Mark Zuckerberg Vows To Build His Own AI

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed his aim of building a fully-functional artificial intelligence (AI) system for his own home before the end of the year.

In a post on his Facebook page, the social media CEO set out his desire to “build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work”.

Likening the desired end result to the character of Jarvis in the Iron Man film franchise (pictured below), the goal follows in Zuckerberg’s previous resolutions to read two books every month, learn Mandarin and meet a new person every day.

Challenge

“Every challenge has a theme, and this year’s theme is invention,” Zuckerberg wrote, “it’s a different kind of rewarding to build things yourself, so this year my personal challenge is to do that.”

“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.”

Zuckerberg’s project certainly appears ambitious, as he admits to not being fully up to speed with the technology already on the market today (which he mentions will be his first task).

He will then move on to equipping his AI with voice control capabilities for the likes of music, lights and temperature settings, as well as giving it facial recognition technology to identify friends who come to the door.

Zuckerberg also mentions teaching the AI to let him know if anything happens in the room of his child that he would need to check on when not with her.

On the work side, Zuckerberg says he wants the system to be able to help him visualise data in virtual reality to help him build “better services and lead my organizations more effectively”.

Facebook’s founder may be a big fan of artificial intelligence, but many leading minds in the technology industry have not been quite so supportive.

This includes Professor Stephen Hawking, who told the BBC in December 2014 that a thinking machine could “redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate” and “supersede” humans.

Tesla founder Elon Musk, speaking during an interview at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium at MIT this year, called AI “our biggest existential threat”, shortly before that.

Even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was “concerned” about AI and agreed with Musk’s view in an interview with the BBC last year.

Musk and Hawking, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, were among hundreds of top robotic scientists who signed an open letter pleading military powers to curtail plans for AI drones last July.

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