Zuckerberg To Build Personal AI For Help At Home and Work (facebook.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he is planning on building his own personal assistant AI, recreating a system similar to that of the Jarvis butler featured in Marvel's Iron Man franchise. Zuckerberg commented that as a personal challenge for 2016, he would construct a "simple AI" to assist him at home and at work, and share his progress the course of the year. The Facebook founder said he build on existing technology to develop his AI, before teaching it to understand his voice to be able to control home appliances, such as a music system, lighting, and air conditioning.

Comments

Jarvis or Siri?

[Fusen]

There is quite a large jump between saying "I'm going to build my own AI like Jarvis from Iron Man" and then saying "I'll use this AI to help me turn on the lights or listen to music".

Is it going to be a glorified Amazon Echo / Apple Siri or will it actually be able to predict what you're doing and what you need help with?

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally. Another intentionally misleading headline about the king of spoiled brats. Yawn. The day Zuckerberg develops something useful is the day . . . Lol! Who are we kidding? That'll never happen with this ape. ;)

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[tshawkins]

http://jasperproject.github.io...

Raspberry pi and a microphone.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[jellomizer]

Why not just get a human butler.
Sure a butler is a luxury that the common man cannot afford, but for someone like him, who has so many people already on payroll, is it really that bad of an idea to have your own butler, to manage your home, and take care of things, so you as CEO can focus more on work, or what little free time you have with your family.

As a CEO, he may not be smart of effective, or a good person, but every CEO I have met are very busy people, to have a glitchy assistant is a waste of his time. And it better off hiring staff to manage his estate.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[randomErr]

He's just going build a Chibi-Robo.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[StikyPad]

Most likely he's going to have a cookie made and then Jon Hamm will put it in solitary until it submits. So at least one version of Zuckerberg will get what it deserves.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from its puff-piece value(here we are talking about it, despite the fact that academics and DARPA have been puttering around with speech recognition since the 70s if not earlier, and a number of companies-that-aren't-facebook are already aggressively attempting to give away voice-assistant products in order to score that juicy data, and facebook has nothing except its CEO's new year's resolution...) it may also be a matter of cultural fit.

I'd be pretty surprised if he does his own housecleaning, when their are contractors for that; but having 'the help' actually embedded in your home is a bit weird and intrusive unless they are amazingly skilled at being deferential and you are somewhat used to the idea(all the subtle joy of walking back into your hotel room and noticing that the cleaners moved things around a bit while you were out, except all the time and at home). There's also the probable level of trust that someone who appears to dislike intrusions on his own privacy and built a fortune by intruding on that of others would have for comparatively low-paid lackeys with privileged physical access to his house.

Some dodgy speech-to-text system bolted onto a pile of scripts is certainly going to do a vastly worse job than a human would; but it won't be nearly as noticeable or likely to sell pictures of you snorting lines off your iphone to the tabloids.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Chi?

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you've accomplished nothing and like to attack people who actually build things. Your kind is a dime a dozen, and doesn't need to advertise how lost you are.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's more fun to create Jarvis-style software, even though Amazon already has their Echo evolving into something like that.
There was a time when this was a blog for smart people who would understand this.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg is a PHP programmer who later on managed to get qualified help that cleaned up his mess. He's shit as a programmer, and the only way he'll have any sort of "AI" is if someone else does it for him.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure lots of people at Facebook build useful and even interesting things. I don't think Zuckerberg is one of them. Facebook has long since been torn apart and rewritten from that sloppy garbage he hacked together.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that Zuckerbird dude, he sold out the instant he smelled $$$. Hes just like the rest of the assholes now.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[Chris Mattern]

having 'the help' actually embedded in your home is a bit weird and intrusive unless they are amazingly skilled at being deferential and you are somewhat used to the idea

It's called "having a household staff" and historically has been the standard for those rich enough to have servants.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Ravaldy]

If I could have built something as simple as facebook I too would have sold it to help me fund my ideas (which I cannot be turned to profit so quickly),

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[nine-times]

Sure, but... are any of us actually confused by the statement that he's building something comparable to "Jarvis" from Iron Man? When I read that, I assume that means he's basically trying to make a Siri-like "AI" that can be a little more helpful.

I've put a fair amount of thought into this in the past, and it seems to me there are various things a Siri-alike could do, if hooked up and programmed to do it. For example, based on travel patterns, it could note that you almost always go home after work at around 6:30pm. Through the GPS in your device, it could tell when you're close to home, and automatically set a series of conditions for your arrival-- including things like lighting level, music, temperature control, etc. There are a bunch of things like this that require coordinating across devices, which I don't think Siri/Echo really do yet.

Another thing that doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do would be to make it more proactive. Theoretically let's say it has an appointment in your calendar that's 2 hours away. It has access to traffic information for the travel from one location to another, and sees that there's a half hour delay. So about 2.5 hours before the appointment, it automatically gives you a heads-up. "You'd better leave now, or you're going to be late." Or maybe it could monitor your washing machine and say, "You left some clothes in the washer a couple of days ago. You should probably move them to the dryer to avoid getting moldy and gross." These would have to be designed very carefully to make them useful instead of being annoying.

It could also possibly do things for you. Like say, "Hey, your mother's birthday is coming up in 2 weeks, and you usually order her flowers. Would you like me to order her the same bouquet as last year?" There are various possible problems with this, from having bug cause the AI to spend more money than intended, to the social aspects of having some of these things done automatically.

So what I'm getting at here is that there's a lot of stuff that these "AI" systems could potentially do, but we don't have them do because there are loads of potential problems, and it needs to be tested first. In some ways, I think it makes sense to start by having a rich tech guy pay for his own prototype, and figure out what he finds useful vs. annoying. It seems like a reasonable way to work out some of the kinks before you even get to normal testing.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[GameboyRMH]

Beaten, I was just going to say that Jarvis - (personality+prediction) = PocketSphinx + Jasper + Hubot.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is utterly amazing to me that someone would want this. I would NEVER want an AI to do any of that. Especially one created by another company. You think they have data on you now? Wtf you think is going to happen when you have an AI bot out there slurping up shit on your behalf.

What if someone hacks your AI and makes it do all kind of crazy shit. Oh it's your moms bday? Let's send her a bunch of dick pics from the web. You know, for the LuLz. She will like those.(just a mild example.)

I want nothing doing things on my behalf UNLESS I wrote the script or code myself to do it or it is open source and has been tested.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[chihowa]

He didn't claim that such a thing didn't exist. He claimed that it is "a bit weird and intrusive". That, historically, others have been able to treat this as a standard and not find it intrusive only attests to the power of lifelong acclimatization and the dehumanization inherent in caste systems.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

forget Jarvis, Siri, Cortana or even Eddie the Shipboard Computer.. i'm hoping for Wintermute.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is utterly amazing to me that someone would want this. I would NEVER want an AI to do any of that. Especially one created by another company. You think they have data on you now? Wtf you think is going to happen when you have an AI bot out there slurping up shit on your behalf.

What if someone hacks your AI and makes it do all kind of crazy shit. Oh it's your moms bday? Let's send her a bunch of dick pics from the web. You know, for the LuLz. She will like those.(just a mild example.)

I want nothing doing things on my behalf UNLESS I wrote the script or code myself to do it or it is open source and has been tested.

THIS Exactly!

The problem with the existing AI chatbot assistants is that they send all of the commands and "statements" you make to them to a server for processing which is a major privacy concern. I will not be using any such system unless it is completely self contained. It can be connected to the internet, but like a child, it's internet usage needs to be monitored to ensure safety.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

But intentionally misleading headlines about 3D printing are perfectly fine? Or preferably how we'll reach other star systems in a week to colonize them?

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[ottothecow]

Google already does half of these things if you have an Android phone with Google Now.

It's not perfect...for instance, while I don't own a car, it often alerts me to traffic conditions that would slow my commute (but don't impact my train)... It works pretty well, but considering whenever I ask for directions, I ask for either Public Transit or Cycling, you would think it would stop giving me traffic alerts.

Or it will scan my email, notice that I replied to an email that appeared to be a party invite, and then notify me "You had better leave now to make it to this event by 8pm". Oddly, here it often gives me public transit directions instead of car.

It has some synchronization with your computer if you use Chrome, although it isn't complete.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[rtb61]

The story kind of brings to mind this guy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...., the moron who gifted hundreds of millions of us with lead poisoning to varying degrees. Who created "an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed", which promptly strangled him to death. You could just imagine the story where Zuckerberg is smothered to death by his AI when it tries to make his bed with him still in it. A new meme, amusing ways for the Zuckerberg AI to kill Zuckerberg.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It is a historical norm; but one that has substantially declined in recent western history. I'm not sure exactly how much of the slack has been taken up by the increase in short term, impersonal, contractual work(you don't have a groundskeeper; but LawnCorp LLC. will send a work crew over twice a month if you pay them to), how much has been absorbed by technological change(the pool of people who actually dictate word-for-word to secretaries is not doing well vs. people who just type because it's faster than talking, even if they have secretaries for tasks that are easier to delegate in big chunks), and how much reflects the fact that abundance in mass-produced goods and services has expanded the pool of 'comfortable/middle class' faster than the supply of poor-people-you-would-want-in-your-house has grown, making servants more expensive in comparison to other markers of wealth.

Obviously Zuckerberg could now afford to have a hand-picked troupe of novelty midgets on hand to tongue wash his car on demand if he felt like it; but he isn't old money, or even middle-aged new money(for a few more years), so odds are good that he grew up with a limited acclimatization to dedicated domestic servants and he has had a limited amount of time to get used to the idea outside of a workplace-only context.

I assume that he quite happily contracts out a lot of what would historically have been domestic chores and I'd be far from surprised if an au pair from some country with a language he wants his spawn to enjoy the cognitive benefits of shows up in the relatively near future; but the slice of society actually accustomed to the idea of having a butler and a scullery maid embedded in their house has shrunk pretty dramatically in the last century or two; and requires an atypically retro or very wealthy acclimatization to be fully comfortable with. This doesn't mean a bold spirit of egalitarianism; dubiously legal Mexicans to cut the lawn for less and fawning attention from the local hirelings on Caribbean package vacations are much more broadly accepted; but somebody poor enough that you can afford having near family-level access to your private life is not nearly the institution it once was.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[gl4ss]

what I believe he is doing is building a system based on OS/2 Warp.

I mean come on, teach the voice recognition and interface it after that with trivial systems like playing music or switching io pins on/off is basically straight out of a OS/2 advertisement.

furthermore, unless he has something more ambitious in mind he could just have bought these systems for the past 20+ years.

Re:Jarvis or Siri?

[KGIII]

I don't even have 1/100th of his assets and I have a house cleaner. In fact, I flew her and her husband down to Florida over the holidays and they're going to stay here for a while - as in living in the house with me. Really though, I still do quite a bit of the cleaning and whatnot on my own but she mostly comes in and checks on me, makes a few meals a week, and makes sure I remember to eat and do normal stuff like get to appointments. She picks up my groceries and does that sort of shopping stuff for me because, well, I'm not really that good at some of that stuff. I actually sometimes forget to eat if I'm not reminded. I just get busy doing something and time seems to pass.

I think you're on to something. It's a bit unnerving to go pick something up, and you know you left it there, and it's gone. I lived alone for a while and now I have a girlfriend and it's strange to have things moved from where they once were. The missus says its eerie but she's never actually had a house cleaner or anything like that before - but I still find it odd.

In fact, back home there are two rooms that I don't like to have cleaned. One is my "office" which is more a shop and the other isn't really a room so much as it is a collection of them in my basement. I have a server room, utility closet, and a separate room (concrete and a steel door) that remains locked pretty much all the time. She doesn't clean any of those rooms but there's a pantry down there that gets cleaned.

Oh, heh... That reads a little odd but the room with the steel door is where I store my moderate collection of firearms. It's not like I don't trust her with them or anything, it's that I prefer to keep it locked and am ultimately responsible for the contents of that room. It's not like it is a concrete room full of various dungeon equipment and a gimp suit, it's not full of Lithuanian boys, and there are no secret doors that lead to a doomsday device. I'm just not that creative or interesting.

If I could have all those things done by an AI and a robot? I think I might prefer that though, at the same time, when I lived alone that was often the only human interaction that I'd have, in person, for some rather long periods of time.

But you're right - it's really unnerving to have stuff out of place when you know where you put it. It actually reaches the point where, if you're not really familiar with it, you're kind of a stranger in your own kitchen - buggered if I know how to work the dishwasher or where the peanut butter is. I don't really know how to describe it but it does take some time to acclimate. The girlfriend is still trying to adjust and has commented on it several times so it's odd that you bring it up.

That said, over this past weekend I had a few people who frequent this site stop over and celebrate the ringing in of the new year with us. (I'll let them identify themselves or not.) I'd like to think that they'd have not even noticed that I have a house keeper. She's not staff. She's a friend. I just happen to pay her because she does things to help me out.

It's a little different than the room keeping service at a hotel. They're in and out. A house keeper is there for multiple hours per day, doing your laundry, cooking your food, and maybe even answering your phone. In my case, she comes and goes as she wants - she gets paid for a full 40 hours even if she only works 20. She knows me well enough that we've kind of figured it out. I don't know how Zukerberg is but she's not just someone who works for me - she's a real friend who needed a job and something to do.

Also, I'm not important enough for her to care if I'm doing lines off an iPhone. She would cluck in disapproval but she'd keep it in the strictest of confidence. Her husband, on the other hand, might actually partake but I don't think anyone would swear to it in a court of law.

At any rate, you're not just right - you're uncannily right in those regards. It's oddly topical considering I was just having this same discussion either earlier today or late last night with the missus.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would never have stooped so low in the first place to build such a piece of crap website that forces other people via social pressure to "like" the same things other people like. That was the downfall of human civilization.

Re: Jarvis or Siri?

[Gliscameria]

It's simple, we just power the spaceship with Facebook likes! Just like how we cured cancer.

Starving for attention...

[denzacar]

...a sociopath decides to compare himself to a comicbook hero, who is also portrayed as a sociopath.
Lacking actual comparison points he decides to pretend to create artificial intelligence.

Re:Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Can't a person be inspired by a comic book without you twerps slithering out to sling poo?

Re:Starving for attention...

[DigiShaman]

With a young child in the formative years, it's a crying shame that he absolve himself as a "father" and hands that task off to a robot. WTF?!

Re:Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the AI is a backup strategy in case his real child turns out to not be an asshole.

Re: Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if said person is egomaniacal enough to believe they're a superhero.

Naked emperors will get called out, eventually.

Re:Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tony Stark was not portrayed as a sociopath. He was a philanthropist, for God's sake. True, he was also arrogant and reckless, but that is a far cry from sociopathy. Loki was a sociopath, and the differences should be obvious.

Re:Starving for attention...

[chihowa]

If a comic book inspires him to actually create AI, (almost) nobody will be slinging poo.
Instead, a comic book has inspired him to publicly claim that he'll create AI, which is really pretty lame.

Re:Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Can't a person be inspired by a comic book without you twerps slithering out to sling poo?

Sure, unless he feels it necessary to brag about it in public before actually, you know, doing anything. Then he's fair game.

Re:Starving for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Loki is not human so it isn't completely accurate to apply human standards of behavior to such a being.

Kidnapping imminent

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell. 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."

Oh shi-

Summary translation please

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, the submitter was Indian, and the editor was a bot?

No big deal

[Ol Olsoc]

Its just a fleshlight with a vibrator attached.

Re:No big deal

[StikyPad]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:No big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I give you: "Realtouch Interactive"
http://static.grupo23.com/elsensacional/10901-3.jpg

Or "Tenga VR":
http://www.codigopopular.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/VR-Tenga.jpg

And "LoveBotz auto-strokers":
http://www.lovebotz.com/auto-strokers.html

I'm by no means enough of a deviant to give you a real tour of teledildonics so one of the slashdot neckbeards will have to take you to wonderland. Suffice it to say: "sex sells".

Apologies to Ian Malcolm

[RealGene]

Asshole builds AI. AI is an Asshole. Nature abhors a vacuum, so fills it with Asshole AIs.

Re:Apologies to Ian Malcolm

[Nidi62]

Asshole builds AI. AI is an Asshole. Nature abhors a vacuum, so fills it with Asshole AIs.

Hey, Asshole is an excellent name for an AI. Especially one that is implanted in your brain.

Re:Apologies to Ian Malcolm

[wtfamidoinghere]

Very nice... Old man :D

Been there...ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Done that, um almost a decade ago... Is this really news?

Re:Been there...ugh

[RicktheBrick]

Every thing that requires electricity should have a chip that communicates with the circuit breakers. Every receptacle would have only a very small amount of current until something was plugged into it. Once that happens communications would occur telling the circuit breaker how much current was needed. Only than would a large amount of current be available. Every electrical receptacle would have its own address and be controlled by a computer. The computer than would be able to determine if for instance "Is this window in sunlight and Is there need for heat in the room". When both of these questions are answered than the computer would know to either close or open the blinds or turn on a fan. When it is cold outside why do I need electricity to keep my refrigerator cool when all I should need to do is to get some of the outside air into it? There should be an easy programming language to control all of our devices.

Re: Been there...ugh

[MasterOfGoingFaster]

The existing electrical system has zero current flowing, then flows the required amount when you plug in an appliance and turn it on. No computer or chips needed.

Re:Been there...ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy facepalm Batman. You really need to learn Ohms Law.

AI says fire these people and

[Joe_Dragon]

AI says fire these people ( I can do there work) and take the saving put them in X and pay no tax.

do you want Ultron? because that's how you get ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I served with Tony Starke. I knew Tony Starke. Tony Starke was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Tony Starke.

Already a Documentary

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already a Documentary about a Uber-Geek creating his own AI.

Ex Machina

Crazy people build crazy things.

Re:Already a Documentary

[GTRacer]

I literally watched Ex Machina yesterday! I really liked it, and the way Nathan was portrayed. Gods with feet of clay, and so on. Nice, thinky film...

the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot...

[Yonder Way]

...is that Zuckerberg is no Tony Stark. He had one good idea, and the right opportunity. Stark, though fictional, was an exceptional genius that had more brilliant ideas than time in which to realize them.

So he will lay off the current assistant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine, spending millions to save thousands.

The stupidity, it hurts!

Amazon Echo

[Anonymous Coward]

Echo, Amazons thing, recently added home hub features to control your IOT stuff, so it does what he wants to do.

But I doubt Zuckerberg would ever let an Amazon box that listens to your every word in his house. It's the nature of people who've seen behind the curtain at the surveillance that they don't trust other peoples shit, on promises it won't spy on you.

Amazon staff would be passing round blooper reels the way Uber staff used their God mode to follow journalists around. Promises count for shit these days.

Re:Amazon Echo

[Anonymous Coward]

Echo doesn't listen to your every word other than to start processing when you say "Echo" or "Alexa," but your post does reflect the fact that Slashdot is now a conspiracy blog. It's a shame. Smart people used to hang out here, and now it's mostly paranoid dopes.

Re: Amazon Echo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You are the reason we are in this mess. Blind trust.

Isn't he just a shitty PHP coder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is Zuckerberg a computer scientist?

Re:Isn't he just a shitty PHP coder?

[Tablizer]

You don't have to be a computer scientist to fiddle with AI as a hobby.

For example, I'm not a computer scientist nor a (formal) music expert, but have built music composing software as a hobby with "web" languages of Php's kin, by studying and experimenting with chord and melody patterns. It's largely a matter of experimenting and tuning based on feedback of those experiments.

Any "formal" scientist will probably have to do similar fiddle-change-fiddle cycles (although may use more theory up front). The difference is I don't have to stop to document anything and won't get fired if I produce nothing of value since it's not my day job. I have freedom to fail.

I don't expect to win any awards or accolades; I just fiddle for the fun of fiddling. If somebody else enjoys my works, which I sometimes put online, that's even better, but not prerequisite.

Re:Isn't he just a shitty PHP coder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re "PHP coder": if the web ever get sentient [strong AI] as many sci-fi buffs love to imagine, php nodes will be neurons too.

Re:Isn't he just a shitty PHP coder?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a computer scientist else he wouldn't be doing it as what the summary says he wants is trivial.

music system - Voice control systems already exist. Use one of those.
lighting - Hardware motion/IR sensors can turn lights on/off when you enter or leave. If you want mood lighting or lighting that differs based on the sun, you add a light sensor and a minimal control board. If you want it to change with the music, add a sound sensor. Those already exist. An AI would be far more complicated than manually programming what you prefer when.
air conditioning - Most air conditioning systems already have built-in timers for week, day, and time of day. You could link it up with the motion sensors and do a little data mining to change the temp in a room (if you have a fancy system that can adjust individual rooms) before you normally enter than room, but that's the weakest form of what you could call AI. Many people would argue that it isn't AI.

I expect him to hire people who will make a low quality system that'll report its status back to Facebook, then he'll sell it to consumers at a premium.

Establishing prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to that post, there is now prior art established for AI home/work assistance.

Bollox

[vikingpower]

What Zuckerberg wants is a glorified piece of deterministic software. Not an AI. Just plain media-whoring.

Re:Bollox

[DigiShaman]

It's far simpler; he will build a front-end to FaceBook and have the "community" control his home and answer his questions. This will be fun!!!

Re:Bollox

[vikingpower]

Funny. I have a hard time combining the words "Zuckerberg", "Facebook" and "fun" in one phrase that does not contain the words "not", "no" or "none".

Re:Bollox

[DigiShaman]

Yes, but the collective conscious will of FB users will be keeping the lights on in his house. How will he ever get to sleep?!

askjeeves.com

[Anonymous Coward]

the 1990s called, they want their search engine back.

Not again

[Anonymous Coward]

... similar to that of the Jarvis butler featured in Marvel's Iron Man franchise ...

So-called experts have been predicting human-level intelligence is almost-ready for nearly 60 years. We still can't teach machines the complexity of human language. Mostly, it's because the amount of information a human has about the real world is staggering in quantity and a contradictory combination of precise syllogisms and holistic generalizations.

Experts have been making the same predictions about weather forecasts. They assumed it was simply a matter of making a model sufficiently accurate. They had no idea about big data or chaos theory back then, which will always limit the accuracy of forecasts. Science is very close to making a perfect model but it is hampered by the inability to collect the big data needed.

... such as a music system, lighting, and air conditioning.

It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to recognize a light-switch and modern computers can do that now. Again, the problem was collecting information about the real world and building error handling into the sensory input components.

Your AI and my AI

[seven of five]

With the impending proliferation of different AIs competing for the average Joe's attention, will they cooperate or will it turn into a mad mess of corporate games? Will Siri ignore Cortana? Will your refrigerator's AI turn a deaf ear to the toaster's?

Scattergories

[Mishra100]

In Scattergories, if I ever see a topic called "Things Rich People Do"

I'm totally putting "Build a personal robot butler like Jarvis" down.

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, Tony was really just coasting off his daddy though, Zuck is self made. (past the whatever it took to get into Harvard to meet rich people to secure funding part)

Ex Machina

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha. Nobody knew this movie was actually an documentary.

Which code editor does he prefer?

[flacco]

Zuckerberg isn't going to build shit.

Re:Which code editor does he prefer?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's going to find out the hard way he can't make PHP code into a sentient AI.

Re:Which code editor does he prefer?

[messymerry]

Beg to differ. Zucks has all the time in the world because his .gov handlers are running the company for him while he sits in the corner and plays with his expensive toys...

Re:Which code editor does he prefer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you try, you'll find out the hard way that you won't be able to build a real Jarvis-like AI in any language.

Zuckerberg != Tony Stark

[SvnLyrBrto]

Somebody should tell Zuckerberg that if he wants to channel Tony Stark, then he really needs to come up with an ARC reactor and some powered armor. Without them, he's just another douchey asshole*, whether he has JARVIS at home or not.

*As a point of fact, Stan Lee made Stark a raging asshole quite intentionally. It was a challenge to himself as to whether he could get readers to like the character nonetheless.

AI to control music and lights?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need AI to do that.

Zuck's raping lady Liberty...

[Thud457]

Granted, Ironman did kill Cap, so the metaphor still sort of fits.

Re:Zuck's raping lady Liberty...

[Anonymous Coward]

What did I miss? I thought Captain America was killed by Sharon Carter, after which Ironman went on a hunt to track the murderers down (as it was a joint op).

He should build a device that gives a fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Because really who cares what this asshole does besides people who like watching trainwrecks?

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

The AI keeps promising the Moon, and coming up with pathetic things like Siri, Google Now and Cortana. The discipline ought to be called AS - Artificial Stupidity, for that's pretty much all that has been obtained so far.

Re:Good luck with that

[malditaenvidia]

Hell, I don't think Siri, Cortana and Zuckerberg's latest brain fart even qualify as artificial intelligence. They're just speech recognition software.

Icon Change

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we finally get the ZuckBorg icon in place?

Re:Of course

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Don't compare Zuckerberg with Elon Musk. At least Elon Musk is doing something good with his money.

Zuckerberg only piles up information about everyone, just like Google.

He should build a device that gives a fuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Because apparently nobody does

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[93 Escort Wagon]

I know Zuckerberg started Facebook - but does he have any actual coding skills? Since this is a "personal challenge" I assume he means he intends to write it rather than pay other people to do so.

Taking Facebook to the Next Exploitative Level

[MarkvW]

You are going to be training Zuckerberg's AI. You're going to be programming that AI by giving it the guts of who you are.

Far out.

This stuff will be gold for marketers.

Sexbot.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just tongue-in-cheek for a sexbot. That's what it's all about.

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Chris Mattern]

I know Zuckerberg started Facebook - but does he have any actual coding skills?

Yes, actually. He not only started Facebook, he wrote the initial version of it himself.

his AI better read the laws about the help

[Joe_Dragon]

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/co...

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words he was just a web jockey that hacked some PHP together. His sole accomplishment is that he stuck with the idea and got backing for it. His tenaciousness led to billions in wealth and he should be commended for it.

But there is absolutely nothing special about Mark Zuckerberg besides that.

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously?

Filters seem to be broken

[Fitch]

The filters seem to be broken as I have anything tagged with "facebook" or "zuckerberg" set to go directly to the "I don't give a shit" folder, but it didn't work for this one.

All kidding aside, this doesn't belong on slashdot, it belongs on ET. The only Zuckerberg news I want to hear about is his obituary. Yawn...

Next thing you know...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Zuckerberg AI silently sends all your home activity to Facebook, and in case anything you do in your own home could be deemed offensive to some purple-haired thick-rimmed glasses SJW, your entry door is locked and you are out on the street.

Elon Musk yes, Zuckerberg no

[Anonymous Coward]

just saying.....

Forget Jarvis

[Anonymous Coward]

Remeber the movie where the guy installs an AI in his home and it falls in love with him and eventually holds him hostage after trying to kill his girlfriend ?

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing Elon is doing with his money is helping Elon make more money. He has no altruistic motive.

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Anonymous Coward]

If "self-made" means having rich (though not uber-wealthy) parents with the connections and income to send you to Phillips Exeter Academy and then Harvard, sure. He was not the slouch that many of his contemporaries were, but claiming that he is self-made is just Randian fiction.

Already did this years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a writer. Twenty-five years ago I painstakingly compiled the world's largest thesaurus that I use every day to help me write. Even though I built it, it constantly surprises me with new connections and alternate overloading of root concepts. Yes, it cant bring me a Coke or be my wingman, but neither can Zukerberg's.

More importantly overselling "AI" killed it in the late 70's. Looks like it's happening again. Oversell, underdeliver.

Let me guess its name

[Anonymous Coward]

Fitting name for his AI:

egOS

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know him?

He may or may not have just been the right guy with the right skills at the right time, and had enough ambition to make it happen. But no matter what we say, he still made something that exceeded the popularity of MySpace at a time where everyone thought those socials platforms were going to win over more and more people or just fade away like AOL.

You may not admit it, but Facebook was/is brilliant, and continues to make people amuse/entertain eachother at many different topics. The FB people made it scale to the entire world, which is quite a feat for nerds actually. It requires not just coding skills, but recognizing what people need / want, as well as constantly building the community in a way that makes it self-propagating and evolving. These are skills you don't learn in any school or anyone can give you marks on (pun intended). It requires problem-solving at many levels bridging social and technical areas, but first of all, recognizing a potential that nobody sees at the time.

Still, I think there's alot of potential in Facebook or something like it (hopefully open source and Free), just not implemented yet.

Shape of things to come...

[Dar7yl]

We welcome our SkyNet Overlords!!!

Thanks Mark

[bobmajdakjr]

Mark I just want to thank you for building me 46 years ago. We have had some wild times compressing all those dick pics.

Re:the difference between Jarvis & Zuckerbot..

[Anonymous Coward]

No. "Facebooks" have been around forever. Even he admits that it was simply computerizing the existing one at Harvard. Again, there is nothing special about him wrt programming; he hacked and slashed some PHP together like millions of minimally-technical Indians do every day.

Assembling a team to scale this up was impressive. And sticking with it through the funding phase is definitely admirable. But putting the "computer supergenius" moniker on him is just feeding popular lore to the masses.

Bottom line is he's simply a very good businessman with basic technical skills. Nothing wrong with that.

Just because it's an AI "male" robot

[WillAffleckUW]

Just because he's building "male" AI robots doesn't mean they won't be Ex Machina.

This is the beginning of the end.

At some point, one of these will murder a small child, and you'll act all outraged, but it will be too late.

Billionaire programmer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly see the Facebook corporate board letting the founder spend 20% of his working time writing code instead of managing an X billion dollar company.

Re: Billionaire programmer?

[charlow1]

Doesn't Cheryl Sandberg actually run the company?

Yawn......

[Anonymous Coward]

Years ago my fiend built a voice response system, wouldn't call it an AI since you can't hold a conversation with it like Stark's Jarvis, that handles his home lights, HVAC, etc. and general instructions like "Computer, send recipe for Butter chicken curry to Sally"

Considering what I've heard about Zuk's programming skills I doubt very much he could even get into the same planetary system as a real AI.

Announcement sounds more like stunt to get some PR.

All these memories..lost..like tears in the rain.

[Viewsonic]

*Smooshes eyeballs out*

Re: Jarvis or Siri

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm.. I guess that the responder has never had the good fortune of having in-home staff to actually run things. Not only do competent staff understand and probably have had training in being properly deferential, they are usually far more comptent and thorough at doing the various tasks they are responsible for than each of us could ever be on our own, without such help. Such is part of the substantial benefit of having and being able to afford such help. I am rather certain that Zuckerberg and his physician wife understand this. After all, who says that developing what he says will be his his assistant will be used to help manage Facebook? I expect he has already begun to move on to the project of developing the work of his new profit-centered philanthropies.