Jordan O'BrienMark Zuckerberg is the CEO and co-founder of Facebook, but in 2016 he will create something entirely new; an artificially intelligent assistant to help run his home and assist him at work.
Rather appropriately Zuckerberg revealed his plans in a Facebook post, noting that the project was to build something akin to Jarvis from Iron Man.
Zuckerberg admitted that he would like to see everyone get access to their own ‘kind’ AI, noting that he’ll try and avoid creating Skynet, but also stressed that it was a personal project rather than a new company.
The Facebook CEO also conceded that he had yet to decide whether to build the AI based in the Facebook environment or using Amazon’s Web Services. If the CEO chooses the former, he’ll gain access to the research already completed by Facebook’s AI team – which includes a personal assistant for the smartphone.
Zuckerberg is a big fan of smart home technology, although he concedes that many of the systems out there don’t quite appeal to his needs. He noted that a smart home needs to be personalised for every individual user, as the way people interact with their homes is very different – something many installers are keen to stress about what they offer.
“I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell,” he writes.
“I’ll teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that I need to check on when I’m not with her. On the work side, it’ll help me visualise data in VR to help me build better services and lead my organisations more effectively.”
The Facebook CEO is already familiar with virtual reality technology, given that Facebook owns one of the biggest VR developers in the world – Oculus.
Zuckerberg’s desire to build an AI assistant is in contrast to some other giants of the tech world – including Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; both concerned with the potential dangers associated with AI. Stephen Hawking has also voiced his concerns relating to AI.
This is not the first challenge Zuckerberg has set himself. In recent years the Facebook co-founder has challenged himself to learn Mandarin and read two books every month.