If Mark Zuckerberg's AI Agents Act for You, What Happens to Wisdom?

The appeal is easy to see: an agent that handles tasks can save time. Meta's plan, as Zuckerberg described it, points toward more help delegated to software acting for users. That is not merely a new product category. It is a contrast between two kinds of relief: help with effort and help with judgment.

The first is often good. The second can quietly cost us something. When an agent acts on our behalf, we may also outsource attention, responsibility, and the slow work of deciding what is worth doing. Ecclesiastes draws a line that feels strange in a tech story: wisdom and money can get you almost anything, but only wisdom can save your life. The market can sell capacity, speed, and access. It cannot sell the discernment to know which choices should remain personal, which burdens are formative, and which shortcuts weaken us.

This is not a claim that AI is harmful by default, or that Meta's vision will damage anyone. The earnings call did not settle those questions. Still, the verse invites a practical test. We can ask which decisions we are eager to hand away, and whether we are building the wisdom to steward the tools we already have.