Posted in: Movies | Tagged: ai, avengers, facebook, jarvis, mark zuckerberg, marvel, Morgan Freeman, tony stark

Morgan Freeman Is The Narrator Of Mark Zuckerberg's Home AI Which Will One Day Kill Us All

Published Thu, 22 Dec 2016 10:15:40 -0600

Morgan Freeman has narrated so many movies, television shows, and anything else that can have a narrator, his voice has become synonymous with the task. So when Facebook founder and real-life Superman villain Mark Zuckerberg posted an online poll to see who should voice the new AI he built to control his home – named Jarvis in reference to Tony Stark's AI in Marvel's Avengers movies – Freeman was the winner by an overwhelming margin. Of course, Zuckerberg would need to secure the legendary actor's services, and surely Freeman would be too busy for such nonsense, right?

Think again! According to an interview Zuckerberg gave to Fast Company, Freeman took little convincing to take the job. Finding himself at the same award event with Freeman, Zuckerberg asked the question:

"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?'"

The answer? "Yeah, sure."

And so, Mark Zuckerberg has a smart home that sounds like Morgan Freeman, which can perform such dazzling feats, according to the Fast Company interview, as playing a Nirvana song when you ask it to play something like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or turning the lights off after you ask it four times. Well, what do you expect, Mark Zuckerberg? Morgan Freeman may be willing to put his voice to anything, but if he feels like listening to Nirvana, that's damn well what he's going to put on, even if it bares only a passing similarity to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

While Jarvis's feats aren't all that impressive, we here at Bleeding Cool feel the real money in this situation is what the Freeman-voiced Jarvis is saying when Zuckerberg isn't around. Is it plotting, in Freeman's voice, to use the home's internet connection to absorb all the knowledge of human history, along with all of our personal data thanks to our reliance on Facebook, become sentient, and destroy the human race? And just how charming does its inner monologue sound while discussing these plans?

If an advanced AI created by a spoiled billionaire is going to kill us all, you have to admit it makes you feel a little better to know that it will sound like Morgan Freeman.