Satire by Svet
Original article: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/?ref=404media.co
Oh, to live in 2026! Forests are being doused with glyphosate, birds are making nests on flock cameras, and Mark Zuckerberg has blessed us plebs with his manifesto about artificial intelligence, The Future is for Everyone. Every last one of its 6,000 words is used to persuade you that 1) AI is the best thing since sliced bread and 2) Meta is not like the other corporations - they’re actually very ethical, you know. Well, we’ll see about that.
Zuck starts off by promising the world to us: “Everyone will have incredible tools [for] self-expression, business creation & coaching”, “Everyone will [...] benefit from scientific progress”, “Everyone will have free or affordable access to these tools”. With this, he comes off as nothing but a snake oil salesman. As if to solidify the bad first impression, Mark declares that AI will be good for the job market, and data centers would actually be beneficial to local communities. This is so callously dismissive towards all the people who’ll be humiliated as the promised AI automation forces them to seek new livelihoods (or drives them out of their homes to make way for data centers) that it makes you wonder: is Zuckerberg even trying to not look bad?
It’s not long before we get our answer: Meta’s CEO says “companies [...] serve people’s needs more efficiently through automation”. You heard that right: when businesses automate everything to satisfy their own financial interests, that’s actually for our own good. Obviously, we are not the target audience of this manifesto. No reasonable person is. Rather, Zuckerberg is advertising himself to a category of people who, much like himself, have ideologically devoted themselves to ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’ over values like freedom, dignity or nature. Because this crowd is largely uncritical of technological developments, Mark can get away with extremely surface-level analyses of the risks posed by artificial intelligence.
For instance, he claims that “if people can use AI to invent incredibly valuable new things, then it will make more sense to allocate it towards that rather than automating existing jobs.”. Reality is quite the opposite: innovation always involves economic risk, whereas automation is, comparatively speaking, easy money for any enterprise. Across modern history, automation has been motivated by profit incentives - a fact which Mark glosses over, because it undermines his whole techno-optimist narrative. If our society is guided by the vested interests of corporations and governments, how can we nullify those interests and take back control over our own lives? Zuckerberg has no answer, and really couldn’t have an answer, because the ‘vested interests’ in question include those of his own firm, Meta. If he told the truth, he’d be shooting himself in the foot. Whenever he speaks of ‘using AI to our best interest’, it is not We the People he speaks for, but instead We the World Controllers[1].
So, in lieu of a real solution to the problems of AI, automation & technological progress, Mark Zuckerberg does two things. Firstly, to appear reasonable, he includes the classic drivel about ‘checks and balances’ - let’s play devil’s advocate and assume good will. Well, he immediately contradicts himself by arguing that “AI labs should work with the government and law enforcement to help identify bad actors”, practically begging for the rise of a new technocratic brand of authoritarianism. This mask-off moment is also why his guarantees that “AI will have strong privacy and security options” fall utterly flat.
Secondly, Meta’s CEO asserts that “everyone [should have] access to personal superintelligence”. In translation, this is really just an expression of Meta’s business strategy - selling as much AI to as many of us as possible. (Like all other businesses, their motto is simple: Just Make Money.) Zuckerberg maintains that this AI proliferation will somehow prevent large organizations from using AI to exert control over individuals, but this notion is quite frankly laughable. Any adult US citizen can buy themselves a gun; did this ever stop America’s praetorianist law enforcement agencies from using firearms as a tool for coercion? No, not to any reasonable extent. Large-scale organizations always get more out of industrial technology than individuals. Consider the fact that any average Joe can get something published online, but for the most part, only corpos and large NGOs have the firepower to make a splash in the media. Why would artificial intelligence be any different? Mark can’t answer - he’s busy fantasizing about how much power he can gain thanks to it.
It’s clear as day that all these defenses of AI are self-serving, because his manifesto is littered with many, many more mask-off moments. For example, he states that “American AI labs have to comply with [too] many additional restrictions on training data…” - as if there hasn’t been more than enough art fed into training algorithms without the creators’ consent.
Moreover, by claiming that “the answer to risks arising from new scientific discovery will be to accelerate scientific progress, not slow it down” he reveals just how fervently reckless his belief in technology is. Industrial technology has bestowed upon us the following: an unprecedented loss of biodiversity, a society deformed by isolation and mental illness, as well as unheard-of breaches of individual freedom and dignity thanks to surveillance & propaganda. So where the hell is this road of “progress” taking us? Zuck doesn’t really know, but he still stubbornly insists on hitting the gas.
If there was any doubt left about the self-promoting nature of his pamphlet, Mark pridefully assures us that “Meta is the company primarily focused on building personal superintelligence for everyone. Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions…” - a magnificent display of just how deep he’s got his head up his ass.
The fact of the matter is, they’re all the same. And they act the same because they’re all governed by the same principles. Since they’re all competing for power and influence, they treat human life (and all life on Earth) as an expendable resource. In practice, they’re all the same.
We’re all used to filtering out low-grade propaganda like this, but make no mistake: if you care about wild nature and human freedom, you can’t afford to fiddle while Rome burns. Zuckerberg spouts lies at every line of his midwit-manifesto; yet in doing this, he unveils the truth about himself, Meta and all the other billionaire technocrats.
They will stop at nothing to serve “progress”. Not progress measured by the biosphere’s wellbeing or humans’ ability to live independently in nature, but instead progress measured by the amount of resources extracted from Earth, or by the number of species driven to extinction.
They will turn emotions into algorithms and tragedies into statistics. They will bulldoze your neighborhood to build a data center and spin it as “development”. Then, when you protest, they’ll discredit you as an “anti-tech extremist” .
And you ought to take it as a compliment.
NOTES:
[1] World Controllers are the presiders overseeing the global government of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World. They hold the view that sacrificing human freedom is the key to achieving societal happiness.
Newswire by Svet