Theo Asks Mark Zuckerberg Where Humanity Goes From Here

Yeah, like sometimes I think like, because I've been thinking a lot about this. I think a lot of people have. It's like, well, we're moving into such a, like technology is advancing so much faster, right? It's accelerating the advancement speed. And then we're just humans. And we're in this space now where there's like one generation to the next, where one generation was completely grown up online and one hasn't really. So I wonder, and I think the older generation probably sees it as like, man, this is so negative. Everybody's stuck. But I wonder if the younger generation, do they even know any different, right? You know, like just, I start to wonder, what is the value of being human? Like, what is the, does that start to dissipate as we become more technologically advanced? Or does that alter? Like, do you think about that sometimes? Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's gonna give people the freedom to focus more on the things that they want. I think that if you look at the arc of history, go back like, I mean, before, you know, in ancient times, life was like pretty brutal, right? It's like, okay, so then you go to like, maybe right before the Industrial Revolution where- They had team toilet paper at one time. They had like group toilet paper. And it was like- Yeah, that's, I mean, that's not good. That's not good. Yeah, and I don't think, I mean, I don't, you don't wanna, yeah, no, it's, I think anyone who has nostalgia for the past really is not taking into account the disease and the lack of hygiene that existed in the past. So I think that there's, so anyway, but pre-Industrial Revolution, I think some huge percent of the population was farmers because basically everyone needed to be focused on growing things in order to have enough food. Then we basically got to the point where, okay, now we can start to produce food much more efficiently. So that actually frees up a lot of people to not have to be farmers. Now maybe like 2% of people can be farmers. And 98% of people can do other stuff. So now we, people start doing more kind of other creative stuff and inventing new things. And at each step along the way, kind of like being a farmer is a really hard job, right? It's like, you're working like a lot of hours. And now as kind of people got more options, they took other jobs. But then we've also seen this mix where the percent of people's time that has gone towards leisure and entertainment has just steadily increased over time. And I just think that that's going to continue to be the case with technology. We'll have more stuff that will make it so that the basic needs are taken care of, which will free people up to do some combination of more creative jobs and not have to work as hard if they don't want to. But I think some people are going to like working all the time, like me. And you'll be able to do that too and get more done than you could have ever possibly done in the past. But that'll be sort of a choice. And- Well, since you're kind of like a leader in innovation and technology in our world, you know, do you, how do you know that what your convictions are? How do you gauge if what your convictions are are the best for everybody? Kind of like, how do you kind of figure that out? You know, it seems like such a challenge. Yeah, well- Does that make sense of the question? Yeah, no, I think I get what you're asking. I mean, look, at the end of the day, there are still a lot of options of things that people can do. Just because I build something doesn't mean that people are going to use it. Actually, a lot of the things that I build, some of them work, some of them don't. And like, I think part of the reason why the company has been successful is because, you know, maybe we have a slightly higher hit rate of things working than others. But it's kind of like, I don't know, in baseball, most people don't get on base most of the time, right? So it's like, running one of these companies, more of the stuff doesn't work than does. And if we do something that doesn't work, then in general, people aren't going to use it. And then the future doesn't go in that direction. I see, so you're saying it's up to the user more. Yeah, I mean, look, I kind of think one way to look at the world is that there's a version of history that says that individual people are very powerful and have a lot of kind of autonomy and ability to kind of go in the direction that they think is right. And then there's like all these other narratives where people try to kind of diminish people's autonomy and authority. And I'm just like, I've always been a person who really kind of believes that people understand, people are smarter than people think. And I think in general, are able to make good decisions for their lives. And when they do things that like the media or whatever thinks don't make sense, it's generally because the media doesn't understand their life, not because the people are stupid. Like if people are saying something that seems wrong, it's not usually misinformation. It's usually that you don't understand what's going on in that person's life. And I just think that there's like a certain kind of paternalism in some of the like mainstream narratives and some of the media narratives. But- Like a know-it-allism almost? Yeah, it's like- There has been for sure for years. I think it's starting to change more. Yeah, I think it's a little more receptive as maybe some of those cultural or media elite people like are having a harder time predicting what's gonna happen in the world. Maybe there's a little more humility of like, okay, maybe we don't understand all of this. But to me, the best predicting thing has always been like, if you build something, do people actually think it's good? Because at some level, it's like, I just believe that people are actually very smart and understand their lives very well. And if you're building something that is useful for them, then they will use it. And if you're using something, and if you're building something that is not useful for them, then they have other options. They will do something else. And so, I don't know. It's always served me well to generally have faith in people and believe that people are smart and can make good decisions for themselves. And whenever we try to adopt some sort of attitude of, oh, we must know better than them. It's like, we're the people building technology. That's when you lose, right? And if you have that attitude for long enough, then you just become a shitty company and you lose and you lose and you lose, and then you're irrelevant. So I tend to just think that at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, I think people are smarter than a lot of people think. And I think ultimately drive the direction that society goes in. So I feel like Elon Musk has like a, like he wants to get on Mars and he wants to like impregnate different planets or whatever, you know, or whatever he's doing, dude. He's just blasting his seat out into the different rockets or whatever. You know, he's just out there, you know, he's like the Johnny Apple solar system, you know? But- God bless. But no, God bless 100%, dude. And yeah, 100%. And I'm just joking. I think he probably would know that, but I just think it's interesting. Like you get his, you get what his ideas are. He wants to like, we want to be on Mars and we want to send the rockets and we want to make everything solar powered and stuff. And you're such an innovator and a leader. Like what is, what do you feel like is your kind of, it's not a goal, but kind of where do you, what do you, what draw, like what is the thing where you see us, you know? Like where you're at a point where like, man, this is what I'm really proud of. And this is where I see us going because, you know, we're all on this bus together going somewhere and we don't exactly know where we're going because it's the future. Yeah. But you're kind of, you're kind of one of the guys driving the bus, you know, or at least riding shotgun. So it's like, where are we going? I mean, I think different people just care about, about different parts of the future, right? So the space thing, I think it's cool. I'm glad that people are working on it. It's never really been my main thing. For me, it's all, it's, it's kind of been about the intersection of, of how do you build technology that helps people connect with each other and understand the world better. And, and just taking different formats over time, right? So when we got started, people, you know, were mostly like, you know, writing text. Then, you know, then we got smartphones and we got cameras with the smartphones. We started taking a lot of photos and sharing that. And now, now most of what we do is video, right? The mobile networks are good enough that you can like share great video. It used to be like 10 years ago, you try watching a video, it's like buffering, buffering. It's like, okay, this is, this is terrible. But now, now it's good. People always want to both kind of express their ideas and experience other people's ideas in whatever the richest format is that they can. So if that was going to be text, then that was the best that they had. Photos, visual, great. A picture's worth a thousand words. Video, better than photo for most things. But I don't think that's the end of the line, right? I just think we're going to be here, whether it's five years or 10 years. And I think the ability to like fully capture moments, to really be able to experience them. I think that's sort of the hologram thing that we're talking about. I think that that's just going to be like the next level of people being able to express like ideas. Like the next palette in their life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the next like blank canvas. So I think that's one thing. And then there's the whole AI thing, which we haven't spent as much time on. But we should, we should. Which that is really going to give people a lot of new tools to kind of both just get smarter at everything they do. And if you look at the world like I do through this lens of how do we express ourselves and how do we kind of take in an understanding of what's going on, AI is just going to be super powerful for both of those. You can already see some of the basic stuff with like people creating images or editing images. Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's crazy how fast it's happening too. That's what I'm amazed at is just how fast it's happening. Yeah, yeah. But do you think like, do you envision this like, are you just like, like what do you envision that will be on these like surfboards? Do you have like a, like kind of like a utopian idea or do, like, I just wonder how do you see things? Cause you're the only, like you're probably one of the smartest people to ever use thought. I don't know. Well that we, you know, are one of the most unique people to ever use thought that we have in our time. So it's like, how do you, what is it? What is it like out there? I mean, I think that we're going to get general intelligence. We're going to have systems that are smarter than, than any individual. And I think it's mostly going to be very empowering for people. First of all, look, I mean, there are already systems that are smarter than any one individual today, right? If you take like a company, right? It's like, okay, you got like a thousand people or 10,000 people who are all kind of like working towards, you know, ostensibly working towards a goal together. Like I, you know, if the intelligence of a 10,000 person company is not greater than the intelligence of a single person, then like, what are we doing here? Right? So there are already these systems in the world that have this sort of super intelligence that is far exceeds what any one person can do. And I just think like, instead of having relatively few people be able to kind of harness the power of like, you have the ability of, you know, you have a 10,000 person organization that can, that can help you build the things that you think are good. I just think in the future, almost everyone is going to have that. And that's cool. What does that mean? It means that more ideas are going to get tried out. So we might be up like leveling up in an overall idea of creativity in the universe with AI. Yeah. And I think it's going to be every field, right? So like science will get more advanced, like we'll get more productive. But like, I think a big part of the internet is stuff just gets more fun and funnier. And like the memes get weirder and more specific and like that is advancement too. It's almost like universal basic technology kind of in a way. It's just the ability to, to kind of express these like very complicated ideas in like a very simple piece of media. I think we're going to get better and better at that. And that advances our kind of understanding of ourselves as a society. So yeah, I don't know. I think we'll get super intelligence and I would guess that it will be a continuation of this trend that humanity has been on for a hundred plus years of basically getting more time to do creative things, less time having to do drudgery, not having to spend as much time working if you don't want. But if you want to dedicate your life towards that, you're going to have more powerful tools than you could ever have possibly imagined. So it's not as much a conviction as much as it is a space of choice is how you see that. Like just kind of that sort of thing. What do you mean? It's not like you're like convicted to this sort of like future as we advance. Like it's just a space of choice. If you still want to be able to do these things, you can do those. And if you want to be able to do these things, you can do those. Yeah. There you are on the bus right there. There you go. I mean, that's a little weird of a photo. I do not think that is good. I don't like that at all. And we, thank you for telling us that though. Horrible AI. Yeah, I think that was open AI, dude. So sorry about that. Do you think you will live forever, Mark? Is that a thought coming to your head? Oh man, that is an interesting question. I think- You have two minutes to answer then you have to leave. Yeah, no, I don't know. Live forever. Gosh, I think at some point we will, like a lot of, let me come at it this way. Our, outside of Metta, the philanthropy that I do with Priscilla, the Chan Zuckerberg initiative is primarily focused on curing diseases. And the way we're doing that is not by focusing on any single disease. It's by focused on kind of basic technology at the intersection of AI and biology to accelerate the pace of science. And we originally thought that kind of 100 years from when we started was sort of around the timeframe to be able to cure and prevent and like deal with all diseases. I know there's a chance that that happens sooner than, you know, because of all the work with AI. I guess I'm more optimistic about that now. That means that like, we are going to live forever or we just have healthier lives for the period that we're supposed to be living. And then at some point, like your human body is done. I don't think we understand that yet enough. But a lot of curing diseases is not just about living forever. It's about having better lives. And it's like, while you're alive, you don't want to have to deal with ----, right? It's like where you're just like, you feel terrible because you're sick or like you're injured or there's, you know, so- Do you think it's possible? Like do you, because you have an understanding of like science and being human, that is way supersedes a lot of people's. Do you think it's possible that we could figure that out? Curing all diseases? To be able to like live, to keep life. Like, do you think it's possible that we could figure out how to do it? I think it's possible. I don't know. It's honestly, it's not an area that I've studied that much. And it's- Just so you know, because we don't know. We don't know what's going on, Mark. And we just want you to tell us. Yeah. I mean, no, I don't know. I don't know. Let's check back in in 10 years on that. I think as the AI stuff makes more progress, I think we'll kind of get a sense of the trajectory for that. But I think it's just going to unlock a lot of creativity and productivity and fun.