Mark Zuckerberg's artificial intelligence-imbued software "butler" - named Jarvis - is now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said Monday. Zuckerberg took on the personal project this year, devoting about 100 hours to making a system inspired by the "Iron Man" film character Jarvis as a virtual assistant to help manage his household.
"In some ways, this challenge was easier than I expected," Zuckerberg said in a post on his page at the leading social network.
"In fact, my running challenge (I also set out to run 365 miles in 2016) took more total time."
Zuckerberg said that he can talk to his AI creation through his phone or computer, and it can control lights, temperature, music, security, appliances and more.
The software learns his tastes and patterns, as well as new words or concepts, and can even entertain his daughter Max, according to Zuckerberg.
Natural language processing and facial recognition capabilities were built into Jarvis, enabling it to understand spoken or texted commands and recognise who is issuing them, Zuckerberg noted.