Mark Zuckerberg is Building a Robot Butler

Mark Zuckerberg has taken his first step toward becoming a superhero. The Facebook co-founder has announced plans to build a robot butler, inspired by Iron Man's artificially intelligent personal assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System).

Zuckerberg plans to build an A.I. system that will run his entire home, from controlling the lighting and temperature to recognizing his friends’ faces when they’re at the door, and even helping him with his work by providing VR data visualizations. Unlike Tony Stark's trusty assistant, Zuckerberg’s robot won’t help him fight crime (so he says).

Zuckerberg announced his robot butler plans on Facebook, explaining that the project is his personal New Year's resolution: “Every year, I take on a personal challenge to learn new things and grow outside my work at Facebook. My challenges in recent years have been to read two books every month, learn Mandarin, and meet a new person every day,” he wrote. “Every challenge has a theme, and this year's theme is invention.”

Unfortunately, Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to have any plans to market his AI sidekick to the masses. "The reason I'm building this just for myself is that the technology in every home is different, so it'll be much easier for me to start just building this for mine that building a general product that works for everyone," he explained.

Even so, Zuckerberg has promised to share any discoveries he makes—which means any budding Tony Starks out there will have the opportunity to learn from his work.

[h/t: Fast Company]