Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the creation of superintelligent artificial intelligence is “now in sight” and that it will herald a “new era of personal empowerment.”
With impressive revenue and profit growth for the second quarter are being reported, Zuckerberg believes that his AI research team will soon produce a “personal superintelligence” that will be available to everyone.
Last month he announced the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs, a unit of the company that will work to develop these new technological capabilities.
Breitbart reports: Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has been investing heavily in AI in recent years. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a spending spree to hire top AI researchers, with the goal of building a “superintelligent” AI system. Meta’s latest quarterly results indicate that the company’s AI push is not slowing down.
In its second-quarter earnings report, Meta announced that it would continue to increase its spending, particularly on the construction of data centers, which are essential for its AI initiatives. The company raised its capital expenditure forecast for the year and said that the rate of increase in its spending would jump even higher next year.
Zuckerberg expressed his excitement about bringing “personal superintelligence to everyone.” Explaining, “We believe in putting this power in people’s hands to direct it towards what they value in their own lives” in a statement accompanying the earnings report.
The company’s financial results for the second quarter were impressive, with revenue of $47.5 billion, a 22 percent increase from the same period last year and above Wall Street estimates of $44.8 billion. Profit also grew by 36 percent to $18.3 billion, surpassing expectations of $15.1 billion. Meta’s family of apps, including Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, had 3.48 billion daily users in June, a six percent increase from a year ago..
While investors were initially skeptical of Meta’s focus on the metaverse in 2021, they have been more patient with the company’s AI investments, largely because AI has become a central focus for the entire tech industry. However, there is growing pressure on Meta’s new AI team to deliver results quickly, particularly in terms of improving the company’s core advertising business.