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Zuckerberg Says Broad AI Access Is Safer Than Central Control

His proposed balance of power would give individuals, businesses, and governments access to advanced AI, which Zuckerberg argues would reduce the advantage held by governments and large institutions.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued that broad AI access will be safer than concentrating the most powerful systems in a small number of companies, governments, or AI systems themselves.

In a 6,500-word essay titled The Future Is for Everyone, Zuckerberg presented widely distributed “personal superintelligence” as his answer to questions about who should control advanced AI and how society should manage its risks.

The essay combines Meta product commitments with Zuckerberg’s policy recommendations.

Broad AI access puts individuals at the center

Zuckerberg said Meta will focus on giving billions of people and small businesses access to AI systems that can understand their goals and act on their behalf.

Meta plans to offer free or affordable versions of these personal AI agents. Zuckerberg said they could help people manage their health, careers, finances, homes, and other parts of their lives.

He also committed Meta to building a fully private mode in which even the company could not see or provide access to a user’s information.

His case for broad AI access rests on the idea that distributing advanced systems would create checks and balances. He argues that if advanced AI is distributed across individuals, businesses, and governments, no single organization or system would hold overwhelming power.

That position is a company claim, not an established conclusion. The essay acknowledged that wider access could also give people tools that can be used for cyberattacks, biological harm, or other misuse.

Meta backs open models and board oversight

Zuckerberg said Meta will soon resume releasing some open models, whose core files can be downloaded and modified. He presented open models as central to broad AI access, arguing that they distribute AI capabilities and allow more people to identify and repair security weaknesses.

Meta also plans to give its independent board of directors authority to approve the company’s safety criteria for releasing models. The board would review whether each release met those criteria.

Zuckerberg encouraged other AI developers to adopt similar structures and said an industry-wide version could strengthen oversight.

Zuckerberg wants government access without fixed delays

Zuckerberg proposed that leading AI companies give the federal government access to advanced models while they are still being trained. The companies would also provide technical staff to help the government find and repair weaknesses in critical infrastructure before new AI capabilities become widely available.

He argued that this close cooperation would give the government time to prepare without automatically delaying public releases. He warned that routinely delaying an American model by even one month could allow a foreign competitor to move ahead.

Zuckerberg wrote that companies may sometimes need more time to reduce newly identified risks. He favored case-by-case decisions over a fixed government review period.

Anthropic and OpenAI favor more formal reviews

Zuckerberg’s position differs from proposals previously voiced by Anthropic and OpenAI, although all three companies support a government role in overseeing the most capable AI systems.

Anthropic has urged Congress to require independent safety testing before the release of the most advanced models. The company also opposed overriding state AI safety laws unless Congress first establishes a strong federal system.

OpenAI proposed mandatory federal reviews before the most capable models are deployed. Its plan would make the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) a permanent oversight body, require developers to publish test results, and replace overlapping state safety laws with one national rule.

Meta’s approach gives more responsibility to company boards and direct cooperation between developers and the government. Anthropic and OpenAI have advocated more formal testing requirements, although OpenAI would allow a company to release a model if the federal review were not completed by a legal deadline.

Clayton Rifkind

Clayton Rifkind is the Founder and Senior Editor of AI Risk Today. He also advises on business development for ESG Today, a leading source of ESG investment news and research for institutional investors and corporate leaders. He has 20+ years of experience in B2B technology, leading strategy and execution of go-to-market plans across software, enterprise platforms, and mobile applications. He founded two consultancies advising startups and Fortune 1000 companies, including Autodesk, Intel, and Microsoft. He began his career in the San Francisco advertising scene working with brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Symantec, and Wells Fargo. Clayton launched AI Risk Today in 2025 after two decades of watching enterprises adopt transformative technologies, and seeing how often risk, governance, and compliance considerations lagged behind. His reporting draws on primary sources including regulatory filings, court documents, and official announcements, with a focus on what AI developments mean for the executives accountable for managing them. Reach him at Reach him at [email protected] or on LinkedIn.

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