The meta is slowing down dramatically, but Zuckerberg argues that AI will not replace humans
Sales increase by 33%, revenues ranging from USD 58 to USD 61 billion. and revenue of $26.8 billion. (compared to USD 16.6 billion a year earlier). Although Meta is losing users, the past quarter may be considered a success, but the market reacted skeptically to reports of much lower investment outlays than expected. However, these are expected to increase in the near future due to the announced mass layoffs in the company. As many as 8,000 people will leave their jobs in May, and an additional 6,000 open positions have been closed. All this to free up funds for building more data centers and training new artificial intelligence models.
In a long Facebook post discussing what was said during the publication of the results, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned AI very often, at the same time pointing out that his approach to this technology is clearly different from the way people running other big tech companies think about it: – My view of artificial intelligence is significantly different from the opinions of many other people in the industry. I often hear that AI will replace humans. I think otherwise. I believe AI will enhance human capabilities to do what we want — whether it's improving health, learning, building relationships, or achieving personal and professional goals.
He also adds, in the context of the impact of AI on our reality: – People will become more and more important, not less important. Meta believes in giving people agency. These are the products we intend to build, and I believe they will prove to be some of the most important and valuable products ever.
He also pointed out how much hope he has in AI agents, which he has reportedly been using for some time – creating a once-high-profile AI CEO to help manage Meta. In the post, Zuckerberg wrote: – We are building a personal agent focused on helping people achieve their diverse life goals. We are also creating a business agent that will help entrepreneurs and companies around the world use our and other tools to grow, reach new customers and better serve existing ones. These agents will cooperate within one ecosystem.
Expanding on this topic, he also shared the perspectives and current results of the tests: – I believe that regardless of whether you use a personal or business agent to achieve your goals, the future will bring a huge increase in entrepreneurship – people will create things that they have always wanted to bring to life, but previously did not have the tools to make it a reality. We are already testing an early version of AI for businessand the number of weekly calls has increased tenfold since the beginning of this year.
Theory and practice
The vision presented by Mark Zuckerberg is, of course, an extremely attractive vision, and the declaration that AI is not supposed to replace people, but only support them, sounds very rational… at least until we look at it in a certain context. And this is that, apart from the mass layoffs mentioned this year, under which 10 percent say goodbye to work. the entire companythere have been several similar reductions in recent months and years. And all of them were done in the name of optimization, increased efficiency and the release of funds needed for the development of artificial intelligence.
In 2022, Meta dismissed as many as 11,000 people at once, and a few months later – another 10,000. In subsequent periods, there were several smaller reductions, which, together with the latest ones, give a shocking result – over the last 40 months, Zuckerberg has laid off between 30,000 and 35,000 employees.
An increasingly smaller team compensates for the loss of processing capacity by more active use of artificial intelligence in everyday processes. Using your own AI agents, which Zuckerberg appeals to his employees for, is a necessity in the current conditions, because reducing teams does not, of course, mean reducing the responsibilities of people who remain in their positions. It's quite the opposite.
Will there be more layoffs?
From the perspective of people employed by Meta, the biggest problem is that this may not be the end of layoffs. As Susan Li, Chief Financial Officer at Meta, recently admitted, the company is still in the process of evaluating what level of employment is optimal for it: — It is difficult to predict what company size will be optimal in the future. There's a lot of change going on right now, and with AI capabilities advancing so rapidly, we're strongly focused on leveraging these tools to significantly increase our productivity.
On the one hand, Mark Zuckerberg has beautiful visions of AI that does not replace humans, but only helps them achieve their potential, but on the other – in everyday decisions, together with the management board, he is guided by cold calculations and makes decisions that are largely contrary to this vision.
Meta, like other big tech companies, has been carrying out rapid employment reductions since the pandemic, and the emergence of advanced artificial intelligence tools and the development of AI agents that can replace humans in some tasks have only accelerated this process.
