Mark Zuckerberg is embracing both AI and full-on imperial monomania. As for petty gripes about elections and teen mental health, so what?

The good news is that Mark Zuckerberg has become bored of looking like an answer to the AI prompt “efit of a teen villain”. The bad? While the Meta overlord has grown out the Caesar hairstyle that has sustained him since 2016, he is now leaning in to open imperial monomania. This week’s Meta Connect conference saw Mark take the stage in a T-shirt reading Aut Zuck Aut Nihil. Either Zuck Or Nothing. The original was Aut Caesar Aut Nihil and was enthusiastically adopted as a motto by one of the worst Borgias (tough field) … but look, I’m sure it’s ironic. Mark’s such a gifted ironist.

We’ll get to the magic glasses and AI feedspam he was pushing at this week’s event in a minute – but before we do, let’s recap. Easily the most significant thing Mark Zuckerberg has said this year was that he isn’t sorry any more – in fact, that he wished he’d never said sorry for most of what he’d ever said sorry for. I paraphrase only slightly. A couple of weeks ago, Zuckerberg appeared on stage for a podcast and called Facebook’s willingness to offer stakes-free apologies for things he wasn’t to blame for – like election manipulation or the effect of social media on teen mental health – “a 20-year mistake”.