Zuck puts pen to paper

There’s one more last-minute addition to your beach-read list: a 6,500-word AI manifesto by none other than Mark Zuckerberg.

Today, Zuck released a prolific proclamation on the “Path to a Positive AI Future,” in which he (unsurprisingly) doubled down on his perspective that AI is the answer to the world’s problems—but emphasized that no one central source of power should control it. As you’d expect, it was filled with the characteristic charisma and wit of Silicon Valley’s favorite fashionista.

We read it, so you don’t have to. Here are some of the takeaways:

• Meta is weighing in on the policy debate: Zuckerberg wrote that the government should be involved in reviewing new models before they’re released, to avoid slowing down releases.
• He added that Meta will release more open-source AI models, meaning that Meta’s coding and architecture are public.
• Zuckerberg also introduced a new self-governance system. Meta’s independent board will review new models and determine if they meet the company’s safety standards.

Meta’s reality check

Zuck’s PR efforts to rebrand AI come off as less than earnest when you realize something: It’s in Meta’s best interest to convince the masses that texting a picture of a rash to an AI bot will lead to exponential advances in medicine. In its Q2 earnings announcement just over a week ago, Meta reported that its free cash flow plunged 91% year over year.

The reason, of course, is capex: Meta is spending between $115 billion and $135 billion on building datacenters this year, up from $72.2 billion in 2025. Investors are growing wary that if Meta doesn’t make its AI dreams a reality soon enough, all that spending will tank the stock. Datacenter bans sweeping the nation could thwart that goal, of course. That’s partly why Zuck unveiled a $1 billion fund to invest in communities around datacenters.

There’s an even more meta (pun unintended) wrinkle: Everyone hates Zuck AI.

But luckily, Zuck quelled readers’ fears at the beginning of the manifesto by simply saying…that they shouldn’t have them. “Still, it is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Each time there is fear that people will be left behind. But each time humanity has come out with more people sharing greater prosperity, health, and freedom. We believe this will be true with AI as well.”

Now if you’re thinking: That sounds suspiciously like what ChatGPT would write about itself—that’s because Zuck is the closest anyone’s gotten to personifying AI in the flesh.—LB