to how it might affect people, arrogant in the assumption that we’ll just buy into it if we’re cajoled and threatened enough.”
I don’t think Mr Zuckerberg’s latest words help.
Maybe he should just spend his money on Fast Forever instead, and we can knock stories about him and Vin Diesel’s attempts to get that film moving on the head.
