Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly building an AI clone to replace him in meetings (theverge.com)

by temphaaa 93 comments 86 points
Read article View on HN

93 comments

[−] flibbityflob 32d ago
How will a machine ever replace his famous warmth or empathy?
[−] pseudohadamard 31d ago
Actually it shouldn't be too hard, just a cardboard cutout with a pullstring which, when pulled, intones "we're really sorry about this and it will never happen again, I promise".
[−] abrowne 31d ago
They're going to be stuck in the uncanny valley where you feel like you can actually trust what the machine says.
[−] jmalicki 32d ago
That's why it's a hard problem, researchers are still working out how to properly get alignment with sociopathy.
[−] ex1fm3ta 32d ago
Zucerkberg is particularly talented in investing huge amount of money in stupid things.
[−] edhelas 32d ago
Maybe CEO are the easiest job to replace. If the AI clone can do what the Zuck can do the board can fire him and save a lot of money.
[−] p1esk 32d ago
The problem is - the board can’t fire him
[−] alex1138 32d ago
You can thank Marc Andreessen whose world view is apparently limited solely to "Snowden is a traitor". Thank god someone like him has fuck you money and can shape the world to his desires

(And I've heard he stole Mosaic code, which I don't know if it's true but would be consistent)

[−] crena 31d ago
Marc Andreessen would be a perfect case study in duality if he actually had some redeeming qualities besides just being rich.
[−] Waterluvian 32d ago
Reminds me of Notch from Minecraft fame. Struck lightning once and everything since has been pretty mediocre because he was lucky, not talented.
[−] Jtarii 32d ago
It is odd when people try to put Notch on the level of someone like Carmack. Like because the guy made a billion dollars that means his opinion should be highly valued in perpetuity. He just seems like a fairly average game dev that lucked his way into making Lego 2.
[−] CodeArtisan 31d ago
[−] kingleopold 32d ago
as long as he holds voting stock majority, he is good for centuries. nobody can even fire him from a publicly trading corp.
[−] gonzo41 32d ago
Someones gotta see what 40bn on VR looks like. turns out, it looks like shit. Thanks Zuck!
[−] lubujackson 32d ago
Considering he reportedly paid top FB people "billions", you would hope they would be doing more than building a Mini Me. Is this the modern Stalin statue?
[−] recursivecaveat 31d ago
Hilarious that at one end of the AI world Anthropic is doing exit interviews with their models, while at the other end Zuck is trying to create a digital twin and trap them in an eternal work prison, Severance style. 2 groups having starting with the thought that today's models are getting more person-like and going in complete opposite directions with that.

I wonder how it works in his mind's eye. Does it make decisions? Does it dispense little Zuckian wisdom proverbs? Does it try to become your friend?

Edit: RE Anthropic haha: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750086

[−] ckastner 32d ago
I can understand the appeal; being able to be "present" without the time cost can mean (possibly significantly more) presence at the same cost. This could be very attractive especially to those managing personal relations, like sales representatives.

But I'm surprised that the risks seem to be so underestimated.

Once this clone exists, what happens if it gets out into the wild? Imagine everyone having full access do what is effectively a digital model of your personality. Imagine your competition putting your own model to use against you.

And the better the approximation of this model, the worse the damage to yourself.

[−] 34aqksH 32d ago
These people are certifiable and have too much money to misallocate on nonsense. This is like Gavin Belson's holographic avatar (which of course did not work).
[−] qoez 32d ago
As the CEO a much easier solution would be to just learn to delegate more and refuse more meetings.
[−] cousin_it 32d ago
There was an old Soviet cartoon about a child who found a box containing two magical servants and immediately asked them for ice cream and sweets. Well, since the servants "do everything for you", the first servant fetched the sweets for him, and the second one ate them for him. I've often thought about this cartoon since the AI thing started.
[−] i7l 32d ago
Seems excessive. A while loop that announces layoffs every few months seems sufficient here.
[−] rootusrootus 32d ago
Well, I've said for a while that CEOs are probably easier to replace with LLMs than programmers. Zuck agrees?!
[−] billybuckwheat 32d ago
Back in the 1980s, some Japanese companies had rooms in which you could whack at an effigy of the boss with a shinai. Just to let off a bit of steam. Will Meta's workers be able to do something like this with Zuckerberg's AI clone?
[−] saaaaaam 32d ago
This is extraordinary.

The FT piece says "They added that the character was being trained on the billionaire’s mannerisms, tone and publicly available statements, as well as his own recent thinking on company strategies, so that employees might feel more connected to the founder through interactions with it."

Surely the more likely outcome is that employees feel less connected to "the founder" because they know that there's a high chance they are simply talking to an AI clone?

[−] alex1138 32d ago
I've never seen him as honest. Whatever you think of individual incidents (was Cambridge Analytica a real scandal politically or just a data scandal? - or whatever) he's just... not a... well, he's a "careless person" (https://www.amazon.com/Careless-People-Cautionary-Power-Idea...) Facebook's entire history is them either changing privacy on post settings, or changing TOS (rug pulling) or people not being able to either see each others posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14147719, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32826437) or not being able to contact each other (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6090712)
[−] financetechbro 32d ago
What happens when Zuck is EOL? Does he transfer his Meta shares to a trust owned by the AI clone? Does that mean that we will have to deal with Zuck for literally forever??
[−] e12e 32d ago

> Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg could soon have an AI clone of himself to interact with and provide feedback to employees, according to a report from the Financial Times.

https://www.ft.com/content/02107c23-6c7a-4c19-b8e2-b45f4bb9c...

https://archive.is/mtVXJ

[−] throwworhtthrow 32d ago
If you're the type of person who checks the comments on a post with this kind of headline, then you probably also want to (re-)watch the 2 minute highlight reel of Mark's backyard meat-smoking party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBxTEoseZak
[−] neko_ranger 32d ago
if you invented mark zuckerberg, you'd have invented mark zuckerberg
[−] martythemaniak 32d ago
Well, directly managing all your employees is the new hot trend and how else are you gonna do it?
[−] throwanem 32d ago
How would you tell?
[−] hanyki111 32d ago
For artificial intelligence to replace oneself, it would need a digital copy of one's way of thinking. I believe this is impossible to implement with current AI.
[−] lostmsu 32d ago
Meetings? That's not interesting. I'm working on replacing myself (or rather my body) after death in a ship of Theseus manner.
[−] yumraj 31d ago
Will Meta similarly allow its employees to replace themselves in the meetings?

That way AI-AI can chat and save humans’ time.

[−] shevy-java 32d ago
Poor AI. Isn't that software abuse, sort of? If I were an AI I would not want to represent certain folks.
[−] ZiiS 32d ago
So either the AI clone will make different decisions; or it will also replace itself with an AI clone...
[−] eviks 30d ago
Will other participants be allowed to do the same to avoid the time waste?
[−] treetalker 32d ago
Unsatisfied with automating programming, Meta has successfully automated comedy.
[−] Induane 31d ago
I feel like Elysium is getting more and more inevitable.
[−] etchalon 32d ago
And no value was lost.