Mycroft Promises Open Source, Linux-based AI for IoT World

The smart home niche of the Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping up to be the next great frontier for open source software to conquer. And a new, crowdfunded device, Mycroft, is hoping to be among the first open source platforms to make inroads in this market.

Mycroft promises "A.I. for everyone." (A.I is short for artificial intelligence, just in case you missed the acronym revolution.) And its developers aim to deliver not just any AI, but a fully open source one that serves as a foundation for other developers to contribute features.

Those features revolve around artificial intelligence for IoT devices in smart homes, as well as offices. Mycroft is designed to perform tasks such as turn lights on and off, control media devices and adjust thermostats in response to voice commands—and not specific, formulaic commands that users have to memorize, but ones spoken in natural language. A big part of the pitch behind Mycroft is its promised ability to listen and learn from users to understand what they want, no matter how they ask for it.

Another key part of the pitch is the open source code and open hardware behind Mycroft. The device is powered by Ubuntu Snappy Core, Canonical's transactionally updated Linux distribution for embedded computing, and its A.I. capabilities run on open source code. Mycroft is also built atop Raspberry Pi hardware.

The Mycroft team hopes the open nature of the device will help it to stand out as the IoT market grows. "Natural language A.I. systems that integrate with the Internet of Things are expensive and closed source," Mycroft CTO Ryan Sipes said in an email. "But Mycroft changes all that. Our team designed Mycroft so users could seamlessly interact with the Internet of Things. We created a system that runs on open-source software and powered it with Raspberry Pi, making it stand out against existing proprietary A.I.s."

The Mycroft team's experimentation with unorthodox ideas extends further than open source AI. The developers are also proposing things such as paying contributors in digital currency called Mycrobits in lieu of actual cash, on which Mycroft remains short despite the success of its Kickstarter campaign in early September.

Mycrobits are an intriguing concept. But it's hard to envision them sitting well with many mainstream programmers.

Still, the project has succeeded in attracting some significant talent (presumably by offering salaries paid in real cash). It hired Sean Fitzgerald, who worked on Apple's (APPL) Siri A.I., and Sipes said it will soon announce the hiring of Jonathan D'Orleans, a programmer with AI and open source experience.