CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Alexa and Siri have nothing on Morgan Freeman, who lent his distinct voice to Jarvis, Mark Zuckerberg's new artificial intelligence assistant. USA TODAY NETWORK 
 
 Actor Morgan Freeman will be the voice of Mark Zuckerberg's digital assistant Jarvis. (Photo: Kimberly White, Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO — Move over, Siri. It's not OK, Google. 
 
 The voice behind Mark Zuckerberg's homemade artificial intelligence assistant Jarvis will be none other than Morgan Freeman. Freeman's iconic timbre was selected by popular demand. 
 
 The system that runs Zuckerberg's household, named for Tony Stark's artificial intelligence from Iron Man, had a synthesized voice like many other such systems. Robert Downey Jr., who plays Stark, volunteered to be the new voice of Jarvis under certain conditions. 
 
 Instead, Zuckerberg asked the public to weigh in. His Facebook post received more than 50,000 comments, with Freeman emerging victorious. (Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan also had some fun experimenting with an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice-powered Jarvis. Maybe he'll be back.) 
 
 Zuckberg toldFast Company he called Freeman and said: "Hey, I posted this thing, and...thousands of people want you to be the voice. Will you do it?’" Freeman told Zuckerberg: "Yeah, sure." 
 
 Of course, Freeman has other starring voice roles in the tech world. He's one of the celebrity voices on Google's navigation app Waze. 
 
 Facebook has not disclosed whether Freeman is getting paid, according to Fast Company. 
 
 With the Jarvis project, Zuckerberg wanted to use his voice to control everything in his house, from the music to the lights to the temperature. He also wanted Jarvis to swing open the front gate for friends by recognizing their faces. Essentially, the Jarvis project is like Zuckerberg's homemade version of Amazon's Alexa service or Google's Home. 
 
 Nearly a year ago, the Facebook CEO said he planned to build an AI system as one of the personal growth challenges he gives himself each year. For Zuckerberg, this was a return to his programming roots. This isn't the first time he has returned to coding. His personal growth challenge in 2012 was to code every day. But this challenge connected him to a new wave of computer science that is vital to his company's growth. 
 
 "My goal was to learn about the state of artificial intelligence — where we're further along than people realize and where we're still a long ways off. These challenges always lead me to learn more than I expected, and this one also gave me a better sense of all the internal technology Facebook engineers get to use, as well as a thorough overview of home automation," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Monday. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2i6wMku 

 As I wrote yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has finished building Jarvis, his home AI assistant. Among other things, the system can turn lights on and off, play music based on the personal tastes of both him and wife Priscilla Chan, automatically open their front gate for friends, make toast, and even wake up their one-year-old daughter Max with Mandarin lessons. 
 
 The system was inspired by Tony Stark’s Jarvis AI, from the Iron Man movies. Stark, of course, is played by Robert Downey, Jr., and after Zuckerberg asked the public in October who should be the voice, Downey himself volunteered, saying he would “do it in a heartbeat” if actor Paul Bettany, the voice of Jarvis in the Iron Man films, got paid and the resulting money went to a charity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s choice. 
 
 But the public had other ideas. Zuck’s post inspired more than 50,000 comments, and Freeman was the overwhelming choice to replace the standard female robotic voice with which the family currently interacts. 
 
 In an interview in the spacious living room of his classic 113-year-old Palo Alto, California home last week, Zuckerberg told me that at first he had no expectation it would end up being Freeman. 
 
 It turned out, though, that soon after the public’s clamoring for Freeman, Zuckerberg saw him at the Breakthrough Awards, which earlier this month awarded $25 million for scientific achievements. 
 
 “I called him after,” Zuckerberg told me, “and I said, ‘Hey, I posted this thing, and…thousands of people want you to be the voice. Will you do it?’” 

 One of the richest men in the world now has God as his personal assistant. 
 
 Well, the voice of God. Who better for the man who oversees a network of more than 1.8 billion people and has ambitions to connect the world? 
 
 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed Tuesday that actor Morgan Freeman is the voice behind his home AI assistant, the project he tasked himself to complete during 2016. 
 
 Zuckerberg has said he was inspired by Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr., and his AI assistant Jarvis. Conveniently enough, Downey Jr. volunteered Jarvis' fictional voice (played by actor Paul Bettany) for the AI, but Zuckerberg declined the offer. 
 
 Why? The people chose God Freeman. Zuckerberg asked the Facebook community to post on his timeline with suggestions for the voice back in October, and Freeman was the "overwhelming choice" out of the 50,000 comments, Fast Company reports. 
 
 Facebook did not disclose whether or not Freeman was paid. 
 
 Freeman's voice doesn't have to boom throughout the Zuckerberg home all that often. Many of the commands the AI assistant follows are text-based. Zuckerberg can use Facebook's Messenger app to turn lights on and off, play music and open his front gate, as Fast Company reported in another feature. 
 
 It isn't the first time Freeman's been the voice of tech. Freeman also provides a voice option for Google-owned navigation app Waze. 

 Mark Zuckerberg has posted a new video of his homemade Jarvis AI assistant in action. The Facebook CEO detailed his progress with this project in a longer text post on Monday, but Tuesday’s video gives a better idea of how it actually works for Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and their child, Max. 
 
 The platform looks like a fairly capable voice-powered command center for the home in the video, but it’s also clearly heavily produced. Plus, it’s voiced by none other than Morgan Freeman, which is a pretty big get even for Zuckerberg. 
 
 Freeman won the popularity contest on Zuckerberg’s Facebook post seeking input on who should act as the voice for his AI, says Fast Company, and the tech icon made the ask after seeing Freeman at the Breakthrough awards earlier in December. No word yet on whether any money changed hands, and if so, where it went. 
 
 Money quote from the above – “There are no good Nickelback songs,” which proves the thing is smarter than at least 50 million humans worldwide. 
 
 Zuckerberg later posted a second video of Chan’s experience with Jarvis, which basically doubles down on the goofs. I can’t wait for the Zuckerberg family sketch comedy show, coming to IFC this fall.
– It's well documented that Morgan Freeman is incapable of turning down any role—(cough) The Contract (double cough) Last Vegas—including, apparently, the role of Mark Zuckerberg's personal butler. In a Facebook video posted Tuesday, Zuckerberg debuted his new artificially intelligent home assistant voiced by none other than Ellis Redding himself. Mashable reports the Facebook founder's new assistant was inspired by Tony Stark's Jarvis in the Iron Man movies. He even stole the name, according to USA Today. But while Robert Downey Jr. offered to voice the system, Zuckerberg—and his Facebook friends—had other ideas. Zuckerberg posted on Facebook in October asking who should voice his AI assistant, and Freeman was the "overwhelming choice," Fast Company reports. "I called him...and I said, ‘Hey, I posted this thing, and...thousands of people want you to be the voice. Will you do it?’" Freeman, as is his wont, said yes. TechCrunch notes it's "a pretty big get even for Zuckerberg." Zuckerberg's Jarvis can turn the lights on and off, play music, open the front gates using facial recognition software, make toast, give Mandarin lessons, and more—all in Freeman's dulcet tones. It's the result of a "personal growth challenge" Zuckerberg gave himself at the start of the year.