We Have Siri But Can We Get a J.A.R.V.I.S?

If you have been watching Marvel movies (especially the Iron Man series), you must be familiar with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) system called J.A.R.V.I.S, an acronym for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. In the movies, J.A.R.V.I.S, (voice role played by Paul Bettany) is Tony Stark’s (played by Robert Downey Jr.) personal virtual assistant and does everything for him.

Thanks to the hard work of Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, this world, fortunately, has a relatively smart and advanced virtual assistant called Siri that operates on iPhones. (Apologies for those who use Android phones but this article will only talk about iOS.) However, the functions that Siri has are very limited compared to the functions J.A.R.V.I.S has. Indeed, Siri is a revolutionary creation that helps users send messages, call someone and set alarms by just talking to the phone. Siri can also tell the users the weather, closest restaurants, sports game scores and even the closest bathroom available. With Siri in our pockets, some might ask, “Why do we even need J.A.R.V.I.S when we already have something like Siri? Is it even possible to make something that is unrealistic and only appears in movies?” To those who have these questions in their mind, this article is a must-read.

J.A.R.V.I.S’s capabilities exceed Siri’s. If you are a big fan of the Iron Man movies or even just someone who just watched it once, you will know what J.A.R.V.I.S is capable of doing. In movies, J.A.R.V.I.S can manage the local environment of Tony Stark’s mansion interior, control robotic appliances, control the suits hidden underneath Stark’s mansion floor and much more. Simply put, he can do everything that a human being can do and can do things that exceed beyond that. Imagine J.A.R.V.I.S in action in your daily life. It is Sunday morning and it is too sunny outside, so instead of bringing down the curtains by yourself, you tell J.A.R.V.I.S to do that for you. Later in the day, you plan to have some guests over at your house at noon and you are planning to cook for them. So, you ask J.A.R.V.I.S to help you check what ingredients are currently available in the refrigerator and J.A.R.V.I.S their expiry dates. I hope that none of the readers get involved in cases where he or she has to ask J.A.R.V.I.S to deploy armory units or prepare missiles.

So, how close are we from inventing an actual AI that works in real life? Surprisingly, it has already been created. At the end of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Facebook, successfully created a personal AI assistant to help him run the house. On his blog post, Zuckerberg wrote that he was inspired by the movie Iron Man and wanted to have his own AI assistant just like how Iron Man has J.A.R.V.I.S. In addition, Zuckerberg wrote that his personal J.A.R.V.I.S-style AI can control the temperature, lights, music, appliances, and security of his house. According to him, he wrote J.A.R.V.I.S’s program with Python, PHP and Objective C to include techniques like natural language processing, speech recognition, face recognition and reinforcement learning.

J.A.R.V.I.S was first introduced in the movie Iron Man, which was released in 2008, and at that time, it was impossible to invent an AI of such. In 2008, J.A.R.V.I.S. was only an unrealistic and highly advanced AI concept added into the movie to make the movie more futuristic. However, about a decade has passed since then, and J.A.R.V.I.S has already been invented in real life. With the rapid advance in technology, the day where everyone will have their own J.A.R.V.I.S operating at home is fast-approaching.

For more information, please go to Wired and Computer World.

If you wish to make your very own J.A.R.V.I.S-style AI, please visit Mark Zuckerberg’s Blog Post.