By: Nick Gambino
Mark Zuckerberg wrote a blog post on Meta on Wednesday simply titled “Personal Superintelligence” in which he lays out his vision for the future of AI and its dependence on smart glasses.
He posits a future where AI is present in everything we do, absorbing everything around us, seeing what we’re seeing and hearing what we’re hearing. This superintelligent assistant will be ever present, helping us to engage with the world in a heightened state.
Or at least an approximation of a heightened state. We only have to be as smart as our ability to engage with the AI. As this new super bot will be doing a lot of the processing and problem solving for us, we just need to know what to say yes and no to.
Zuckerberg sees the future clearly but only through smart glasses. If everyone is wearing a pair of AI-powered smart glasses (like the ones Meta makes), this could very well replace the smartphone.
The trick is getting people to wear glasses. As someone who has a light eyewear prescription that has me only wearing glasses when I’m driving or watching a movie, I hate the idea of wearing glasses all the time. I guarantee I’m not the only one. I’d argue the aversion to putting something over your eyes is a big reason VR hasn’t completely caught on.
So I don’t how realistic it is to get the masses to agree to all wear smart glasses, but maybe there will be a more holographic version of this that isn’t so intrusive.
Other than that qualm, there is a philosophy that Zuckerberg and Meta are pushing that I do agree with. They want AI to be an assistant to humanity, not a replacement for it.
“This is distinct from others in the industry who believe superintelligence should be directed centrally towards automating all valuable work, and then humanity will live on a dole of its output,” Zuckerberg writes in his blog.
I’ve never been against AI. I essentially see it as a souped-up search engine, a digital assistant and an accelerant for tedious tasks. As long as we keep it in that realm, I have no beef with artificial intelligence.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of soulless corporations out there who value the bottom line over humanity and are all too willing to replace humans in entire endeavors simply because they can. An oft-quoted line from Jurassic Park feels appropriate here.
If only they considered “employment of people” as a key service or product they offer the public.
