Ambient Intelligence

Just a few key points. Ambient Intelligence is abbreviated AmI. It involves unobtrusive hardware and intelligent human-computer interfaces. And it is many things. It is the vision of providing a personal assistant to everyone learning about her goals and preferences. Enhancing the interaction of communities. A multi-disciplinary challenge.

Is there a source work for this?

Google reveals about 13,000 hits for "ambient intelligence", including the number one hit, http://www.eusai.net/, which has the following description:

"Ambient Intelligence represents a vision of the future where we shall be surrounded by electronic environments, sensitive and responsive to people. Ambient intelligence technologies are expected to combine concepts of ubiquitous computing and intelligent systems putting humans in the centre of technological developments."

This seems related to IntelligenceAmplification??

Linda Nagata in "Vast" and perhaps others of her books invented the term "dull intelligence" for embedded computing devices responsible for such things as opening doors, preparing food, or piloting spacecraft. Maybe more utilitarian and less ambitious than ambient intelligence?

Is "dull intelligence" a useful term? If smart embedded devices are going to be as ubiquitous as we are all hoping then is there really a need for some name for it? I mean, don't we already take embedded intelligence in our smart phones, coffee makers, vacuum cleaners, automobile engine controls, thermostats, pacemakers, aircraft navigation systems, doorbells, yada yada yada, for granted?

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Donald Fagan's (the band Steely Dan) "just machine to make big decisions, programmed by fellas with compassion and vision" in his song "IGY," a reflection on the naive optimism of one coming of age in the post 1950s era.

It may have been naive optimism, but our understanding of the pervasiveness of computing power in modern life is still pretty limited, even for those of us who design computers into toaster ovens and water heaters. You just can't know how many microprocessors you come into contact with on a daily basis. It truly is becoming ambient.

See: PervasiveComputing, UbiquitousComputing, AmbientStupidity

CategoryMetaphor