Of all the many famous Steve Jobs stories that tech industry folks like to share, perhaps the single most famous is his 1983 pitch to then-Pepsi president John Sculley to join Apple: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

Like many things Jobs said, the pitch was wildly arrogant, self-important and self-aggrandizing, but ultimately correct. What Sculley did at Apple (mostly after firing Jobs) to sell the Macintosh and popularize personal, graphics-centered computing changed the world more than his invention of the Pepsi Challenge had. There really was a huge difference between selling Macs and selling sugar water.

After listening to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lay out his vision of how AI “superintelligence” would change the world, though, my main reaction was: man, this guy just wants to sell us sugar water.

“Personal superintelligence”? Maybe just “superintelligence,” it’s cleaner

In an Instagram video (of course) posted last week, Zuck explains that Meta’s goal is to develop “personal superintelligence for everyone,” accessed through devices like “glasses that can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day.”

“A lot has been written about the scientific and economic advances that AI can bring,” he noted. “And I’m really optimistic about this.” But his vision is “different from others in the industry who want to direct AI at automating all of the valuable work”: “I think an even more meaningful impact in our lives is going to come from everyone having a personal superintelligence that helps you achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, be a better friend, and grow to become the person that you aspire to be.”

This story was first featured in the Future Perfect newsletter.

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The main reaction to this pitch I’ve seen from

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