Morgan Freeman's voice has always been a topic of interest in the voice industry. He has a distinctly smooth and deep voice and is often being cast for narratives.
Being skillful in narration, Morgan Freeman does not only do voice overs for shows and programs. He is now the voice of a new artificial intelligence assistant created by Mark Zuckerberg. This Hollywood veteran actor may one day replace Siri.
Zuckerberg calls his new AI assistant Jarvis. If the name sounds familiar, it is because he took it after Tony Stark's own AI butler from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as reported by Information Age. As the voice of God in "Bruce Almighty," he was personally hand-picked by Facebook users. Another voice alternative was Arnold Schwarzenegger's disciplinarian tone.
Imagine Morgan Freeman's voice helping Zuckerberg around the house. The Facebook founder has found Jarvis helpful around his home, especially with his wife, Priscilla and kid, Max, as reported by Tech Crunch.
However, Zuckerberg is not keen on releasing the code to his AI as it is tied to his own home. But celebrity voices are reported to have a "novelty effect." According to Dr. Simone Stumpf, a City University lecturer, users are more engaged when they are interacting with a celebrity voice. And the more they interact, the more they can be forgiving of mistakes. This creates an environment for the AI to learn and get things right.
Will Morgan Freeman's voice one day replace Apple's Siri? Even though Siri has been around for quite a while, Alexa and Google are also building their own AIs. However, these companies have not revealed their voice options - if any.
By popular demand, Morgan Freeman's voice is considered to be a more acceptable presence in someone's home. Yorick Wilks, a professor of Artificial Intelligence at Sheffield University, says that the voice does not annoy people though. It is the personality of the assistant that breaks bonds.
Watch the video below of Mark Zuckerberg using Jarvis for real!
