The Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment is one that is aware of and responsive to human work and needs, and the technology is the hardware and software that runs those systems. In its simplest forms, it turns the lights out and the coffee pot off when there are no humans present. In developing smart offices, AmI technology surrounds us and assists in the daily productivity of the new global workforce.
But for many of us, the ideas behind AmI environments are burned into our brains straight from 1968, a very strange year in many ways. On the ship Discovery One, an artificial intelligence and AmI tech named HAL 9000: HAL saw everything with his deeply red monitor-eyes, and spoke in his deeply resonant voice as he slowly went mad.
“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”
“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Of course it is entirely possible for artificial neural networks to go mad in the human sense. It’s all just loose wiring of various sorts, biochemical or chip-based, but enough time has now passed that the designers of the offices and homes of the future believe HAL had lost the ferocious hold he has held on human imagination. We’re ready to try this again. And this time, we have the tools to actually do it.
(“Dave, stop,” as his poor neural networks were ripped out and he descended into not only madness but childhood again.) It will never happen IRL, because it’s already happened, and the monitor eyes of the new AmI tech will never again be made that deep, glowing red. And only some joker named Dave who was alive in 1968 will name his AmI tech HAL.
What the new smart offices will have is communication technology with integral translation, pervasive computing, holographic meetings via virtual reality, and something will turn the office coffee pot off and the lights out at the end of the day.
Pervasive computing, also called ubiquitous computing, involves imbedding computational tech into everyday objects. With voice and face recognition technologies rapidly becoming perfected, this tech is nearly in the office door. Holographic and 3-D virtual modeling will rapidly advance diverse fields, including manufacturing, transportation, and communications technology. Robotics is up and running.
It is becoming increasingly easy to imagine this near-future office. It’s less easy to imagine what the humans in those offices will be doing, other than making coffee and patting the walls, looking for a light switch. We’ll put our (human) neural networks to work coming up with some ideas. Maybe we’ll write science fiction!
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