Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready to showcase a personal AI project he has been working on in his spare time no later than next month.
The helm of the biggest social media company in the world announced his plans at a live Townhall Q&A session in Rome.
Touts about the project started back in January, when he told the media that his annual "personal challenge" contains the development of an AI assistant fit to control his smart home. Zuckerberg wanted to make sure the AI could adjust standard parameters - such as temperature and lighting - with voice commands, as well as aid him in his professional work. In his presentation, Facebook's CEO compared the software with Iron Man's Jarvis.
"I hope to have a demo, hopefully next month," Zuckerberg says.
Will Mark Zuckerberg become the next (real) Tony Stark? Stay tuned to find out.
He explains that the AI is advanced enough to let him adjust the lighting system, open the gates without any code or key and tamper with the temperature. In a snarky side note, he says that his wife is less than happy with the fact that the AI only recognizes Mark's voice. However, being the gentleman that he is, Zuckerberg promised to give her full access as soon as the system is polished up.
"It's starting to be able to do some pretty fun things, and I'm looking forward to show it to the world," Zuckerberg says.
Facebook's CEO is not the only one who is interested in delivering the best home automation experience. Amazon's Echo and Samsung's SmartThings are already taking over the smart home market with their AI-enabled devices. When the "short demo" touted by Zuckerberg rolls out, it will be clear if it brings that something extra that gives it an edge over its rivals.
The leader of Facebook praises his cooperation with Facebook engineers in developing the AI. He mentions the "awesome AI work" in both face and speech recognition and explains that, thanks to the progress his team has made, he is now able to open his front gate without needing a a code or key.
"It just sees my face and it lets me in. There's some state-of-the-art AI in there," he adds.
Seeing the progress made by engineers on a day-to-day basis helped Zuckerberg get a larger perspective on how difficult building an AI assistant actually is. His experience getting involved in the project was so cool that he can't wait to share it with everyone else in September.
Zuckerberg's trust in AI development is nothing new, as the CEO previously stated that he expects artificial intelligence to dominate human intelligence in the next 10 years. In April, the Facebook CEO said that we are heading to a point where "computer systems will be better than people" at core actions such as seeing, hearing and language.
Do you agree with Zuckerberg in his confidence in AI surpassing humans in their basic senses? Let us know in the comments section below.
