Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6500-word long article titled "The Future Belongs to Everyone" on August 10, systematically elaborating on the vision of "personal superintelligence." He argued that superintelligence should not be concentrated in the hands of a few institutions but distributed to every individual, achieving safety and prosperity through the balance of interests among individuals. The article envisions a future where everyone will have a Ph.D.-level, infinitely patient personalized AI mentor and a superintelligent lawyer. It also promises free or low-cost AI tools to billions of people, while high-computation users would pay through a dynamic auction mechanism.
However, TechCrunch published a comment article directly pointing out that this declaration actually exposes the core dilemma the tech industry faces in promoting AI accessibility — the lack of public trust. The commentary argues that when Zuckerberg outlined an ideal future, he deliberately avoided the real-world harms already caused by AI, and this selective blindness only exacerbates rather than alleviates public anxiety.
The huge gap between an ideal vision and a harsh reality
Take the education scenario as an example, it points out that the AI personalized tutor products described by Zuckerberg already exist — ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini all have the ability to assist learning. However, in practice, these tools are mainly used by students to write homework and papers, and due to the lack of a reliable watermark system, teachers cannot distinguish which content is generated by AI. When Zuckerberg describes the future of AI in education, he almost completely ignores such negative impacts that have already occurred. The refusal of one of the most powerful tech leaders in the world to acknowledge these real problems can easily make the public feel uneasy.
The legal scenario also has its controversies. Zuckerberg believes that everyone having a superintelligent lawyer will improve judicial fairness, but TechCrunch questions that AI could also create a large number of fraudulent lawsuits, increasing the complexity of the legal system. In terms of business model, the idea of dynamically auctioning computing power is not new, but if it directly affects the AI usage price for ordinary users, it may lead to a poor experience similar to dynamic price hikes.
Recent surveys show that 64% of Americans believe social media is harmful. Just a week before the declaration was released, a court had already fined Meta $567 million for harming children. The commentary pointed out that Zuckerberg's declaration spent a large portion of its content discussing the vague concept of "intelligence," and his way of argumentation is reminiscent of past ambiguous arguments about freedom of speech. Facebook, as a product, and Zuckerberg, as an individual, are not highly recognized among the American public. The controversies accumulated during the social media era are the root cause of current public anxiety about the impact of AI.
The declaration did not even acknowledge the trust deficit and try to repair it, but instead repeatedly showed how trust was lost in the first place. For tech companies to promote widespread acceptance of AI, they need not only to explain what value AI can create, but also to directly address its potential risks — precisely the part that Zuckerberg chose to avoid.
