Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes everyone could benefit from having a therapist — but if you cannot get one, the next best thing is a personal artificial intelligence bot. The Facebook and Instagram boss said that will be an option for people sooner than later, in an interview with Stratechery on Thursday.
“I personally have the belief that everyone should probably have a therapist, it’s like someone they can just talk to throughout the day, or not necessarily throughout the day, but about whatever issues they’re worried about,” Zuckerberg said. “I think everyone will have an AI.”
“One of the uses for Meta AI is basically, ‘I want to talk through an issue,’ ‘I need to have a hard conversation with someone,’ ‘I’m having an issue with my girlfriend.’ ‘I need to have a hard conversation with my boss at work,’ ‘Help me role-play this,’ or, ‘Help me figure out how I want to approach this,’” he added.
Another reason Zuckerberg thinks humans will increasingly turn to AI for advice: They’re lonely. He pointed to an “interesting sociological finding that the average American has fewer than three friends and the average American would like to have more.”
His comments come a few days after Meta launched its standalone AI app to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other popular apps. And on Wednesday, in Meta’s first quarter earnings report, Zuckerberg said “almost 1 billion” users interact with Meta’s AI already. Overall, Meta has 3.43 billion daily users of one of its apps, which also includes WhatsApp.
Meta’s stock is up 6% during early trading on Thursday, after the company reported its quarterly profit increased 35% between January and March.
Looking ahead, the company is spending big bucks this year to beef up its AI slate. Zuckerberg on Wednesday said Meta now plans on spending up to $72 billion in 2025 — up from the $60 billion-$65 billion the company initially projected.
