The Meta CEO fumbled a demo of his AI Ray-Bans, giving us hope that the robots might be too dumb to take over
The Meta CEO fumbled a demo of his AI Ray-Bans, giving us hope that the robots might be too dumb to take over
As humanity inches closer to an AI apocalypse, a sliver of hope remains: the robots might not work.
Such was the case last week, as Mark Zuckerberg attempted to demonstrate his company’s new AI-enabled smart glasses. “I don’t know what to tell you guys,” Zuckerberg told a crowd of Meta enthusiasts as he tried, and failed, for roughly the fourth time to hold a video call with his colleague via the glasses.
It was a limp follow-up to an ambitious opening to the event at Meta Connect 2025, a developers conference in Menlo Park, California, where the company is headquartered. The keynote was to feature the Ray-Ban Meta Display, the latest version of what is essentially a face-mounted iPhone – ideal for the consumer who lacks the energy to pull a device from their pocket and idolizes both Buddy Holly and the Terminator. Despite that undeniable appeal, the show was a technical mess – perhaps the perfect homage to the latest pointless iteration of digital hardware.
The show had a promising start. Viewers witnessed Zuck making his way to the stage to thumping music, performing an alarming number of fist bumps en route. The moment was presented onscreen through the camera on his glasses, so that the audience could see “Mark’s POV”. All the while, he was receiving a flurry of text messages expressing enthusiasm that was no doubt genuine: “Let’s gooo” followed by a rocketship emoji, “audience is getting hyped” with a picture of two guys looking content at best, a gif saying “It’s time.”
Finally, Zuck reached the stage, in his now signature big T-shirt and curls. He explained the company’s commitment to attractive eyewear, to the supremely ironic notion that “the technology needs to get out of the way” of human interaction, and to “taking superintelligence seriously”. Superintelligence is going to be “the most important technology of our lifetimes. AI should serve people, not just be something that sits in a data center automating large parts of society,” he said, sweetly assuming that society will exist beyond the next decade.
Things rolled along smoothly enough until it came time to actually use an AI feature.
