Meta Announces Plan to Control Future of Robotics, Because Controlling Social Media Wasn’t Enough
In a shocking turn of events that no one saw coming, Mark Zuckerberg has decided he isn’t content with just dominating your social media addiction. Now, he wants to be the godfather of humanoid robotics too. Because why stop at manipulating what you see and hear when you can also shape the very limbs and circuits that will one day replace you?
Meta’s latest move isn’t to actually build humanoid robots, no. That would be too predictable, and these guys are nothing if not innovative in finding new ways to exert control over your life. Instead, Zuck & Co. have announced they’ll be creating the “foundational layer” for all robots—essentially the operating system of your soon-to-be mechanical overlords. Congratulations, your future Roomba won’t just clean up. It’ll also track your eye movements, detect emotional weaknesses, and upload them to whatever experimental “mind-reading AI” Meta is dreaming up next.
A new team within Meta’s Reality Labs division, helmed by former Cruise CEO Marc Whitten (because nothing screams “trustworthy AI safety” like the guy who led self-driving cars into traffic disasters), will be in charge of developing this technology. The plan? Collect every piece of AI and sensor data Meta has ever hoarded and use it to create a platform that robotics manufacturers can build on. And by “build on,” we mean chain themselves to Meta’s ecosystem like every Android phone maker under the sun.
Naturally, Meta has already started cozying up to robotics companies like Unitree and Figure AI. Their interest? Household robots. Yes, they finally realized that humans would rather sell their kidneys before buying another VR headset just to walk into walls in the metaverse. So why not put their surveillance tech in something you’ll actually invite into your home?
Silicon Valley is now racing to see who can dominate the humanoid robotics field, with Apple and OpenAI also throwing their hats in the ring. But while Apple will probably slap a $10,000 price tag on a sleek aluminum bot that can only function in a “controlled environment” (i.e., a white-walled Apple Store), and OpenAI will break its models every other week in the pursuit of shaping reality itself, Meta is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Who needs to make a robot when you can simply own the policies that dictate how robots operate?
So, if you thought your grandma posting minion memes was the scariest thing to come out of Meta’s ecosystem, brace yourself. The next generation of artificial helpers won’t just fold your laundry—they’ll also report your mood directly to Zuckerberg’s dystopian database.
