Month: October 2025

In a 2009 interview, a 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg offered a grand prognosis on the human condition. “You have one identity,” the Facebook founder said. “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or coworkers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

At the time, his five-year-old social network was shaping the identities of more than 350 million people. Like Sergey Brin and Larry Page with their mission to “organize the world’s information” with Google, like Steve Jobs when he put the internet in our pockets, Zuck was becoming something of the world’s new Minister of Thought — influencing how humans conceived of themselves and one another as they communicated at an unprecedented scale.

Today, 16 years and arguably several identities later (from the hoodie-wearing “I’m CEO, bitch” wunderkind to the suit-wearing presidential prospect to the shirtless jiu jitsu-fighting MAGA beefcake), Zuck is starting to cede that title to another tech leader who is shaping human cognition at perhaps an even grander scale, Sam Altman.

ChatGPT, just three years old, has more than 800 million weekly users, at least 40 times Facebook’s audience three years in. OpenAI is now the most valuable private company worldwide. Ten percent of the world’s adults use its flagship chatbot on a monthly basis — for writing emails and scouring the web, planning trips, decoding medical mysteries, or finding love.

Where Zuck taught us to post, Altman teaches us to prompt. If the past twenty years were about curating who we are, the next may be about creating who we want to be.

Facebook rewired how we see ourselves and each other. Posts, pokes, photos, and likes stitched together a specific digital avatar. Instagram gave us filters. The feed’s ranking systems rewarded the glossiest slice of life — the latté foam art and dopamine décor. Zuckerberg promised to “bring the world closer together.” He didn’t say we’d show up unvarnished.

Altman’s world is generation, not just presentation. Filters that boost saturation and darken edges have been supplanted by “Ghiblified” photo edits. Sora lets users turn rough ideas into hyperreal videos. I cast myself in a fake space opera; Mark Cuban tap danced with the late Ginger Rogers. These tools don’t polish reality so much as draft new versions of it.

I’ve seen the appeal up close. My husband, historically terrible at gifts, recently nailed it on my birthday: gold hoops and a Catbird necklace with our daughter’s initial. His confession — “I used ChatGPT” — felt both cute and slightly disorienting. If a bot is co-authoring intimacy, what else are we outsourcing? Holiday cards, wedding toasts, and homework may be just the start.

The office is already there. Studies suggest generative tools can speed up knowledge work and lift quality, especially for low performers. Emails became more polished, decks more dazzling. That power also comes with a catch: more “workslop” to sift and lower productivity if misused.

In the age of social media, we curated our identity for the computer. In the age of AI, the computer is starting to curate our identity for us.

There’s a bigger platform shift underneath all of this. Facebook’s feed once redistributed attention outward. Publishers lived and died by referral traffic. AI flips the model. Large language models ingest the open web and answer queries in its place. Where Zuckerberg built a web of people and links, Altman built a funnel. The user asks, it synthesizes. That convenience is already hitting publishers.

Zuckerberg started Facebook to connect his Harvard class. His ambitions went global. Facebook groups knit together new parents, bird watchers, English learners, and Bronies. The company has expanded internet access in developing countries.

The same algorithms that brought us closer also sorted us apart. Ranking systems fed people more of what they already agreed with, hardening echo chambers. Critics accused Facebook of supercharging conspiracies and “fake news” — around elections, the environment, and health.

Altman isn’t auditioning as a great communitarian. His concerns lie with the human-to-machine connection.

People are consulting ChatGPT as “a sort of therapist or life coach,” Altman said, a trend he admitted made him feel “uneasy.” Others are falling in love with the chatbot. Soon, a gated adult mode will offer erotica for personalized fantasy on demand. That’s the shift from the public square to private rooms.

Early evidence points to extreme tradeoffs. In March, a study from OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab found that ChatGPT heightened feelings of loneliness in a group of power users. Last month, parents of two teens who died by suicide after talking to chatbots testified to Congress about the technology’s harms.

Zuckerberg still regulates humanity’s attention; Meta has some 3.5 billion daily active users across its products. He has credited fast-improving algorithms with putting content people actually want in front of them, increasing time spent on the company’s apps in the second quarter. Altman is moving into intention, the first — and in some cases final — draft of what we say and do.

Zuckerberg isn’t ceding the future to Altman. He’s desperately trying to catch up: billions in capex for data centers and chips, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and aggressive, NBA superstar-level offers to poach researchers. In July, Facebook published a new manifesto: “personal superintelligence for everyone,” essentially echoing the frontier Altman staked out.

There’s upside. Coauthoring with machines can widen who gets to sound sharp, ship better work, or just be kinder in the group chat. There’s also creep. The more we rely on a model as our first reader and first responder, the easier it is to mistake its output for our own thinking.

In the age of social media, we shaped and curated our identity — or identities — for the computer. In the age of AI, the computer is starting to shape and curate our identities for us.

Melia Russell is a reporter with Business Insider, covering the intersection of law and technology.

• ALSO is an e-bike company that began as a skunkworks division inside Rivian in 2022.
• The startup has doubled in size, from 70 to over 150 workers, and is expanding to a second office.
• Business Insider met the team behind ALSO’s $4,500 modular e-bike.

I’m addicted to my car.

Even in a densely-packed city like San Francisco, I couldn’t imagine getting around without it.

But I also hate my car.

It’s a little silly to think that I need to start and stop a couple-ton vehicle just to drive a few minutes to my friend’s house or to grab groceries. I also think about the painful amount of money I’ve spent due to a cracked wheel from a pothole, flattened tires from a perfectly placed nail, or the driver who sideswiped me after they blew a red light. That was all within the past year.

If I could get rid of my car, I would.

ALSO, a startup that began as a skunkworks inside Rivian is trying really hard to replace our large vehicles — at least for some trips.

“The name ALSO is very intentional. It’s not an either-or proposition,” Ben Steele, ALSO’s chief commercial officer, told me. “I think what we’re really seeking to do with our products is to say to people: ‘The unexamined choice of just defaulting to a car? We want to reframe that for you.'”

I met the executives of ALSO on a Saturday afternoon at their office in Palo Alto, just across the street from Rivian’s office, where they gave me a chance to try the product: a $4,500 e-bike. ALSO is calling it the T-MB for “Transcendent Mobility Bike.”

Chris Yu, the president of the startup, told me that the “genesis” behind ALSO was simple: “Why doesn’t that magical experience you get out of a Rivian exist in anything smaller than a car?”

Having seen the bike up close and hearing the executives talk about the TM-B, I can clearly see where Rivian’s vertically integrated approach and even the design language are ingrained into the bike.

Yu said the startup is growing, from about 75 employees in March to over 150 employees today. ALSO is building a second office, located less than a mile away.

Here’s a closer look at the TM-B and the executives behind ALSO.

Yu not only worked at another e-bike company, but is also a dad who takes his son to school on a bike

Yu has an extensive background in biking.

He told me he raced competitively in college and continued to do so throughout his years at Specialized Bicycle Components, a bike manufacturer, where he spent more than 10 years and led the company as the chief product and technology officer.

Yu’s not doing much racing these days, but he still bikes often with his son.

Yu said he’d take his son to school on the back of his bike, one of the use cases ALSO kept in mind for the development of the TM-B. Both the father and son are intimately aware of the pain points for e-bikes.

“Every other bike that we’ve used when we hit potholes and the speed bump in his school parking lot, he’d always get bounced around, and he always just thought that was the norm,” Yu said.

“The payload capacity to carry a 75-pound kid on the back does not exist,” he added.

The TM-B is a modular e-bike ALSO aimed to build for everyone

Yu said that the TM-B was designed with a one-bike-fits-all approach. He said that one of the first pain points for consumers is deciding which type of e-bike to buy in the first place.

“We wanted to build in as much breadth of personality, utility, and capability into one platform as much as possible to remove that kind of initial friction and pain point,” Yu said.

I had the opportunity to try the launch edition, which has a starting price of $4,500. The base edition will start under $4,000. ALSO plans to launch in 2026.

The pedals are not attached to a chain, and the TM-B does not have gear shifting

The TM-B stands apart from most e-bikes on the market due to its pedal-by-wire system. That means the pedals aren’t mechanically linked to a chain that moves the tires. Instead, the pedals are attached to a generator, which provides the power to move you forward.

That also means there’s no gear shifting in the traditional sense. There is a manual mode where you can “shift” gears, and you’ll feel a haptic feedback on the pedals that indicates when you’re changing gears.

I found that this propulsion system made going up a hill seamless. The bike didn’t require much more pedaling effort when I went up a hill.

The TM-B is a class 3 bike, giving a pedal-assist speed of up to 28 mph and a throttle that assists the rider for up to 20 mph.

The bike can achieve a range of up to 100 miles, depending on the battery pack size

A standard battery pack delivers up to 60 miles of range. The large battery pack provides up to 100 miles of range.

The regenerative braking system can extend the range by around 25%, according to the company.

Riders can also use the battery as a portable charger for their electronic devices.

Walk up to the bike, and the TM-B turns on

Much like a Rivian, a rider can walk up to the TM-B to turn on the bike since it’s connected to the user’s phone.

It’s a “software-defined” bike, Yu said, which allows for over-the-air updates and an easy user experience straight out of the box.

ALSO added security features to help riders treat their bike like a car

At around 70 pounds, the TM-B is not a traditional bike that a rider would lug up several floors of their apartment building.

Yu said the company envisions riders treating the bike more like a car that you could feel comfortable leaving inside a parking structure.

Kelly Veit, VP of software, said the bike is equipped with Wi-Fi, LTE, and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) connectivity for location tracking purposes and anti-theft protection.

If the bike senses motion, the owner is alerted on their phone. If the bike is stolen, the owner can track its location and “brick” it, making it essentially unrideable.

ALSO will have different seat attachments that you can swap at the click of a button

ALSO executives showed me three attachments: one for the solo rider, one that allows for up to 75 pounds of payload, including a small child or groceries, and a “bench” for more comfortable riding.

This e-bike has turn signals

All the modular seat attachments are equipped with lights on the back that also serve as turn signals.

For bikers, that means no longer having to stick their arm out to indicate when they’re about to make a turn.

The headlight resembles Rivian’s design and function

The headlight serves as a daytime running light and a turn signal.

Yu said that the light can also indicate the battery charge status and show the progress of over-the-air updates.

The orange throttle button helps users ‘ride with traffic’

The throttle on the TM-B is set to a maximum speed of 20 mph, as per federal regulations for e-bikes, allowing the bike to reach that speed without pedaling.

Saul Leiken, director of product line, said the bike was designed to accelerate “basically as fast as a car can coming off of a stop sign.”

“I’m not talking a zero to 60 type of thing,” he said, “but if you’re running a little late to work, that allows you to ride with traffic instead of being in traffic’s way.”

Yu said the throttle is helpful to quickly move out of intersections.

Yu said the service expectation should be more like an EV than a traditional e-bike

Due to its fewer moving parts, Yu said the frequency of servicing the T-MB should be much lower than that of traditional bikes.

The president said ALSO is working on several ways for riders to bring in their bikes: a “small brick-and-mortar footprint across the country,” a mobile service fleet, and a network of authorized service providers.

Additionally, ALSO can notify users via telemetry if there is an issue with the bike, he said.