Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, has published a detailed statement on the future of AI, arguing that company downsizing does not mean mass unemployment and that superintelligence should be democratised rather than centralised.
In a post, The Future is For Everyone, Zuckerberg said AI-driven company restructuring would not translate into mass unemployment.
"Company sizes may shrink, just as they did in the transition from industrial giants to tech companies," he wrote.
"But this doesn't mean fewer jobs overall. It implies a larger number of companies with fewer people each."
He argued the outcome depended on whether AI development prioritised automation or individual empowerment.
"If the labs focused on automating knowledge work lead, then I expect people and the economy will have a much harder transition,” he said.
"But if everyone has access to personal superintelligence that expands their capabilities, then that pushes the balance towards empowering individuals and a positive future."
The comments come after Meta cut 10% of it's workforce in April, closing about 6,000 jobs.
Zuckerberg argued the disruption to existing jobs would be offset by humans finding new problems to solve, pointing to the emergence of entirely new job categories, including app developers, social media creators and data centre operators.
"People have an infinite demand for new experiences and have always found new problems to tackle," he wrote.
"There is a natural balance in the economy between companies working to serve people's needs more efficiently through automation and individuals gaining new skills to serve more advanced needs.
“When there is a healthy balance, overall productivity and innovation increase while employment levels remain high.
“Recent statistics suggest it may be more likely that individuals’ capability growth could match or outpace automation, in which case people will gain the ability to do many new things before their current jobs change.
“This would lead to a healthy balance and potentially even job growth.”
Zuckerberg also used the statement to weigh in on the geopolitics of AI development, arguing that restrictions on training data were putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage against foreign rivals, calling on the US government to remove that friction.
"Foreign labs currently hold several advantages here since American labs have to comply with many additional restrictions on training data. US policy must reduce this additional friction if we want American open source models to lead over time," he wrote.
The statement stops short of addressing copyright directly, but the implication, that training data restrictions are a competitive handicap to be removed in the global AI arms race, sits in direct contradiction to the Australian government's announcement to strengthen copyright protections for creatives against AI companies.
Zuckerberg framed American AI dominance as a public good, arguing open and widely distributed models were preferable to centralised systems controlled by a small number of institutions, while making clear he believed that leadership should rest with American companies.
"Any policy that slows American model releases — even by a month — could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead. "
The vision he is racing toward is a world where superintelligence is as accessible as a smartphone.
Meta's stated ambition is to deliver personal AI agents to billions of people and small businesses, free or at minimal cost, agents that Zuckerberg said would reshape daily life in ways that go well beyond productivity.
"Your agent will work 24/7 on your behalf to improve your relationships, health, career, finances, home management, hobbies, and more," he wrote.
"It will free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you accomplish more than you could otherwise.
"It will have strong privacy and security options so you can trust it to handle all of your personal content knowing that no one else can access your information, similar to how encryption works on WhatsApp.
"You'll be able to interact with your agent through any device, including your glasses to keep you present in the moment with the people you care about."
For Zuckerberg, the stakes are nothing less than civilisational.
"The arc of human civilisation has bent towards putting more power in people's hands to live and shape the world in the ways we believe are best.
“Superintelligence holds the promise of giving everyone that power, and building a positive future for everyone."
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