Zuckerberg builds software butler for his home

San Francisco

MARK Zuckerberg's software "butler" imbued with artificial intelligence (AI) - named Jarvis - is now in service, and even plays with his family, the Facebook chief said on Monday.

Mr 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," Mr 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 (or 587 kilometres) in 2016) took more total time."

Jarvis is not a physical robot, but an application Mr Zuckerberg can access through his phone or computer to con…