4 min readNew DelhiJul 29, 2026 08:31 AM IST Amid an escalating debate over how AI models should be developed, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly taken aim at OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the world’s most valuable AI startups.
Without calling out Anthropic and OpenAI by name, Zuckerberg said that if leading AI research labs continue to develop the technology in a tightly controlled manner, it would be akin to “abandoning our values” in American tech development and stifle innovation.
He further argued that the way AI has been developed by such labs could lead to a centralisation of power that would narrow people’s access to AI. Zuckerberg made these remarks in an interview with The New York Times published on Tuesday, July 28.
The 42-year-old chief executive of Meta also penned an opinion piece published in Wall Street Journal which said that he believed in “individual empowerment, invention and balance of power” rather than the centralisation of AI power.
Zuckerberg’s argument that more people, rather than a few, should have access to AI comes at a time when Silicon Valley appears to be divided over several issues, including the closing of US borders to Chinese AI.
While Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and others have said that some of today’s leading AI models are too dangerous to be shared and developed without tight controls, tech giants such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, and Meta have contended that AI models must be developed in the open if the technology has to advance and lead to new business opportunities.
The split was most visible when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang penned a letter last week, urging US policymakers not to impose broad “premature restrictions” on open-weight AI models. The letter has since been signed by over two dozen companies, including Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, and SpaceX. Anthropic is the only major frontier AI lab that has not yet signed the letter.Story continues below this ad
For context, Meta’s own philosophy around AI has fluctuated in the past few years. While the social media giant initially championed open-source AI by releasing its Llama family of models as open-weight, Meta took a major U-turn last year after falling behind rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI race.
The company invested $14.3 billion in ScaleAI and hired its founder, Alexandr Wang, to revamp Meta’s AI division. It was also renamed Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Earlier this year, MSL rolled out its first-ever AI model developed in-house. It was called Muse Spark and was not open but closed. However, Meta has also said that it will continue to develop open-weight AI models.
Why is Zuckerberg opposed to centralisation of AI?
“So much of the discourse from a lot of the other labs that are developing this is overwhelmingly filled with doom. There needs to be a voice or several voices that are bringing realism to this debate,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying
“I think a lot of people have this notion that if you build some kind of singular AI you can, through some idealized form of alignment, make sure it is benevolent to humanity. I’m personally skeptical of that path,” he added.Story continues below this ad
The Meta chief further emphasised ‘personalised superintelligence’ for everyone. This would likely involve configuring AI chatbots and tools to suit users’ needs and desires. A central “benevolent” AI superpower would be untenable because people have different views and value systems, according to Zuckerberg.
“I think it is literally impossible to have a single benevolent superintelligence that is simultaneously aligned with everyone at once,” he said.
On the AI debate currently unfolding in SIlicon Valley, Zuckerberg said, “I don’t know if the goal is to have everyone agree on everything. Almost by definition, if you believe what I do, you don’t need to convince everyone of everything.” “I believe the general arc of the industry has been toward more openness and putting the power of tech into more people’s hands, not fewer,” he added.