Zuckerberg's at it again. He initially dangled the prospect of a Ready Player One utopia. In this new metaverse, we’d be able to leave our boring, real lives behind and become sexy, perfect digital deities. Now, it's "personal AI superintelligence for everyone." Color me skeptical. Think back to when we were all dreamily thinking about teleporting into virtual conferences. We fantasized about purchasing tokenized digital real estate with the crypto riches! How's that working out for you?

AI Superintelligence, or Super-Hype Machine?

Let's be blunt: Meta's metaverse pivot was a disaster. Billions upon billions have been squandered chasing a metaverse that no one wants to go to. Not even a $50 million creator fund can create real buzz with users. Yet now, Zuckerberg wants us to fall for the idea that this time it’s different. This time, AI will cure loneliness and disease and solve every other problem in the world. He’s hoping to be the architect of our digital future, once more.

This goes beyond just creating a superior product. It's about control. Just like the metaverse promised a democratized digital world but was ultimately controlled by Meta's walled garden, this AI superintelligence risks becoming another tool for centralized power.

Think about it. Who decides what this AI learns? Who controls its algorithms? Who benefits from its insights? If history is any guide, it will not be us, the taxpayers. It’ll be Meta, deepening its already considerable grip on every aspect of our online existence.

DeFi Dreams, Centralized Nightmares

Remember DeFi and NFTs? They were lauded as the next iteration of finance and ownership in the digital world—disrupting centralized financial institutions, empowering creators, aligning incentives, and more. Instead, we received these bad actors, rug pulls, pump-and-dump schemes and as Jerry Garcia would say, a whole lot of nonsense. The dream of decentralization was overshadowed by the hype, and centralized exchanges continue to rule the space.

I’m starting to see a similar pattern emerging with AI. The promise is a wonderful new world of personalized assistants, AI-driven creativity and innovation, and artificial intelligence solving our biggest global challenges. Picture this reality where algorithms only compound bias we’ve already baked in. In such a situation, data privacy is quickly whittled away, while the rewards of AI only pour into the hands of those who have power over it.

Meta’s AI ambitions feel less about truly changing people’s lives for the better and more about keeping them relevant. This arguably reads as a thin cover for a reactive, desperate grab in a fast paced, competitive tech environment. The startup, again, is betting big—providing mind-blowing compensation packages to AI practitioners. This sounds a lot like the metaverse hype. In those days, cash wasn’t a consideration in the race for all the shiny new baubles.

Singapore Hawker Stalls & AI Monoculture

Consider, for instance, the iconic hawker centers that make up Singapore’s lively street food scene. Each hawker stall is a different flavor, a family recipe that may have been developing over the last 80 years. It's diverse, authentic, and community-driven. Now imagine one, localized, AI-driven mega-chain replacing all of those stalls. This creative culinary outpost specializes in offering dishes calculated by surprisingly lifelike computers to taste the best to the most people. Efficient? Maybe. Delicious? Doubtful. Soulful? Absolutely not.

That’s the danger we face with developing AI just in centralized labs. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck with a rather homogenized digital experience. In this version, we end up losing cutthrough and the human touch in a profit-is-priority model. Even Mark Zuckerberg thinks AI should help make the world “funnier, weirder, and quirkier.” I’m afraid it will go the other way, to be a pretty boring, predictable, and ultimately manipulated digital world.

  • Will AI help us? Maybe.
  • Will AI solve all our problems? Unlikely.
  • Will Meta deliver on its promises? History suggests caution.

We need to start having difficult conversations about who shapes AI. As a result, it’s vital to know how it is being created and what those possible implications are. So, we need to be mindful not to take Zuckerberg’s vision at face value. His record has turned out to be a bit of a bomb.

The promise of an AI superintelligence future is tempting, but we must beware the techno-utopian hoax. Don’t make the same mistakes of the metaverse. Now, let’s all continue to push for real transparency, accountability, and yes, real commitment to decentralization. If we aren’t intentional about this, we are going to build a digital god. Or it could look a lot like a runaway powerful corporation—which would be very, very perilous. But no one company should shape our future, no matter how noble their vision or deep their pockets. As always, the future is what you make it. Let’s make it happen—together, not on Meta’s terms.