What is Ambient Intelligence?

12/6/2026: On a cold December afternoon you enter a small apartment that feels just right, and you feel the urge to take a shower so that you can rid yourself of fatigue. The shower reads your muscle tension and out of the corner of your eye you can see an LED screen that indicates how much water has been used since the first. A short shower, with water filled with soothing aromas, leaves you happy and muscles relaxed. So relaxed that all you can think of is your girlfriend. So you call out her name and mimic picking up a phone. A wall directly in front of you becomes a small screen which indicates that she is currently driving. You are routed to voicemail and given a set of options to categorize the importance of your message. As she slows down to park her car, an opaque message on her front window reads: “Msg: Ezequiel”. A dinner for two?

Ambient intelligence is technologies and artifacts which seek to replicate and coexists with our organic human nature. In attaining this natural essence, ambient intelligence (AmI) can then become opaque in our daily lives and interactions; enhancing us without being noticed. These technologies aim to have a symbiotic relationship humans much like fungi and trees, existing on a singular level (Clark 25).

Does a fungus improve the livelihood of a tree in the same way that technology improves our lives? No. Although ambient intelligence seeks to become a background of our daily lives, its purpose is to enhance our human experience. Its opaque nature intends to mesh with the user so that humans can experience these technologies much like our autonomous nervous system. AmI are artifacts operating without our awareness yet enhancing our experience through anticipating and guiding the spontaneity of human existence.

AmI’s basic application is to alleviate “functions that might otherwise occupy our conscious attention” (Clark, 31). Simply put, AmI would free up ‘laborious’ mental activities such as choosing what to eat for dinner, which clothes to put on, how to plan a productive day and ways in which to contact a friend. One example would be how my futuristic shower, could create an experience which is optimally soothing yet alleviates my need to worry about an enormous water bill. Such technology would anticipate our needs and meet them in a manner which does not limit our spontaneous organic nature. The spontaneous appearance of human decisions gives an open-ended growth pattern to our lives and gives us exciting content to grow from. The developers of AmI technology hope to alleviate some of the problem solving activities we do on a daily basis, to allow us to pursue other things.

Our present solution to achieve these goals by using AmI is to research technology which can begin to catalogue and reference habitual human activities. By recording body language, eating habits, social tendencies and natural rhythmic patterns AmI could anticipate the proper ways in which to help us. Andy Clark estimates that this type of technology could prove most proficient when integrated with a person at young age. In the future AmI could have the potential of adapting to a person’s growing interest and random explorations for the purpose of directing them to new ideas, experiences and opportunities (Clark, 31 in Natural Born Cyborgs 2011).

Sounds like science fiction, right? Astonishingly, AmI development is well underway and hopefully will start becoming densely integrated into our lives in 8 to 10 years. Although AmI’s goals seem farfetched and its reasons metaphysically vague, concrete applications are simple to imagine. Nanotechnology and the progressive miniaturization of technological devices aim to make technology less bulky and more discrete. Cell phones are not seen merely as technologies, rather gateways to information and basic human interaction. The artifact becomes less and less important in comparison with the actual activity and source of information upon which it bases its programs and apps. I personally rummage through my whole room looking for my cell phone, often times forgetting that it is in my pant pocket.

In considering the goals of AmI, modern cell phones can have great potential for developing systems which learn human habits in order to suggest personal activities. The Sensay phone is an impressive example of AmI technology which aims to ‘learn’ the owner. In ‘learning’ the user, the Sensay phone can categorize real time activities and program itself around these environments. The phone would use motion sensors, a microphone, a heat-flux sensor and galvanic skin-response sensors to categorize environments with the type of communication we utilize on a cell phone. There would be no reason to set your phone to silent in a business meeting, if the phone can identify silence, room temperature and physical signs of activities which involve focus. Much like Twitter addicts who find the necessity to constantly post location and mood on the internet the Sensay could be programmed at the user’s discretion to allow others to have access to information such as a person’s location and activity.

Commercially, AmI technology could be most useful in home environments where people experience an abundance of activities which fall under the category of ‘laborious’ mental activities. The Invoked computing concept aims to make everyday objects into technological interfaces through the recognition of gestures. This technology would simplify any activity which requires the use of artifacts to be reduced to a motion such as the sway of a hand, pointing of a finger or lightly pushing a wall. The physical invoked computing device could easily fade into the background of a user’s daily life, and allow a ubiquitous relationship between user and computer interface. Why look for the bulky laptop or tiny cell phone when a banana or pizza box could perform the same functions? This is a small example of how AmI might help humans place a greater importance on a clearer set of focal things and practices.

Conceptually Ambient Intelligence is fantastic for convenience. Such convenience may seem to conform AmI technology into the multitude of modern day artifacts producing no radical societal change. Yet some believe that AmI will change society through changing the individual’s neural patterns. Although nothing like surgical neural enhancement or pharmaceutical augmentation, AmI will aim to subtly change the way we think and operate as humans.

Ambient Intelligence: Enhancement/Growth through Discrete means

Imagine testing a ubiquitous home interface which selects movies for you on a monthly basis. One month it observes your own choices in movies, the following month it chooses movies for you based on your movie selections and brief information of your own interests. The second month of the trial, you end up loving every movie that the interface has selected and now you are willing to buy this device. Prospectively, you will use and trust this device so much that you never want to actively choose a movie again. This AmI would eliminate the neural activity of choosing and quickly allow for the enjoyable movie experience. Now imagine this technology applied to all consumer decisions we make on a daily basis.

With so many choices in the modern market, our cluttered conscious attention often times become the reason why we regret purchases. The beauty of Ambient intelligence is that it could provide us with the best options in an ubiquitous manner. AmI intends to make the means of every day choices discrete. The result will be instant materialization of the best possible ends. In this context, these ends are the enjoyment and experience of activities which provide human value. This being said, there remains the possibility that Ambient Intelligence might be deemed a human management system. This label might imply a initiative to control and manipulate humans. However, as long as the public can identify that this technology will open up possibilities to remap our brains as we choose, AmI would promote liberal values.

Albert Borgmann, a technological philosopher, argues that many of the promises technology has made for us are misleading (Borgmann, 56 in Kaplann 2009). Technology gives us an abundance of high quality consumer goods, promising a rewarding life, yet in actuality denies us the things that build character in us. These things and activities which provide and maintain humans with meaningful enrichment, Borgman deems focal things and practices. In regards to AmI technology I would argue that such innovations could refocus society’s interaction with technology upon the focal things that were falsely promised to us. Ambient Intelligence seeks to reduce the presence of technology so that we are consciously free from it. The research of AmI progresses in a way which places an importance upon the emotional activities which fill our life with contextual feeling. People are often void of emotion when interacting with commodities on the basis of consuming. Buying groceries is not as fulfilling as laboriously growing food, yet preparing a meal for a family is emotionally rewarding. AmI would eliminate the mental processes of searching through a sea of confusing goods, being distracted by arbitrary items and mentally negotiating price ranges in order to choose a meal. Technology that understands familial eating habits and buying power, would provide affordable options and food combinations which could create an enjoyable cooking experience.

Borgmann finds the commodification of goods troubling with sound ethical and moral reservations (Borgmann 69, in Kaplan 2009). AmI would exist as an entity which would free our minds from being occupied with any commodities. If AmI could become a ubiquitous unconscious technology, in Andy Clark’s vision, then it would indefinitely shape users’ lives to be consciously void of fervent commodification (Clark, 28 in Natural Born-Cyborgs 2011). I personally view AmI as the mere beginnings of a reform of technology that would aim to produce instruments that call forth engagement and allow for a more skilled and intimate contact with the world (Borgmann, 69 in Kaplan 2009).

AmI will also change the way that our society interacts with nature. Sustainability is a key concern for developers of Ambient Intelligence according to Information Science and Technology Advisory Group (ISTAG). In managing and regulating our consumer habits, AmI could make sustainability an unconscious activity. This, again, would find greatest potential in the home environment where electricity, gas, and water are used in abundance.

Sensor technology is one example of sustainable ambient intelligence that can change consumption habits. A ubiquitous sensor device could inform a home owner about his or her energy consumption. Through analysis of consumption patterns and economic status this sensor technology, in interaction with a ubiquitous home interface, could suggest possible habits for the home owner to be more sustainable and cost efficient. Similarly the Tweeting House provides real time information about appliance use for the home owner via Twitter. Not only does it provide information about appliance use, but also the status of doors and windows to serve a more protective purpose and alert the home owner of burglars.

Ethical concerns

Although many of AmI’s possibilities can be seen as positive gains, ethical consideration must be taken for a comprehensive analysis. Ethical reservations must be acknowledged when considering integrating AmI technology into people’s lives at birth and at early stages of development. In reflecting on the possibilities of technology similar to that of AmI, Andy Clark proposes introducing the web to a four year old child. He continues this concept in saying that the software agents of the internet and this child will influence each other in a co-evolutionary cycle. “You come to expect and trust the input from the agents as much as …the input from your unconscious brain” (Clark 30-31, Natural-Born Cyborgs 2011).

Personally this scares the crap out of me. In a perfect world, Ambient Intelligence could use a lifelong memory of a person to build accurate information for the purpose of personally tailored aided development. However, in modern American society we experience capitalism at every corner and in every niche of our lives. What would multimillion dollar companies do to get the slightest influence on an individual’s life? The majority of modern web pages are full of advertisements; you can’t even let Pandora play at a party without having some obnoxious advertisement butting in.

Ambient Intelligence must allow individuals to grow in a free manner, void of subconscious influence. This applies not only to companies but also to the government. If ubiquitous home interfaces could be woven together much like the web, than there could be a possibility that a third party could gain unrestricted access to a person’s habitual activities. The innermost privacy of our daily lives could be at stake if AmI is deeply integrated in our lives. Although highly dangerous, Ambient Intelligence could prove to be a powerful tool for shaping society and people.

Biometrics is a technology which will be often integrated into Ambient Intelligent interfaces. This type of technology uses a combination of behavioral and physical traits to distinguish individuals. In the same instance that a home interface could differentiate you from an intruder, the organizations with a surveillance prerogative could use similar technology or the same one in your house to identify you. Should we view this as a technology which could guarantee our security or invade our personal lives?

If AmI has the potential to co-develop with humans, will it have the power to guide troubled individuals? How would an AmI technology interact with people who have mental or moral disabilities? In the hands of a person with bad intentions, AmI technology would have the potential to steer and suggest an individual to gratify his or her own desires. As AmI develops programmers must be aware that there exists a thin line between aided human development and the unrestricted ability to tailor the human mind.

Questions for Consideration & Further Reading:

Who will have access to such advanced technology?

How would you design a home to incorporate a device which exists ubiquitously throughout the architecture scheme?

Will eliminating basic consumer choices make us a more lazy society?

Further reading- International Journal of Ambient Computing and Intelligence