Zuckerberg's AI Manifesto: Is the Future Really for Everyone?

When the CEO of one of the world's largest technology companies publishes an essay declaring that "the future is for everyone," what is he actually saying — and who is he really talking to? This week, Sean and Andrew sit down with Mark Zuckerberg's superintelligence manifesto and read it the way futurists read any vision of tomorrow: not as prediction, but as an artifact of how power imagines the future. What they find is a fascinating tension. On one hand, the essay's six big promises — a personal AI agent, creation tools, one-person companies at scale, a tireless tutor in every subject, science that cures disease, and free access for billions — describe things many of us might genuinely want. On the other, every promise arrives wrapped in what futures scholars call a "used future": someone else's vision, handed down so completely that imagining an alternative becomes difficult. Along the way, the conversation winds through the strange rhetorical style of the modern CEO manifesto, the long shadow of enshittification, what Ghost in the Shell and Ex Machina have to teach us about dependency and ownership of the self, and the flip that turned superintelligence from an existential threat into a marketing promise. Underneath it all sits the question the essay never quite asks: who gets to decide what a future "for everyone" looks like — and should that ever be one company's call?  -----Modem Futura is a production of the Future of Being Human initiative at Arizona State University. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. To learn more about the Future of Being Human initiative and all of our other projects visit - https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.eduSubscribe to our YouTube Channel: @ModemFuturaFollow us on Instagram: @ModemFuturaHost Bios:Sean M. Leahy, PhD - ASU BioSean is an internationally recognized technologist, futurist, and educator innovating humanistic approaches to emerging technology through a Futures Studies approach. He is the Executive Director for the Future of Being Human Initiative and Research Scientist for the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and Senior Global Futures Scholar with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.Andrew Maynard, PhD - ASU BioAndrew is a scientist, author, thought leader, and Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions in the ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society. He is the founder of the ASU Future of Being Human initiative, Director of the ASU Risk Innovation Nexus, and was previously Associate Dean in the ASU College of Global Futures.-----