Amid AI doomerism, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is continuing his attempt at positive messaging about the tech in a new manifesto while calling on Washington to lower barriers for US open-source developers to help them beat Chinese rivals.

“We propose a philosophy based on individual empowerment as the source of prosperity, invention as the primary purpose of superintelligence, and balance of power as the foundation of safety,” he wrote in a lengthy Monday morning blog post.

Meta’s Muse Glimmer AI was made available for developers to download and run on their own hardware — as the company said it plans in the coming weeks to open the weights for a version of Muse Spark 1.2, which it described as one of the world’s leading foundation models.

Mark Zuckerberg wears a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display AI glasses during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. Bloomberg via Getty Images

The releases mark Meta’s return to putting out open-source models after Zuckerberg said the company would “resume releasing some open source models soon.”

The Meta chief warned Monday that American AI companies face restrictions that give foreign competitors an advantage, arguing that US policy should aim to make American open-source models the best in the world.

“It is also important that the US and its allies lead the open source AI ecosystem that will make up a large percent of global AI use,” Zuckerberg wrote Monday in the sweeping manifesto, titled “The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future.”

“Foreign labs currently hold several advantages here since American labs have to comply with many additional restrictions on training data,” he added.

Chinese open-weight models have meanwhile been gaining traction among US businesses because they offer increasingly competitive performance at a fraction of the cost of some American rivals — even as policymakers in Washington weigh new restrictions over national-security concerns.

Models from Chinese firms including DeepSeek, Alibaba and Z.ai have emerged as formidable low-cost alternatives, with some US tech companies embracing Chinese models for their flexibility and cheaper computing costs.

But Washington has moved to curb their use in government.

Zuckerberg called on Washington to lower barriers for US open-source developers to help them beat Chinese rivals. Meta The Meta chief warned that American AI companies face restrictions that give foreign competitors an advantage, arguing that US policy should aim to make American open-source models the best in the world. Meta

DeepSeek is barred from US intelligence-community systems, while lawmakers have floated broader restrictions on Chinese AI models and officials are considering additional curbs on Chinese open-weight technology.

Zuckerberg’s new statement of principles came as leading AI rivals have been sounding a somewhat pessimistic note about AI.

OpenAI recently tapped the brakes on some “internal activities” involving its new model, Astra, over concerns it might have reached a critical cybersecurity risk level. Rival Anthropic Anthropic has triggered alarm bells by touting the terrifying capabilities of Claude Mythos – with executives warning that the new AI model is so dangerous, it would cause a wave of catastrophic hacks and terror attacks if released to the wider public.

“[I]t is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom. I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future,” Zuckerberg wrote.

“The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic,” he added. “Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safe or positive outcomes.”