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Smart Things
Compiled by Chen Junda
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According to Zhidongxi on July 24, last night, when Meta launched Llama 3.1, the most powerful open source large model with 405 billion parameters, Bloomberg released an in-depth interview between Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and well-known technology reporter Emily Chang.

In this interview, Zuckerberg revealed his thoughts on how to build an open source platform. He said that the company had been constrained by platform companies such as Apple when developing products in the past. In this wave of technology, he hopes to build and control his own platform through Meta's investment in AI and VR/AR.And make Meta AI the most used AI assistant by the end of this year.

Speaking of Llama 3.1, Zuckerberg believes that this model can become a teacher for the customized models needed by many companies.In the future, he plans to create AI social media to help people complete some difficult social activities.Meta is already working on Llama 4.

The original Facebook company changed its name to Meta in 2021 and increased its investment in the Metaverse. Zuckerberg also admitted when talking about this decision,I didn’t expect AI to arrive before AR, but he still believes that VR/AR is one of the important technological trends in the future, and they are also preparing for it.

AI is an expensive game, and Sequoia Capital calls it "a $600 billion problem." Zuckerberg believes that the current AI fieldThere is indeed a problem of overinvestment, but historically,Many bubbles eventually become valuable, just not as quickly as people expected.Overinvesting now is preparing for the future while also avoiding the risk of falling behind in technology.

Zuckerberg's wife is Chinese-American, and he is also very interested in China. When talking about the competition between China and the United States in the field of AI, he believes that it will be difficult for the United States to maintain a 5-10 year technological lead over China.In fact, a 6-8 month lead is already good.He also opposes the United States' closed attitude towards AI technology. In his view, openness and decentralization are the factors behind the success of the United States.

Zhang Xiuchun also threw Zuckerberg a rather tricky question: What do you think of Altman (OpenAI CEO)? Zuckerberg tried to smooth things over in his answer, saying that Altman "does a better job than himself in dealing with public scrutiny."However, he also thinks it is a bit funny that OpenAI is doing "closed source" work under the name of "open".

Facebook has been controversial for its political content. Zuckerberg said that in this election year, Meta will reduce the political content recommendations on its platforms and pay more attention to the social attributes of the platforms. He will also reduce his political participation and will not take sides in this election.But he did find Trump's "life photo" ignited.

Outside of work, Zuckerberg is a father of three daughters., he and his daughters will use Meta AI to generate pictures and braid their daughters' hair, but according to his wife, the children dislike Zuckerberg's braiding skills. American teenagers are facing a mental health crisis. Zuckerberg said he knows the hardship of being a parent, and Meta will also provide parents with enough control to ensure that the operation of the social platform meets the expectations of parents.

The interview was conducted at Zuckerberg's vacation home on the shores of Lake Tahoe in the United States. He likes surfing and is also keen on combat sports, his wife Priscilla Chan said.Zuckerberg has endless energy all day longShe has to balance work, sports, and childcare, and she can't keep up with Zuckerberg's pace. But Zuckerberg's favorite thing is innovation.“Surfing is fun, fighting is fun, but building new things is the most fun”He is optimistic about the future of AI and technology. Although there are many challenges along the way, he believes that there are still unlimited possibilities in the future.

▲Zuckerberg was interviewed by Zhang Xiuchun at Lake Tahoe (Source: Bloomberg Original)

The following is a complete compilation of Zuckerberg's interview (to improve readability, Zhidongxi adjusted the order of some questions and answers, and made certain additions, deletions and modifications without violating the original intention):

1. Open source is to build its own platform and is determined not to be controlled by others

Emliy Chang: I found an article in the Harvard newspaper in 2003 where you discussed open source. Have you been thinking about this issue for a long time?

Zuckerberg: Yes, open source culture is an important part of the technology industry.Without open source, I wouldn't have been able to build the early version of Facebook.I was just a student before, and I didn’t have access to much funding. Students also have a “hacker mentality” and just want to get the code and use it for what they need, which is of course more cost-effective.

▲Article about Zuckerberg in Harvard newspaper (Source: Bloomberg Original)

Emliy Chang: Some people think you're not much of an open source advocate. Do you know why they think that?

Zuckerberg: Yes, I know why people think that. But Meta has always been a strong supporter of open source. This model is also very good for our company itself. Open source thinking is reflected in our server design, data center design. We also have the Open Compute Project, which standardizes a lot of infrastructure in this industry.A similar situation is also happening in the field of AI.

Emliy Chang: By open-sourcing your models, you have become an important force in the future development of AI. Behind this decision to open source, are you also considering influencing or controlling the next wave of technology?

Zuckerberg: Over the past 10-15 years, we have relied heavily on mobile platforms to build our applications, and these platforms are controlled by our competitors. It is precisely because of this competitive relationship that when we build something we think is good, we may be told by companies like Apple that we cannot release it or that certain features must be restricted.This was a big blow to us.

We are a big enough company now.I also made up my mind that I hope we can build and control our own platform in the next generation of technology development.AI is one of the key areas, and AR/VR is another important area. To control our own destiny and ensure that we can use the most advanced AI technology, we must develop AI technology ourselves and make it an industry standard. We can also make this technology more powerful by sharing our AI technology and building an ecosystem centered on it.

2. Meta AI aims to be the world's best AI by the end of the year. Llama 3.1 is the best teacher for models.

Emliy Chang: You are continuing to improve Meta AI embedded in Meta products, and you are also launching Meta AI as a standalone chatbot. Why did we choose Meta's products instead of ChatGPT?

Zuckerberg: We have done a lot better than ChatGPT. One of the features we are about to launch is "Imagine". My daughters and I have been using this feature frequently. Meta AI can generate images in real time while you enter a query.

Although Meta AI has only been released for a few months,But my goal is to make Meta AI the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year.I think we're on track now, with hundreds of millions of people using the product right now, and it's very likely that we'll achieve that goal before the end of the year.

▲Meta AI’s user interface (Source: Bloomberg Original)

Emily Chang: You released Llama 3.1, a collection of models of varying sizes, including the largest open source model ever at 405 billion parameters. What new things do you think this leap in parameter size will unlock?

Zuckerberg:Since this model is open source, I think people are mainly likely to view it as a "teacher" for other smaller models.,useThis model serves as a basis for training models for different applications.Startups, all companies, and even governments may need customized models. However, it is difficult for them to use the various closed-source models on the market to make customized models, such as Google's Gemini or OpenAI's models.

A core philosophy of our company is that we do not want a single AI to dominate the entire market in the future.Our vision is that there should be millions or even hundreds of millions of different models on the market. At the same time, I also believe that AI will not become God.If you are in an organization that believes it can create superintelligence, there is a good chance that you think you are “creating God.”But I think this view is both wrong and very unappealing.

We have nearly 200 million creators on our platform. They are all working hard to build their own communities, and users want to interact with them. I want each of them to be able to easily train their own AI and build AI according to their own ideas. This is like a piece of art that creators launch for their own communities, which can interact with the community while ensuring that the way this interaction is controlled.

3. Plan to build an AI social network, hoping to use technology to achieve better social interaction

Emily Chang: I want to understand your macro strategy and how it will be implemented. Will we have AI-generated influencers in the future? Will there be AI-generated text content, will AI-generated real-life avatars interact with each other? Do you want to create the world's first AI-generated social network?

Zuckerberg: Yes, all of the scenarios you mentioned before should appear. Creating AI-generated social networks is certainly part of it. In fact, this is already one of the top four use cases for Meta AI, and it is also one of the most interesting use cases.

People will use AI to role-play and simulate some of the more difficult social interactions.Whether it's in the workplace, such as asking your manager for a raise, or having some difficult conversations with friends or partners. I can even role-play with AI before today's interview to simulate this scenario. This is just a tool, and there will be no social consequences for your conversation with AI.

Emily Chang: But what evidence do you have that people actually want to live in this virtual world and socialize with real avatars, or that this is good for us?

Zuckerberg:I think people use social networks essentially to connect with others, and anything else is just noise.We have all this technology that allows us to be more social. When I first started using Facebook, it was mostly text. With the advent of smartphones, we started taking pictures. Improvements in mobile networks made it possible to share videos, which are much richer. Watching videos is a better experience, but I don't think that's the end. I want the experience to become more immersive.

4. Overbuilding is also necessary. AI is a valuable bubble

Emliy Chang: You renamed your company Meta, and you are currently investing billions of dollars in the Metaverse. Is our future development path the same as you envisioned? Are there any experiences and lessons behind your sudden change?

Zuckerberg: A big reason for our sudden shift was that we started to be classified as a pure social media application company.The Metaverse is definitely a long-term investment, and I think some things are going better than I thought, and some are going slower than I thought.Glasses are definitely an example of something that's going a lot better. They're stylish and a good pair of glasses in their own right. It's also a great form of using AI.

When we started this project, we had no idea that AI would become so important.We think AI might be something that will happen in 10 years. If you asked me five years ago, I would definitely think that AR would come before AI. So the reason behind our adjustment at that time was just to be prepared so that we could ride on different waves when they came.

Emliy Chang: Sequoia Capital calls AI a "$600 billion problem." A lot of investment has gone into chips, infrastructure, data centers, and so on, but when will we get a return on these investments? Do you think AI is a bubble? If not, when do you think we can start to profit from it?

Zuckerberg: I ​​think the idea of ​​a bubble is very interesting.In fact, over time, many so-called bubbles will eventually become valuable. It is just a matter of time.Even during the dot-com bubble, when network cables were being laid on a large scale, these things eventually became valuable, just not as quickly as people thought. I don’t know how AI will eventually develop, and it’s still hard to predict. But I think AI will become an important foundation for the future world.

I think a lot of companies are overbuilding right now, but this is a huge opportunity.Looking back, you may find that we have spent billions of dollars more. But from another perspective, I think it is rational for companies to invest in this infrastructure now. If they don't invest, they may be left behind in technology for the next 10-15 years.

5. Llama 4 research has begun, aiming to completely eliminate the gap

Emily Chang: You said your goal is to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). How do you define AGI? Will you achieve AGI first?

Zuckerberg: We are currently working on Llama 4.Our goal is to completely eliminate the gap between us and other companies.On the road to AGI, I think some important breakthroughs will need to be achieved, so it is difficult to directly predict whether we will be the first to achieve AGI.

There is no clear definition of AGI yet. But I think intelligence is diverse. It is not just a number, but has various aspects and modalities. I think one day we will achieve AGI, and we want to use it to create various AI systems to help people do what they want to do. I think this will be a good thing for the world in the end.

6. Critical thinking and value building are important. Playing multiple roles enriches personal experience.

Emliy Chang: What should children learn nowadays?

Zuckerberg: I ​​think the most important thing is,One should learn to think critically and build one's own values ​​at a young age.

This actually fits in with my own values ​​when hiring. If people have demonstrated their ability to do something deeply and well, then they may have mastered the learning skills and can easily learn things well. This is also true for other things.

Emliy Chang: You seem to be giving your all to everything you do, whether it’s working out, working on other projects, being a dedicated CEO, or being a dad. How do you find the time to do all that?

Zuckerberg:I think having a good balance between those things actually helps you do them better.I am indeed a very focused and demanding person, but I also consider the feelings of other people who work with me and will not focus too much energy on one project. I want to make sure that everyone has space to do what they want to do. The biggest benefit of being such a well-rounded person and constantly learning is that I can have many different experiences.

▲Zuckerberg holding his daughter (Source: Bloomberg Original)

7. The United States cannot maintain a 5-10 year lead over China. Only openness and decentralization can lead to sustainable innovation.

Emliy Chang: You have always been interested in China and you also learned Mandarin. What do you know about China's progress in AI and AGI?

Zuckerberg: I ​​don't know much about it myself. But the United States is indeed facing such a problem now. How should we deal with competition with China? There is a view that we should close all technologies.I think this is completely wrong.The success of the United States is based on open and decentralized innovation, which is how our economy works. But I think it is also necessary for the current industry leaders to cooperate with the US government to ensure that we continue to make progress and maintain our first-mover advantage in technology.

Emliy Chang: So is this how we win the AI ​​war?

Zuckerberg: The key question is, what do we want to achieve? Do we want to be 5-10 years ahead of China? I don't even know if this is a reasonable goal. This lead is difficult to maintain.I think a more reasonable goal is for American companies to maintain a long-term lead of 6-8 months over China through continuous innovation in the field of AI, which is already a great advantage.

8. Altman is better at PR than I am. The current situation of OpenAI is ironic

Emliy Chang: There are many players in this field. What do you think of Sam Altman's leadership?

Zuckerberg: He has made a huge contribution to the development of OpenAI. At the same time, I have been subject to public scrutiny and supervision like him. I have not handled these issues well myself, but I think Altman has handled them elegantly, and I think he has done better than I have.

But I think it's a little ironic that an organization called OpenAI is now the leader in the closed-source model space. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a little funny.

Emliy Chang: Whether you agree with these accusations or not, Facebook and you do face a lot of criticism. Why should we trust your AI?

Zuckerberg: We get criticized for a lot of things. We take those issues seriously and we're working on them. I'm not sure it's fair to treat us that way, but as an important company, scrutiny and regulation is generally good.

One of the definitions of open source is that anyone can review the product.I think that puts a lot of pressure on you to make sure the quality of the product improves quickly.

9. There will be no side in this election, and the company will reduce the recommendation of political content

Emliy Chang: I want to talk about the 2024 presidential election. Facebook has been a focal point in many elections around the world, and you were recently singled out by former President Trump. This is a major election, and what impact do you think this election might have?

Zuckerberg: This is obviously a very important election, it's going to be a historic election. The feedback I've received from users is that they actually want less political content on our platform. They use our service to be social, to stay connected with people, and that's what we need to do.We give people choices, but overall we're also going to reduce the amount of political content we recommend.I believe you will see that our products will not play as big a role in this election as they did in previous elections.

I have been politically involved in the past, but I don’t plan to be involved this time.I will not support either candidate.But there are some really crazy things going on right now. That photo of Trump raising his fist against the backdrop of the American flag after being shot in the face.This is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.

In a way, as an American, it's hard not to be moved by this spirit. I think this may be why many people like him. But the role of our company is to allow everyone to express their opinions on this matter. This is the role we should play best.

10. The mental health crisis cannot be blamed entirely on social media; the virtual world and the real world are not in conflict

Emliy Chang: The United States is facing a mental health crisis, especially among teenagers. The U.S. Surgeon General has called for warning labels on social media, saying that social media is partly responsible. Given everything you know now, does he make sense?

Zuckerberg: There is clearly a mental health problem in the United States. I think it's particularly important to address this issue for children and teenagers, and it's the right thing to focus on. I have three daughters myself, and they're very young. Being a parent is hard, and we just want to make sure our children have a good life. From that perspective, my goal is to build our services in a way that parents want, to give them the control they need to oversee how our services are actually working.

The results shown by the current data are different from the general perception.Many people act as if psychological problems are necessarily linked to social media. I don't think the research is there to prove that. The constant notifications from your phone may also affect your mental health, but that's different from social media. Of course, the problem exists, and we want to be part of the solution.

Emliy Chang: A lot of the things you’re doing now make the world more virtual, but you also love a lot of things in the real world. How do you balance these two goals?

Zuckerberg: I ​​don't know that there's any contradiction between the two. A group of people in the technology industry believe that we can extract our consciousness and intelligence from our bodies and upload it to the cloud. This is ridiculous to me.Part of what makes you human is that you are an active entity with your own energy, we are more than just what is inside our brains.Our energy and our love are very necessary things for human beings.

11. Surfing and fighting are fun, but building new things is the most fun

Emliy Chang: You have been doing this for more than 20 years. How long do you want to continue doing this? You already have a lot of things.

ZUCKERBERG: Yes.Surfing is fun, fighting is fun, but I think building new stuff is the most fun.At this point, I think about what I'm building in 10-15 year time frames. I think AI is probably 10-15 years away from being fully realized, and the same is true for the next generation of computing platforms we're working on. My guess is that by then, there will be new technologies that emerge.

▲ Zuckerberg drinks beer on a surfboard (Source: Bloomberg Original)

Emliy Chang: From the perspective of the entire technology industry, it seems that we are conducting a huge experiment on ourselves. How will this end?

Zuckerberg: I'm not sure there's going to be an end. I think there's going to be a lot of development in the future. I know a lot of people are worried about whether AI will limit our creativity, and I think the opposite is true.

When I started my business, I needed to know a lot of programming knowledge to realize my ideas, but in the future, we may not need this knowledge. You just need to express what you want to build, and the AI ​​system can help you write the necessary code. Of course, we will also face various challenges along the way.But I am still very optimistic about the future development of technology.

Source: Bloomberg Original