Meta and Mark Zuckerberg must not be allowed to shape the next era of humanity

This is a pretty terrible article.

It talks about a lot of the bad things that Meta has done.

But it offers zero meaningful substantive ideas of how Meta and Mark Zuckerberg “must not be allowed” to do with AI.

Honestly the whole thing seems like a stream of consciousness rage post. The kind you would see on random tech forums back in the day when those still existed.

Also isn’t Meta and Mark planning to open source a lot of their AI work? Is the author saying that open source ai shouldn’t be allowed? Is the author saying anything at all?

Hmmm

> The company’s platforms have been used to fuel the spread of terrorism and violent extremism, mass violence and online harassment.

Why don't people criticize ISPs for spreading these through their infrastructure? Or criticize Apple and Google for allowing people to use their products to achieve similar goals?

I really want to see congress grill the CEOs of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. "What do you mean HTTPS? So you don't know? Unbelievable..."

Another area not discussed in the article is Meta's (especially on IG) suppression of Palestinian content. They're not alone in this of the social media companies, but they are the most aggressive.

This means that Meta, and realistically one person, Mark Zuckerberg, is able to have massive impact on even the conversations people are having.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/21/meta-face...

Jobs and Gates shaped the current era. If not Zuck (or Musk, or whoever), it'll be someone. We rely too much on "big ideas" to return to a time free of those influences.

The way I read this article it's an old guard of elite trying to warn you about the new guard of elite. The Guardian is bitter that real news does now flow through mainstream publications like theirs anymore, and they and their ilk are relegated to publishing sponsored opinion pieces. And then they accuse Facebook of the same, but at least on Facebook you can still find a variety of different sponsored opinions instead of just one.

At the end of the day, it's almost tautological that you wouldn't want to have any elite at all determining the future, because they won't have your best interests in mind. Duh! But I don't think that is possible, at least not with the current maturity of our social institutions. And as max_ said, these "tech bros" are the only ones with a vision and building something.

What about all the good things Facebook has done for us? Why don't we ever see articles about that?

> The company’s platforms have been used to fuel the spread of terrorism and violent extremism, mass violence and online harassment. Meta’s core products – Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp – enable human trafficking, drug trafficking and the illegal wildlife trade, along with the proliferation of child sexual abuse material and child exploitation. People use Meta’s social media and messaging platforms to spread propaganda, disinformation and information warfare, undermining the integrity of our information ecosystems and elections around the world.

I count about 14 claims in this paragraph alone and no context, argument, or justification for why it’s true.

This article seems to be a gish gallop: make claim after claim of how Facebook is the cause of all the world’s ills with little justification until the last paragraph, where you conclude by saying that Zuckerberg shouldn’t be able to do something that nobody was suggesting they do.

Well, it's not like I side with tech bros.

But tech bros seem to be the only ones that have an actual vision of the future.

MBA bros, Finance Bros, Academic Bros & Politics bros seem to have a very elitist static plan for the future. They seldom welcome nor foster any "disruption".

There is a misconception that scientific/academic community is a group for fostering new idea & allowing them to develop.

But what I learned was that scientific Communities are very conformist and often hostile to new ideas that wander far away from the grain. Almost every scientist I have studied has gone through a passage of ridicule.

Most recently, Katalin Kariko one whose work was instrumental in developing one of the COVID vaccines (mRNA). Listen to her short story here https://josephnoelwalker.com/147-katalin-kariko/ ( she also has published a biography you can read).

Anyways my concern is that alot of people complaining today are really spinless. It's fashionable to go after 'soft targets' like tech bros.

And be almost quite when it comes to people that are doing very serious blatant evil. We forget about XXX who uses NSO's software P*** to literary dismember innocent an innocent journalist with a bow saw.

But some how people don't complain about that. Our problem seems to be some guy that runs an app that allows people to watch twerk videos. And the bow saw entities are simply doing "cybersecurity"? And no one ever mentions or even knows the CEOs of companies that makes drones which bomb apartments occupied with innocent civilians?

Why only focus on Zuckerberg? There're more important players in the game.

But I guess that's to be expected from Guardian.

The Guardian must not be allowed to shape the next era of humanity

Way better Elon than zuck

Better the zuck than Elon.