Unbounded by petty day-to-day concerns like making rent or paying off student loans, America's super rich are free to "think big." That appeared exactly Mark Zuckerberg's intention when he announced his 2016 New Year's resolution to create a butler governed by artificial intelligence.
What lofty goals does the Facebook CEO and co-founder have for his AI Jeeves? Among other tasks, he hopes the software will watch over his sleeping infant daughter and answer his front door.
Zuckerberg unveiled the plan yesterday, telling his online followers that this latest goal falls within his annual tradition of self-improvement.
"Every year, I take on a personal challenge to learn new things and grow outside my work at Facebook," explained the Zuck. "My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work... You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man," he continued.
This New Year's resolution appears to be perhaps significantly more difficult than resolutions past, which included reading two books each month and wearing a tie to work every day. But Zuck plans to take it one step at a time.
"I'm going to start by exploring what technology is already out there," he noted. "Then I'll start teaching it to understand my voice to control everything in our home — music, lights, temperature and so on. 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."
Whatever happens with Zuck's AI butler, expect Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to keep an eye on the project, as the polymath announced late last year the creation of a non-profit with the goal of making sure AI benefits mankind (as opposed to, you know, destroying it).
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