Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a multidisciplinary approach that aims to make our everyday environment intelligent and sensitive to us. Based on advances in pervasive computing, artificial intelligence, sensors and sensor networks, it promises to transform our lives by making our environment flexible and adaptable.
Artificial intelligence and ambient intelligence are very closely related. Some people even say that ambient intelligence is essentially artificial intelligence in the environment.
Ambient Intelligence is all about environments that are sensitive and responsive to human presence.
Ambient intelligence is essentially technology’s ability to make decisions and act on behalf of users, taking into account their preferences based on the data available to it from all connected sensors and systems embedded in everyday devices and surround the user. AmI is intuitive and ubiquitous, instead of having to ask the user for explicit commands, it can understand the user’s context. It performs actions tailored to users’ preferences.
What is the vision of ambient intelligence?
The vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is intelligent computing of the future, for which explicit input and output devices are not required at all. Instead of these devices, sensors and processors would be embedded in everyday devices and the environment seamlessly adapts to the needs and desires of the user. Ambient intelligence systems will leverage the contextual information gathered via the sensors embedded in these everyday devices and apply artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to this data to interpret and anticipate user needs and preferences. The whole point of ambient intelligence is to make the technology more user-friendly and human-centric.
How does ambient intelligence work?
Ambient Intelligence is multidisciplinary and works by combining multiple technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), Pervasive-Ubiquitous Computing, Networks and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
It captures the environment and user context through various intelligent digital systems installed in everyday devices using IoT sensors and devices. The system then processes the data collected by these sensors and devices.
After processing and analyzing the data, the ambient intelligence system interprets it to understand users’ proximity, state, intent and behavior.
Next comes intuition through insights from current data, past insights, and pattern recognition. The ambient intelligence system then selects the next best action and responds to the user through an intuitively designed, natural smart device interface.
Privacy – the only concern
The introduction of Ambient Intelligence technology into everyday concepts looks interesting and exciting; The only concern here is privacy.
The Aml systems will contain all the information about the lives of the people they track. If the information got into the hands of an undesired source, it would certainly lead to data misuse or invasion of privacy. Concerns about data usage, privacy, and overall security must be addressed first before the Aml systems are put into operation.
