Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, the company behind Facebook, want to create a personal superintelligence. Their greatest asset: Users’ personal data. Because of this, they have an advantage compared to other companies that are also focusing on AI.
What is Meta’s goal? The long-term goal of Meta is an artificial superintelligence tailored to each individual’s personal preferences. An AI that can act smarter than humans and is set up based on the experiences of specific products.
To achieve this goal, Meta has been investing a lot of money in artificial intelligence development for years: by 2025, expenditures are expected to be around 73 billion, and for 2026, expenditures are projected to rise to as much as 135 billion US dollars.
Meta’s asset: Users’ personal data
What advantage does Meta have? The company has been collecting, analyzing, and monetizing a wealth of information from its users on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for years. And this data also forms the basis of Meta’s business model: Targeted advertising based on our online activities that we voluntarily share with Meta. Without this personal data, Meta would not have become the company it is today.
And this is exactly where Meta comes in: A personal AI. Chatbots, agents, and other products tailored to our individual lives and needs. As a social media giant, Meta already knows a lot about us and what we might want from personal AI. Zuckerberg stated (via cnet.com):
We are beginning to recognize the potential of AI that understands our personal context, including our history, our interests, our content, and our relationships. A large part of what makes agents so valuable is the unique context they can see, and we believe that Meta will be able to offer a unique personal experience.
The CEO of Meta/Facebook describes the massive integration of AI content as a fundamental upheaval in the social media landscape and has already stated that they want to increasingly focus on AI content on social media.
Criticism of Meta’s plans: However, the strong use of AI does not only generate enthusiasm, particularly in Europe. European data protection regulators have long criticized Meta, Zuckerberg, and their AI plans. The background is primarily Meta’s intention to use public content from Facebook and Instagram users for AI training without explicit consent. European consumer advocates consider this a massive invasion of privacy (via verbraucherzentrale.de).
Other, expensive plans from Meta have, however, seemingly failed: Meta invested billions in its metaverse. But five years later, Meta has laid off thousands of employees. This aligns with Zuckerberg’s statements that 2025 was to be the year of decision for the metaverse: Meta invested 73 billion euros in the metaverse, but now Zuckerberg’s dream seems to be failing
