The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) a charitable organization founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse Priscilla Chan, has made its first acquisition.
The CZI issued a statement saying that it had bought the Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup Meta, which is a step towards reaching its aim of eliminating illness' all over the globe.
"We are excited to share that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has agreed to acquire Meta, a company that has developed an AI that helps scientists read, understand and prioritize millions of scientific papers," noted CZI's CTO Cori Bargmann.
The CZI has a vision of eradicating disease from all parts of the world, making the planet a healthier place to live in. Meta's co-founder and CEO Sam Molyneux shared that the company was very excited about its future.
"I am excited to announce that Meta will be joining the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to bring what we have built to the entire scientific community, toward their goal to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century," shared Molyneux.
The company has not revealed any financial details about the acquisition. Meta, which is set up in Toronto uses AI to browse through and read scientific papers and logs, providing researchers with the gist of the paper.
Meta And CZI - The Way Forward
After the takeover, Meta will be consolidated into a tool and its capabilities will be provided for free of cost to scientists for extensive research.
Zuckerberg, along with wife Priscilla, who is a doctor by profession, have pledged to donate over $3 billion over the next 10 years, striving to manage or banish all diseases and using some of their wealth towards avant-garde medical research.
Biomedicine research sees thousands of papers being printed daily, and the Meta AI will be able to survey and analyze these papers at super-human speed, thereby providing insight at a pace no human would be able to compete with.
Zuckerberg And AI
The newest acquisition only strengthens Zuckerberg's love and obsession with AI. In December 2016, he revealed that he developed AI-fueled software named Jarvis. The "butler" manages the various chores of his home and even entertains the family.
The Facebook CEO had undertaken this initiative last year, after being inspired by Marvel Comics' Iron Man. In the original series, Tony Stark is a rich billionaire who has developed an assistant running on AI to help manage his chores and household.
In reality, Jarvis is not a tangible being. Rather, it is an app which can be accessed by Zuckerberg from his phone and can control the room temperature, lights, security, appliances, music preferences and volume and much more. Jarvis has learnt Zuckerberg's taste and preferences and even provides entertainment for his daughter Max.
Zuckerberg has plans of improving Jarvis and making him more streamlined and customized. He thinks that AI has a great future ahead and is here to stay.
AI is gradually carving a space in people's homes with the advent of Google Home and Amazon Echo speakers, which have an integrated personal assistants to answer your queries and control devices which are connected to them.
Zuckerberg plans to continue improving Jarvis, and says he expects AI technology to improve greatly in the coming 5 to 10 years.
