Building The 'One True AI' Through Closed Source Is Like 'Creating God'

Mark Zuckerberg
CEO and founder of Meta Platforms, Inc.

Artificial Intelligence barely made ripples that disrupt other industries, and that it mostly captivated researchers and enthusiasts. But since generative AI came into play, things change. 

During the hype that followed the introduction of ChatGPT by OpenAI, pretty much all tech companies, large and small, race to create the best AI products and AI-powered tools. 

The arms race is fierce, lucrative, and alluring, even those that don't need AI in the first place. But in this race, some companies and developers began to derail from their original intentions. 

What started as experiments to develop better AI for financial purposes, some began attempting to create the 'One True AI,' which according to Mark Zuckerberg, is nonsense. 

In an interview with YouTuber Kayne Sutter, the Meta founder criticized rival AI companies for using closed source technology, and how they're trying to "create God."

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta.
"I get so tired of hearing from people in tech about building the 'One True AI.'" 
 
"They think they're creating God or something, but that's simply not what we're doing. I don't think it's going to happen." 
 
"I don't think building a closed AI platform is the way to create the best experience for people. I want to empower as many people as possible to try different things. And that's what culture is about. It's not about one group of people ruling for everyone."
 

According to Zuckerberg, that is not how things should be. Zuckerberg used the examples of Google’s Gemini AI and ChatGPT to make his point:

"We need to build a variety of AI to reflect different interests of people. I don't think AI technology should be monopolized or used by any one company to build a single core product." 
 
"The future is not going to be one AI." 
 
"It's going to be a lot of AIs with a lot of different people being able to create different things." 
 
"Our overall view is that this isn't the type of thing that there should just be one of." "People want to interact with lots of different people and businesses, and there needs to be a lot of different AIs that get created to reflect people's different interests."
 

Explaining his thoughts, Zuckerberg said that:

"When you're in an AI lab, it's tempting to feel like what you're doing is incredibly important - like, 'I'm building a single version of the truth for the future.' But in reality, things don't work that way." 
 
"There's not just one app on people's phones. There's not just one content creator. There's not just one business that everyone wants."
 

Because of this, he thinks that one AI for everything is not the solution. Since AI should be built to reflect people's diverse interests, a lot of AIs is needed.

"I don’t think that AI technology is a thing that should be kind of hoarded and […] that one company gets to use it to build whatever central, single product that they’re building."
 

So, instead of doing what others do, Zuckerberg said that Meta is working on multiple AI tools for different purposes. 

While Meta also has a primary Meta AI chatbot, and that project is here to stay, Zuckerberg said that his company is working on building a lot of different little AIs that will all have different purposes. 

It's only because of putting AI tools in the hands of many people, that Zuckerberg emphasizes the value of open source.