Mark Zuckerberg has entered the growing debate over whether the world’s largest technology companies should slow down the development of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems.
Speaking at Salesforce’s Dreamforce event, the Meta CEO argued that AI companies already have strong incentives to make their systems safe. According to Zuckerberg, competition between developers, potential legal liability, and the reputational consequences of releasing unsafe technology can encourage companies to address risks without requiring the industry to coordinate a broad slowdown.
His comments come as leading figures in the AI industry debate how quickly increasingly capable systems should be developed and released. Some executives have advocated stronger coordination between laboratories and governments, while Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have expressed greater confidence in individual companies managing safety alongside continued innovation.
The issue is particularly important for Meta. Zuckerberg has placed artificial intelligence at the center of the company’s long-term strategy, describing a future in which people have access to increasingly capable personal AI assistants. On September 8, Meta launched Muse, an AI agent designed to perform tasks across other applications, including sending emails, arranging travel and interacting with payment services.
Meta is also continuing to invest in AI-powered hardware. Reports this week indicated that the company is preparing another pair of smart glasses, internally known as Luna, which could be introduced without a camera as Meta responds to privacy concerns surrounding wearable devices.
Zuckerberg’s position therefore reflects a broader strategic choice for Meta: the company wants to develop advanced AI rapidly while arguing that safety can be addressed without an industry-wide pause.
The debate is unlikely to disappear. As AI systems gain greater autonomy and access to personal information, the central question is becoming how companies can continue innovating while demonstrating that increasingly powerful technology remains secure and accountable.