Zuckerberg Slams Closed AI, Unveils Meta’s AR Glasses Roadmap

Mark Zuckerberg criticized unnamed AI competitors for their closed-source approach, suggesting they seem to think they are “creating God” with their limited access AI products.

Open AI as the future: Zuckerberg emphasized his belief in open source AI, arguing that artificial intelligence technology should not be hoarded by a single company to build a central product:

• He finds it off-putting when tech industry figures talk about building “one true AI”, as if they are creating something akin to God.
• Zuckerberg believes realistically there needs to be many different AIs created to reflect diverse interests, comparing it to how there isn’t just one app, creator, or business that people rely on for everything.
• He wants to “unlock and unleash” as many people as possible to try different AI approaches, seeing that as the essence of how culture develops, rather than being dictated by one group.

Expanding beyond smartphones: While acknowledging the immediate appeal of display-less smart glasses, Zuckerberg outlined a future product roadmap of three categories ahead of their eventual convergence:

• Camera and audio-equipped glasses that can provide multimodal AI experiences even without a display, at a more affordable price point than the current Meta Quest Pro.
• Glasses with heads-up displays as an intermediate step.
• Glasses with full holographic displays as the end goal, potentially controlled by a wristband that picks up neural signals to enable typing and interaction through minimal hand movements.
• He predicted smartphones will still exist in 10 years but with more intentional rather than reflexive usage as technological glasses take over many functions.

Analyzing deeper: Zuckerberg’s strong stance for open AI and against closed competitors with a singular vision could be seen as a veiled criticism of Apple, which reportedly rebuffed Meta’s attempt to integrate its AI into iPhone operating systems. However, his vision of AR glasses eventually usurping many smartphone functions seems to signal Meta’s strategy to circumvent smartphone gatekeepers by shifting to a new hardware paradigm it can shape from the beginning. The three-tier roadmap towards fully immersive glasses appears to be Meta’s answer to diminishing its reliance on other tech giants’ platforms. Nonetheless, mainstream adoption of AR wearables within 10 years, to the point of changing smartphone usage patterns, likely remains an ambitious bet given the social acceptability and technological hurdles that still need to be overcome.