Zuckerberg’s 2016 Resolution: An A.I. Butler

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is never a man with no ambition. He has achieved so much over the years mainly because he is a dreamer. This year, however, Zuckerberg’s resolution is more interesting than ever.

Zuckerberg is aiming to build an artificial intelligent assistant in 2016. Yes, we’re talking about something along the line of Tony Stark’s Jarvis, an artificial intelligence that can help Stark do a lot of things not only around the house but at work as well. That is exactly what Zuckerberg is said to be aiming for.

“You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man,” said Zuckerberg, citing the similarities directly. The A.I. will be able to help around the house, manage home functions such as heating and various other advanced tasks, while at the same time assist Zuckerberg in running Facebook Inc. as Chief Executive.

According to the man, he will start by exploring existing technologies and how they can be used together to create a foundation for the artificial intelligence. Facebook is one of the largest tech companies today, so it is not surprising to know that the company has a lot of R&D power at its disposal.

Zuckerberg also specifically said that he will begin teaching the artificial intelligence technology to recognize voice, a feature that is also very similar to Iron Man’s Jarvis. The A.I. should be able to control everything in his home from lights, temperature and even home entertainment.

“This should be a fun intellectual challenge to code this for myself,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I’m looking forward to sharing what I learn over the course of the year.”

Zuckerberg appears to be taking this project as a personal one, especially after the fact that he will be coding the technology himself. Among other features that are also mentioned in the post include data visualization to help Zuckerberg at work and the ability to recognize guests.

The later is actually quite interesting. The artificial intelligence would be able to recognize guests by their faces. Once the recognition process is complete, the artificial intelligence will be able to notify Zuckerberg who the guests are as well as provide autonomous response in certain occasions.

The quest to build an artificial intelligence assistant is not the first quest Zuckerberg has taken on. In the past, he also challenged himself to reading two books a month and learning Mandarin.

“It’s a different kind of rewarding to build things yourself, so this year my personal challenge is to do that,” Zuckerberg added. “This should be a fun intellectual challenge to code this for myself. I’m looking forward to sharing what I learn over the course of the year.”

The announcement post can be found on Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. The post has since garnered over 350,000 likes and 25,000 comments, along with more than 15,000 shares. A lot of people are just as excited to hear the progress of Zuckerberg’s challenge simply because of its similarity with Jarvis and how cool it would be to have a working A.I. assistant.