Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has a personal challenge for 2016. The challenge is to build a simple AI to run his home and help him with his work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man.
- Start by exploring what technology is already out there.
- start teaching it to understand his voice to control everything in his home — music, lights, temperature and so on.
- teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell.
- teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that he need to check on when Mark is not with her.
- On the work side, it’ll help Mark visualize data in VR (virtual reality) to help him build better services and lead his organizations more effectively.
Every challenge has a theme, and this year’s theme is invention.
At Facebook Mark spends a lot of time working with engineers to build new things. Some of the most rewarding work involves getting deep into the details of technical projects. Mark did this with Internet.org when they discuss the physics of building solar-powered planes and satellites to beam down internet access. He does this with Oculus when they get into the details of the controllers or the software they’re designing. He does this with Messenger when they discuss our AI to answer any question you have. But it’s a different kind of rewarding to build things yourself, so this year his personal challenge is to do that.

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.